Montezuma and Bocas del Toro

I am currently coming to an end of my second week of break. Originally, we were only supposed to have two weeks off of school (hence the name, Quince Dias), but a few days ago, we received an e-mail from the director of WorldTeach informing us otherwise. The Ministry of Education here in Costa Rica decided to postpone going back to school for one more week due to swine flu. This means Quince Dias has now turned into Veinteuno Dias. The volunteers and I are taking the opportunity to do some traveling.

I stayed in Montezuma, Costa Rica for the first week of vacation. This was a small, hippie-like beach town with gorgeous beaches. It is located off the Nicoya (sp?) Peninsula. We spent most of our time at the beaches here. The waves were huge; anywhere between 10 and 15 feet high! They were also super strong. You would be standing in the water and a wave would come up and knock you right on your butt! They were definitely a lot of fun (and kind of intimidating) to play in though. We also took one day to go snorkeling. Since it is low-season, everything was really cheap. We spent about $30 on a day of snorkeling that usually runs for about $75. On our way out to the island, we stopped at a fishing boat to pick up lunch. Talk about fresh seafood! We than spent the morning snorkeling, ate an amazing lunch and played some beach volleyball.

After Montezuma, we traveled to Bocas del Toro in Panama. After working through the confusion of crossing the boarder (things get different when you have a visa for Costa Rica), we arrived at these series of islands. We stayed in a really awesome hostel here. In Bocas, you have to take water taxis to all the different islands to go to the beaches. We went to Wizard Beach. It was gorgeous! The water was a clear, pristine blue and met up with a white sand beach. We spent most of the day body surfing and playing soccer. At night, we took advantage of the Happy Hours that almost every bar on the island provided. Every night was ladies night (good place to be a lady) and the guys were able to get 50 cent beers. We did a lot of dancing and meeting new friends!

I am currently in Panama City. We arrived here this morning at around 5am after taking a night bus. The city seems really different, but I am excited to walk around. We are also going to check out the canal (aka biggest ditch in the world) and hit up one of the fish markets for dinner. Our hostel here is really awesome as well. It is in an old mansion and has a creaky feel to it.

I am taking lots of pictures, but am having trouble downloading them...hopefully you will be able to see soon enough some of the things I have been doing!