My Christmas Extravaganza began when Nickele and I headed out to San Jose to pick up Nickele’s sister Aubrey from the airport. Sadly her first hour did not go well because some of her stuff was stolen while on the bus ride back to the hostel. Definitely the low point of the trip.
Our travels then took us back to Monteverde where we took a night tour of the biological reserve, went zip-lining through the jungle, and had Christmas present opening time! Aubrey is the best Santa Clause Nickele and I have ever had. However Christmas was short since we had to travel to our next stop Arenal, a volcano a few hours away from Monteverde. The most notable thing we got to do here was go to one of the local hot springs. Quite magical really….
Since Nickele and I have to leave the country every three months we decided this was a great reason to go to Panama….and since we don’t plan to go back to Panama, we of course had to go all the way to the Panama Canal (This meant a 15-hour overnight bus ride. Still worth it). Panama is a different sort of place. The people are fun, lively and jolly. Every time someone new got on the public bus, he or she would shout “Feliz Navidad” and the whole bus would respond happily. Panama’s a good place to be during Christmas.
Christmas Day arrived and it was this day that we decided to go the Canal. Unfortunately we arrived right as the visitor center was closing but the guard was nice enough to let us go up to the restaurant and view the lock from there. It turned out to be a better deal because we got to see plenty of lock action and we didn’t have to pay a thing. Once we had fully experienced Panama City we headed to the bus station to buy our ticket to Boquete, our next destination. Luck was with us of course and the tickets were sold out. In order to save time and money, we decided to take another overnight bus to our next location. The only bad part was that we had to wait 12 hours. What do you do with 12 free hours in a foreign country? You hit the mall of course!!!
After our second wonderful overnight bus, we rolled into Boquete at 7:00 in the morning. After a slow start, we headed out to take a tour of a local coffee plantation. I hate coffee but I LOVE tours so it was awesome!! Nickele helped me drink my coffee sample. Our day in Boquete passed quickly and before we knew it, we were in the bus again headed to the beach at Manual Antonio.
Manuel Antonio was the perfect way to end our Christmas vacation. After so much bus travel, it really was a relief to lie on the beach for a couple days. Yeah for vacations!
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