After a week in Monteverde we headed straight to the country’s capital San Jose. We have actively avoided most of the capital cities in Central America as there wasn’t anything that we wanted to see and they can be dangerous. San Jose is no exception, but it is smaller and more westernised, so with the prospect of air conditioned shopping centres to replenish some of our thread bear clothes we decided to stay for two nights.
Our next destination that we wanted to go to was the top backpacker archipelago in Panama, Bocas del Toro. Although we had planned to speed through Costa Rica, as it is much more expensive than other countries, we did think it would be a shame to only visit two places so we decided to break up the journey to Boca with a two night stopover in Puerto Viejo De Talamanca.
Puerto Viejo is located on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast and is close to the boarder with Panama. It is a laid back holiday spot with nice beaches and ample bars and restaurants pumping out a strange mix of reggae and salsa until the early hours. We spent a majority of our time in such bars and didn’t get to see much else, hence the lack of photographs. We could have stayed longer but we were keen to keep moving to reach our last Central American country.
It’s easy to get to the boarder from Puerto Viejo. Local busses depart every hour to Sixoala at half past the hour and cost $3. The boarder itself was surprisingly quiet. You have to pay a $7 exit fee to leave Costa Rica. This can be paid by credit card in the immigration office or you can pay by cash at the shop outside.
Once stamped out of Costa Rica you get to cross the bridge into Panama.
At the other side you are ushered to a booth to pay a $4 fee and get a sticker in your passport. We weren’t sure if this was a genuine fee or not but paid it anyway as they kept shouting about the police to us. Once on the bus we did get stopped by a police officer who checked for this sticker so we can only assume it was some sort of state tax.
You are then pointed to the immigration office where you get your visa stamp. Here you will be asked to show proof of onward travel. Bus or flight tickets will do. We showed ours off our lap top. They also require you to have proof of $500 in your bank account. To do this they just asked to see our credit card.
To get to Boca from the border we decided to take the shuttle directly to the boat for $10pp, alternatively, you can take the local bus to Changuinola and then change to another bus at Almirante. The final leg of the journey by boat costs $7pp and takes approximately 30 minutes. Then, at last, we had arrived in the Panamanian paradise islands of Bocas del Torro.
