On the road to Panama

My life coach and dear friend Clint. Always thinking of you..

Saying goodbye to Costa Rica wasn´t easy by any means. The people I met, the places I visited, the transition I made. I really feel like a mujercita..a little woman! Many of the friends I made became like family members to me. I only planned on staying in Costa Rica for maximum 3 months but the longer time went on the more I came to know about going with the flow. I went more with my emotions than anything. A few signs that I knew I was ready was after a wonderful dinner with some close friends in Cocles at Clint´s place with Kristin, Alex, Deb, it was the night before I had to leave CR-my visa was up. I spent the night there and woke up thinking about what outfit I´d put on for my travels. I chose a bright yellow tank top, one I took from Marcy-sorry i´ll give it back!! It was very ironic because Clint read an article someone had just posted that morning and he said I should come and take a look at it. The title was... YELLOW. It spoke about how the colour helps strengthen the nerves and the mind. It helps awaken mental inspiration and stimulates higher mentality. Gives lust for life. What a powerful sign for me to leave with. It filled my heart with warmth and confidence that I would be okay no matter what happened down the road. I felt as solid as a rock.

Taking off to Panama, I crossed the border at Changuinola where you walk along this bridge for about 10 minutes feeling like you´re going to break through the boards and plumit into the water at any moment. Passing through immigrations was easy, then came a taxi to a bus station where I started on the road towards David. Being the smaller in the lineup of people, the doorman picked me out of the lineup and showed me to my seat. Directly beside the driver, sitting ontop of the motor which was covered by layers of plastic seating, I had a little towel to under my humid body to keep from burning up. The only awkward part of that bus ride of 5 hours was that I was facing the rest of the people who were looking forwards haha. I was the only one looking in the opposite direction. I had to backing to a seat, my seat wasn´t even a seat it was for papers, books, bags whatever, not me! It was after about 2 hours I decided to turn around, pop my feet on the dashboard and feel slightly more comfortable. All this time I had the hugest sunburn on my entire body from surfing the day before taking this trip with no sunscreen for at least 3 hours. That portion of the bus ride was beautiful, seeing all of the mountains and the sunsetting. 

Once arriving in David there was no bus until 10:30 at night. It was only 8:30 and it took 1 minute for me to decide I wasn´t about to wait outside alone with all my stuff for 2 hours. I did what I natually do, I followed two local Panamaians who I had been talking with on the previous bus. A Husband and his wife, I tagged along where we waited for a random bus on the street corner a few blocks from the terminal. I sat ontop of a high stool holding onto railings for 2.5 hours watching a little bow wow movie. Now out of ALL the buses I´ve taken in my time here traveling for 6.5 months, a bus has never broken down.  I´m sure everyone can guess what happened...the bus..it broke down in the middle of NO WHERE at who knows what time. There was about a 6 hour gap I missed out on; not having a watch, cell phone or computer doesn´t really help either. I arrived at a hostel at 5:00am on a Saturday...I left Costa Rica at 11:45 Friday morning. 

Changuinola, Panama Border Crossing.(stolen picture) without wire proctection on the sides.

While I relaxed for 2 days in Panama, a really good friend of mine told me he was coming to Panama City as well for business and he´d put my name on a room at the Hotel he was staying at. Holy Shit....I mean there were no words for me at the time when I arrived, let me try and paint a little picture with a jounral entry I wrote just after my arrival.

*Holy Fucking Shit*
Bleech blond hair with dark roots and unwashed hair paired with a honey glow and various shades of red, brown and golden skin peeling from my frekeled nose. Bright yellow tank, scrunched together in the back for a ¨tighter look¨ haha Green skirt cut at the bottom and freying. Chipped nail polish on my hands with dirt under my nails. Legs with mosquito bites scars and scabs on my ankles. Flip flops so dirty they were peeling and the grey was turning a sort of brown. I had JUST arrived from training for 1.5 hours. The lobby crew took all of my bags for me and walked me to the reception. I checked in where for the rest of the week Julio was my pretend husband..haha Julio Clifford it read on all the papers. An employee took me up to floor 24 where I almost puked looking out the glass elevator. He showed me my room and once again my mouth dropped...speechless. It took about 30 seconds after the door closed for me to invent a celebration dance in the nude. I drew myself a bath, connected my ipod to the speakers, then had a shower, made a delicious cup of coffee and put a soft white robe on. I felt like a million bucks. I blasted a song called ¨This Time¨ (Klaus song) and started danving and jumping on the huge bed smiling in extasy.  I had my very own Blue Crush moment.

I had the pleasure of spending an entire week with one of my best friends from Cosa Rica in Panama City. Julio I still cannot thank you enough for such an awesome week. We ate too much chocolate, drank too much wine, ate too much delicious food and endless conversasions. The funniest night was when we had passed out after a few glasses of wine and were abruptly awoken by the sound of an alarm. EEEEE EEEEEEEE EEEEEE ¨This is an emergency, please exit the building immediately¨ we were stumbling around trying to think clearly but it was obvious we were just way to relaxed to handle an emergency at this moment. All I grabbed was my passport and I was set. Julio was putting on running shoes, grabbing his computer and other things hahaha I was opening the door saying ¨Julio common let´s get out of here WHAT ARE YOU DOING!¨ And he was just taking his sweet time. The moment was priceless. Finally we get to the stairs and another announcement came on telling us it was a false alarm, so we watched and laughed as all the people who had already left the building walked and ran down 20 flights of stairs. The last killer of the night was Julio´s final words before dozing off. ¨If it´s really an emergency shouldn´t they say something like ´GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE YOU´RE GONNA DIE!!!´¨hahahahaha I was dying literally losing it after hearing him say this.

  

Ocean Trump -The only camera I had for a while was a disponsible, so pictures will come much later on once I´m back in Canada.

Some other photos from Costa Rica along the way..

Lora, Heather, Chocolate, me and beth!!  

fit as shit jajaja te extrano lao!

Deb, me, Anna, Heather and Punk!!

Mis amores Beto, Deb y Julio papi!

Learning Costa Rican Cumbia with Pamela

Punta Uva swing

the gang anna, punk, deb and me

crazy hawiian and the skinniest gorda around my love..karol!

gracias a Taco en Costa Rica 506 my first tattoo!

Mis hermanas Karol, Hailee y Marcy.