Panama!

After the McWilliams' visit, we needed to leave the country. Every 90 days, foreigners need to leave Costa Rica. We decided to go to check out a bit of Panama. We drove to a town on the frontera( the border) called Sixaola ( about a 6 hour drive), where we had to park the car in a tiny, muddy parking area. Then we hiked up to a 103 year old bridge. On one side, there is an office with one person working in it, and that is the processing office for Costa Rica. You need to stand in a line, show your passport and they stamp it. Then you walk across this old bridge with all of your stuff, til you reach this office, above , where you get in another line, and they stamp your passport there.

You can see Joe and Natasha walking across. It is such a trip. Look at the cracks. A bridge like this would never be the border crossing in the US. It was so cool for some reason. Every once in a while a huge 18 wheeler would cross it. Amazing. Then we took a minibus with 10 other travelers from all over the world, speaking lots of languages, to a town called Almirante. It was a beautiful drive, through very banana-y looking fields and countryside. In Almirante, we took a water taxi to the hotel. The whole trip took about 9 hours.

We spent a lot of our three days in the water. This was a beautiful pool at the hotel. We had all gotten so excited about swimming in Samara ( see last post) that we continued with laps here. Even in the rain, it was a beautiful workout!
This is a photo of where the water taxi dropped us off on this island, called Isla Colon, (Columbus Island) Apparently on Christopher Columbus's (Christobal Colon in Spanish) 5th voyage, he came here, loved it and named two of the many islands here, after himself. One is Isla Colon, the other Isla Cristobal.

This is the hotel, it is called Playa Tortuga Hotel. It was lovely.

Joe and I went snorkling, while the kids just hung out. We had had a lot of company, which was wonderful, and we were psyched to just have hang out time! This is Joe getting ready to snorkle.

Joe and Natash, doing their thing!

This is what Isla Colon looks like from the water taxi. Very reminescent of Caye Calker in Belize. The water was so clear and pretty. No beaches to hang out on in the Island, but beautiful to look at from a boat or the shore.

I am always amazed at what is living under the water. Sea urchins (the black ones) are amazing. We saw a ton of coral and lots of fish. So beautiful.

This area is known for its red sea stars. This beautiful pic is the last one that my camera took, just before it got water logged and died. Luckily for us, my sis Melissa is due here in a couple of days and is bringing a replacement!