Christmas and New Year Shenanigans

I have an apology to make as this is the longest I’ve not blogged since the start of our trip…I blame wonderful travelling busy-ness, coupled with festive celebrations, coupled with visiting dodgy places with high rates of crime (and therefore not wanting to get my laptop out), coupled with lots of beaches, coupled with lots of dormitory living, and therefore very few opportunities (or inclination) for computer time.

So….here’s a summary of our Christmas shenanigans…

After we left Lost and Found we found ourselves on the beautiful Red Frog Beach on Isla Bastimentos in the Boccas Del Torro Archepelego….in an eco lodge, on a spectacular beach, on a spectacular island of sandy, palm-fringed beaches and lush forest, with the added indulgence of sharing it with these little chaps…Strawberry posion dart frogs (Genus: Dendrobatidae)-endemic to this island, and quite frankly awesome little dudes (as long as you don’t eat them!). These guys are absurdly under threat in part because local children discovered that if they caught them in the forest and took them to the beach, they could charge foolish tourists to take a photo with them….then they’d let them go and the poor little guys would dry up and die on the beach.

Anyhoo, we were here for three days over Xmas and actually had a rather indulgent and chilled time doing, well not much to be honest…There was no wifi, which we actually quite like. We met some lovely girls from the US and from Holland who kept us company, and we generally just hung out on the beach, hid from rain showers (which occurred fairly frequently, and rather spectacularly) and drank beer. As it turned out Bro was sick on Xmas eve night, and was then ill for Xmas day itself, so it kind of passed us by with a skype back home, then a lot of lying around, but the sun was out so we just told ourselves it was another normal day on the beach, and that was fine. You can’t help but feel a little homesick, and we acutely missed everyone back home, but we were aware that we’re in no position to feel sorry for ourselves, so we sucked it up and reminded ourselves that we were in Panama.

After our hibernation at Red Frog, we spent a couple of nights on Isla Colon, the main island in the archipelago. We had two more days of mainly heavy rain, so it wasn’t the exotic trip we were anticipating, but we still enjoyed exploring Bocas town and going on some lovely walks along the coast. 

Xmas evening on the beach

From Bocas we then took public transport back into Costa Rica, this time entering along the Caribbean coast. First stop was Playa Chiquito, in a rather dubious ‘Rustic Eco Lodge’_. I love how ‘rustic’ is now a convenient way of excusing…well, a shit hole. There was nothing apparently ‘eco’ about it, by lodge I think it meant to say flimsy lean-to. I got straight in the (very cold) shower and it started smoking, so covered in suds and half naked, we got moved to another room for me to continue my shower, only for it to give me two quite nasty electric shocks. The smiley Canadian landlady cheerfully informed me that it was known as a ‘suicide’ shower and upgraded us to the premier room….this one had a mozzie net.

Anyway, we had a lovely couple of days there before exploring the coast by bike-a string of stunning beaches with….you’ve guessed it….beautiful palm-fringed back drops and very few people on them! We’d definitely recommend Manzanillo at the furthest tip of the coast-a beautiful walk between cute little coves. We even rescued a sloth trying to cross the road! Such a surreal experience-like we’d been dropped into an ET movie-this funny, semi-green (you’d be green too if you lived your life up a tree in a rainforest), hairy little guy with a tiny head and giant claws, creeping his way across the road as if in slow-motion! Of course we couldn’t leave him there to get squashed, so another couple passing by got their towel and we lifted him off the road and held him up to a nearby tree which he promptly clasped to and up he went without as much as a backwards glance. Magic.

After two days here we headed to Puerto Viejo. This is a Caribbean town with a Caribbean vibe, and everything is Pura Vida….apparently living the ‘Pure Life’ involves getting offered drugs every 5 minutes by 16 year old rastas and 2-for-$5 cocktails that blow your head off, so we opted for the cocktails and whiled away our time getting merry, exploring beaches and trying to find somewhere to eat that didn’t necessitate taking out a mortgage…a heads up if you’re heading this way…CR is expensive…throw in a load of American expats and a shedload of tourists and you get UK prices with Central American quality. The consequence of this was that we ended up buying pasta and tomato sauce two nights running in order to fund our new year drinking habits.

Hello little buddy!

It was worth it though…Puerto Viejo was definitely the place to be for New Year-the hotels were sold out, every bar was filled and it had a good vibe to it….So we gave ourselves 32 hours to find ourselves some new friends to hang out with for NYE…Luckily every other traveller seemed to have the same idea, so our new friends took the shape of a super friendly American, a very sexy German, three too cool-for-school Brits, a very drunk Spaniard, a very awkward American who had just discovered alcohol, and the most beautiful Costa Rican I’ve ever encountered. We were a funny old crowd, but given an injection of free booze from our very-generous hostel, and encouraged by some Internationally-challenging drinking games, and we had a bloody good night! When midnight struck, we were on the beach with what felt like the entire town, Brodie had almost got blitzed by a badly fired firework, and I was just riding on some beer-fuelled dutch courage to help me explain to a less-than-impressed American why she shouldn’t release her fire lantern because it would end up killing dolphins (you can't beat alcohol-infused logic!), and we merrily Auld Land Syned into the new year. One of my favourite moments was when our new friend Kyle (AKA Friendly American) announced that he was placing all of his year’s hopes and dreams on a flying lantern that an over-zealous Tico was sending up into the sky: So we all dutifully watched it fly into the air, only to see it droop and dip slowly into the sea to the collective horror of the cloud of spectators. I did point out that it was never going to be a happy ending.

A happy hour cocktail on the beach watching the last sunset of 2015 

So we finished a spectacular year with a fabulous night, a long way from home and a long way from our loved ones, but knowing it won’t be too long until we see them all again. May we wish you all a wonderful, happy and healthy New Year, that hopefully has better prospects than those of our new American friend. 2015 won’t be one we’ll forget for a while!