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| Our Amazing Travels By Bus |
As you can see we took a much longer route, one that took us along the Pacific Coast. We had stopped earlier in the week at the Tracopa Bus Terminal and purchased our tickets on the 7:30 am departure for David, Panama. We arranged a taxi at the hotel to get us downtown to the bus terminal in plenty of time. Our bus seats were 1 and 2 in the front row right behind the driver, so we had a great view. We have noticed that they generally put foreign guest in the front rows on buses in Central America. Costa Rica is absolutely beautiful so we were quite mesmerized taking in the views. At places we were literally running along the Pacific seashore. We had one stop for lunch, still in Costa Rica, We expected confusion at the border and it could have been very difficult. The one big problem traveling by bus is lack of English interpretation. The bus pulled up on the Costa Rica side and everyone piled off as did we. A local who makes a few Colones by spotting wide eyed foreigners grabbed us up and led us through the process. Thank goodness. He got us in the right line to check out of Costa Rica and provided the forms we needed to fill out. Once checked out he was there to walk us to Panama. By now our bus had disappeared. On the Panamanian side he got us in the right line to check into Panama. We knew Panama would want to see the return tickets to leave Panama, so we were ready with our cruising permit which satisfied that requirement, but I still had to show a credit card as proof of some financial means. Our guy, Rudy had provided us with the customs form, but our luggage was still on the bus. Amazingly out of an almost full bus only about six of us were continuing on into Panama. The bus had been pulled up outside the customs office, so when we were all ready they opened the baggage compartments and we dragged our bags in for inspection. That done, I gave Rudy our remaining Colones, which was generous indeed, but I knew they would otherwise be destined for some forgotten place for all time. We then re-boarded and were on our way. We were unaware the bus was going to pass through an insecticide spray. Had we known we would have closed our window and avoided a personal spraying. One more stop to have our passports inspected to make sure we all completed the process and we were on a way to David.
We had booked a room at Hotel Puerta del Sol. We selected this based on Tripadvisor. We have had very good luck using this site. The ratings and comments are from actual tourist. We can certainly recommend this hotel. The hotel also has a reasonably priced restaurant, which was perfect for us after a long day on the bus. We had dinner there and breakfast the next morning. Back to the bus terminal in David we found the mini bus to Changuinola and indicated we wanted to get off at Almirante.
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| Our Mini Bus - One Pit Stop Along The Way |
There are no tickets for these mini buses, you simply show up. They leave about hourly and are all owner operated. We were dreading this portion of the trip as the buses can be crowded, but ours was only about 1/2 filled most of the way. They made stops along the way and people were getting on and off. It turned out to be a pleasant ride, although ear popping as we climbed the mountain roads and then descended on the Caribbean side. We opted to get off at Almirante, well actually just outside of town. It made for a shorter bus ride and then a shorter water taxi ride. Almirate is not a place one would want to be any longer than absolutely necessary. We got a taxi into town and after waiting about 1/2 hour we had enough passengers to satisfy the water taxi driver so we could depart.
In Bocas Town we had lunch and as much as we wanted to get back to Ariel, we took time to shop for some groceries. One more quick water taxi ride and we were back at Red Frog Marina. Home Again
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