Well, one of the drawbacks to staying on a remote island off the coast is getting back to the coast. We were up at 6 to catch a shuttle to the main island at 645. The guy was late, not surprisingly I suppose, so by 7, we were again zipping back on a small boat though the mangroves. Plenty of rain this morning, fitting, I suppose for an island where I think it rained 50% of the time we were here. Fromm. The main. Island, we caught the slightly larger taxi to the mainland. I'm quite surprised that they don't have a real ferry for this leg. Bocas island must be 10000 people if I had to guess, with lots of tourist traffic in and out. We were stuck on many a 25 ft boat powered by a 250 horse outdoor motor. Once on the mainland (Almirante), we then had to take a short bus ride to chinguinola, the larger regional hub that supposedly had a bust for San Jose. It's Chiquita's panama banana hub, and the rows of banana trees sure backed up that idea as we came in and out of town.
This is where our drawbacks for the day started. The sign was still up for San Jose, but the bus no longer ran. As of four months ago meaning there was no way my guide book would have known that. Hungry, we got a couple batidos and a panini (can't remember the term in Spanish) before grabbing a cab to the border and the next town that would have buses to San Jose.
Border towns/crossings are always an interesting experience. It went rather quick both sides today, and other than a crappy 4$ fee to leave panama (fairly sure it was a local tax) it went rather smoothly. The border here is a river, so across the bridge we walked, back onto Costa Rican soil. The Costa Rican town is small, we found the bus station without much problem, and saw a bus leaving for San Jose right as we rounded the corner. We flagged him down, but evidently, longer distance buses can't pick up passengers.
Drawback number two for the day. The next bus didn't leave for 5 hrs to San Jose. The prospect of waiting around in this tiny town seemed dim, so we hooked a ticket instead to limon, a larger hub on the coast with more possibilities to the capital. I read up a little on the city during the ride over, didn't seem like the rough guide thought too highly of it. A shipping city, grungy, and a high crime rate. We didn't linger.
Buses to San Jose were indeed frequent here, although the larger road they normally travel was out, leaving us again with a sinuous path to our destination. It was 645 when we finally pulled in to the station.
It bit of a tiring day of travel, but the hotel Kate found wow great. It's in an older, quiet neighborhood, and actually made up of a bunch of old houses strung together with courtyards in between. The concierge gave us an awesome recommendation for Costa Rican typica, so with 12$ Total, we had the set meal of the day (consado), then walked to a great pasty place for dessert. Hoping to check out the market, and stroll some of the plazas tomorrow. One last day before home.
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