Stuck in Panama, Again

Since it´s been a while since I last blogged, there´d be too much ground to cover for that much detail. Here´s a summary.

Upon leaving Managua, I headed to Granada, one of Nicaragua´s top two cities. I couldn´t tell you too much about it other than that it was a miserable experience. Although noticies appear in the paper on a daily basis, the city was unprepared on a daily basis for the regular blackouts, of which there were three in my four days there. If ever there were a city that could not afford blackouts, it is Granada. The combination of heat an humidity makes the city hardly bearable, but when the fans go off in the middle of the night, it gets even worse. As the city relies on pumps for plumbing, morning showers when the electricity is off are not an option, making everyone who isn´t French rather unpleasant until around 4p.m. when things go back on.

Upon leaving Granada, I headed to Isla Ometepe in the middle of Lago de Nicaragua. There, I spent a few days in a hammock and playing cards, though that was also my first experience of swimming in shark infested waters. To leave Ometepe, I took a 10 hour overnight boatride to San Carlos, near the Costa Rican border. Fortunately, I sprung for the top deck, about two dollars more. Though sleeping even there involved a sleeping bag, as there were no beds, it was at least air conditioned and going out on the deck, where I slept, was an option. I made a brief trip downstairs, where drinks and snacks were sold, and found absolute misery. It wasn´t air conditioned, and all sorts of insects made themselves at home.

From San Carlos, a hell hole in its own right, I embarked on a short trip to El Castillo, the site of an old fort that was built to protect Lago de Nicaragua from Limey scum, er, pirates. I spent a couple of nights there before heading back to San Carlos, which I immediately left for Costa Rica. In Costa Rica, I once again visited hotsprings near Arenal, though this time the cheaper ones. For the second time in two years, I saw no lava from the cloud-covered volcano. I swear it doesn´t exist and that it´s just a ploy to attract tourists. I then went to Monteverde for a rather boring skywalk. The only wildlife I saw was a persevering mosquito that was especially intent on bothering me for the duration of the walk. I rounded out my time in Costa Rica with a few days in the poker rooms of San Jose, where bad beats ruled the day.

Upon leaving CR after about a week too long there (it´s a great country when you have a bigger budget), I headed to Bocas del Toro in Panama. There, I went diving, visited a few of the islands around it, and did a whole lot of nothing. As the whole idea of the islands is doing nothing, the idea of actually packing a bag to catch a boat and a bus quickly lost its appeal, and I spent a good deal more time there than I had planned. Even so, I managed to see a red frog, a nice beach, and a nurse shark in his own domain.

I´m boring myself here. More on Panama City and San Blas later.