Category: Panama

OK, so its not Panama's fault I went during their rainy season. I did go rafting down a river through the rapids which was not bad (luckily it was rainy season) but gee, unless you are after a beach holiday (better in Oz or NZ), are a surfer (possibly similar to Oz or NZ), or want to get drunk on an island, then there isn't much happening. Two separate groups of girls had adventure, but being robbed while hiking by machete wielding guys probably wasn't their idea of fun. Oh yeah, sorry about the lack of photos, my camera went somewhere else on holiday.

Disclaimer: The writer may be slightly biased as although he had no problems getting into the country upon leaving this waste of space place he was instructed to give a full set of fingerprints upon which time he told the immigration official where to go. Unfortunately he had already given up his passport at the time (didn't think that through). 30 minutes later after a 'hurtful to him' apology they finally gave the passport back with the first exit stamp annulled with a dark cross. And yes, the government of Panama does have a full set of David Perry's fingerprints on record. Scumbags.

Costa Rica

So, after all the fun of Panama I wasn't sure if the trend would continue in Costa Rica. To be fair, the place grew on me as time went by. It was expensive, over commercialized and lacked any true sense of real adventure, but, there were opportunities to hire bikes, hike and to see animals while walking. Would I go back, probably not, am I glad I went, yes...I guess.

Biking around a perfectly formed volcano, hiking around a national park to catch an eye-full (definitely not a glimpse) of those slow going sloths, going on expensive night walks (2hr for US$40 thank you very much) to shine your torch into the eyes of 'hungover' red-eyed frogs, tree climbing porcupines (new to me), getting close up to over hanging tree snakes, and my favorite, peering into a cliff side hole while from within a tarantula stares out, for awhile, before casually turning and slowly disappearing into his eerily dark den. These are and will be my memories I will remember from Costa Rica. Now that I think about it, yes, it definitely was was worth the visit (once).

Appendum: Don't send mail from anywhere in Sth or Central America home. Just don't. The 1st postcard I sent from Arica, Nth.Chile. Biggest city in the north of the country, main post office, no stamps! Bloke behind the counter said just to give it to him, no stamps needed, it will make it. Fail 1.
Postcard from the Galapagos Islands. Thought it would be a nice surprise. Fail 2.
Parcel from the good ole Panama, destination back home to NZ. Had to unwrap it in the post office because it was wrapped using brown tape rather than clear. Really?? Totally flummoxed but at least they seemed to be professional, having rules and sticking to them. Pity the stamps (all 33 of them) didn't stick to them. Had to manually glue them to the parcel though the glue wasn't the best for sticking to them as well. Then, after filling in a long winded form I was told I couldn't use someone else's name with a c/o prefix. So I crossed that out, but no, I had to rewrite the entire form out again. A big thank you to the lady who provided the clear tape and to the chap who spent a big majority of the hour and a half I was there translating all the bollocks from a over regulated post office that can get all the rules right, but, seems they can't get the sending part down yet. 5 weeks later the tracking number still says that there is no tracking information in either Panama or New Zealand. Looks like Fail 3 and lost some stuff. Love Panama.