Costa Rica

From Panama, we back-tracked up to Costa Rica. Our original plan was to meet Chris is Panama for a week and then slowly make our way up to Costa Rica by bus while he flew to Colombia for a couple of days and then to Costa Rica to meet us for his third week of vacation. We had made it to San Jose and were prepared to leave the following day to Tamarindo when we heard from Chris. He said that he was being quarantined in the airport and that he was not allowed to enter Costa Rica!! Apparently, you must have your yellow fever shot to come to Costa Rica from Colombia. The officials didn't let Chris into Costa Rica so Darren and I were on our own for the rest of the trip. We decided to stick with our original plans and go to Tamarindo. After a LONG day of travel with 2 buses breaking down on us from San Jose to Tamarindo, we finally made it to our hostel, La Botella de Leche. We were shocked to see that our hostel had a swimming pool! It had private bathrooms in each of the rooms and even gave you towels to use for your stay! It became a running joke between our all of the guests that we were staying in a "resort" because it was the nicest hostel that any of us had stayed in during our travels. We actually met a lot of really great people at our "resort" that we became close with because every day we would wake up and all hang out by the pool together and then go out at night together.

At a "full moon party on the beach

Because Rachel's dad works for American Airlines, we were flying on a pass, which meant we were flying stand-by. Since our trip was coming to an end in about 2 weeks, we started looking at the flights online to see when the flights looked the most open for us to get home. Bad news... Because it was spring break and Costa Rica is a popular destination for travelers around the world, there were no open flights for about a month. Darren had to be back in Albuquerque by April 2nd to fulfill his guard duty for the Air Force. We began searching frantically for an open flight from all of the surrounding countries. We found an open flight from Panama City on March 24th, but that meant that we would have to bus BACK down to Panama on another 32 hour bus ride... You gotta do what you gotta do! We booked it and planned to leave Costa Rica in 4 days. Because we were cutting our trip a little bit short and we were doing so great with our budget, we wanted to stay somewhere nice for one night. When Rachel mentioned this to her dad, he said to totally spoil ourselves and put some money in our account to take care of it. We took advantage of his generous offer by booking a room in the nicest real resort in Tamarindo, The Diria. We had 2 nice beds with REAL mattresses, a hot water shower, a free breakfast buffet, our own t.v. with cable, 2 beautiful pools (one of them was the biggest pool that either of us had EVER seen!), and an absolutely breath-taking view from our room. It was such a treat!! Thank you so much Howard!!!  

Tamarindo had some absolutely beautiful sunsets, and even if we stayed at our hotel all day, we always made it a point to go to the beach and watch the sunset.  These are some pictures of the beautiful evenings that we were lucky enough to witness. :)

On our last day in Tamarindo before we were heading to Panama, we went with all of our friends from La Botella de Leche to a rodeo. We had heard that the rodeo consisted of a ring with a bunch of local people inside of it taunting a bull... and anyone could join! We didn't really know what to expect, but when we got there, that is exactly what it was. We were some of the only non-local people there and could not believe our eyes! It really was just a ring with about 60 locals taunting a bull and then running when it chased them! It was probably on of the most dangerous things that we saw on the trip. And of course, all of the guys in our group, including Darren, decided that this was the opportunity of a lifetime and that they HAD to get in the ring. Rachel and the other girls stayed in the stands and filmed the whole thing. The guys stayed in the ring for about 45 minutes and luckily non of them got hurt before the rodeo was officially over. It was a pretty epic last night in Costa Rica. 

The next day at 3 in the morning, we left Tamarindo for Panama City. After a full day of bus travel, we arrived in Panama City at 5 in the morning. Because Carnival was over, we expected all of the hostels to have vacancy and didn't bother to make a reservation. We arrived at Mamallenamercado de las artesians to pick up some moles, an indigenous Panamanian art, as well as some other gifts. Then we walked around to buy some cheap but nice clothes to wear on the plane the next day. Rachel found a dress for 2 dollars and a purse for 5 dollars. Darren needed pants that he found pretty cheaply, but not nearly as cheap as Rachel's outfit!

The incredible view from Luna's Castle. It was surrounded by slummy apartments , vacant buildings, moss covered concrete slabs, and one really nice while house. 

Later that night, we decided to go out to Calle Uruguay, Panama City's hot spot, for dinner and drinks. We had some new nice clothes and wanted to break them in for the next day's plane ride. We ate at a Lebanese restaurant and had nice wine and good beer. It was a perfect way to end our 10 week adventure!!

The view of the Panama City skyline from our dorm room on our last night on the trip!