Some amazing days in Bocas del Toro :D

When Troels headed back to San Jóse I continued my trip and went to Bocas del Toro in Panama. I did not want to take my chance crossing the border with my motorcycle or parking it somewhere near, so I parked it at Marloes' and got a shuttle from Puerto Viejo to Bocas del Toro. A mini van took us to the border where we had to walk across this bridge to enter Panama.

When we got over to Panama there was another mini van waiting to take us to the water taxi for Bocas del Toro. When we arrived on Isla Colon, which is the main island of Bocas del Toro, I must say I was a bit surprised. After all the rumors I had heard about the place I was expecting just beaches and loads of tourists. Instead I got there for the low season and on the main island the coast is filled with houses.

I started out trying to find a place to stay for the 3 nights I was planning to be in Bocas. There are loads of hotels and hostels around, and while walking down the street people would just shout at me and telling me where I should stay. I had brought my own hammock so I just needed a hostel where I could hang it up. Coconut Hostel was the spot, and here is the view from my "room" ;)

After hanging up my hammock and dropping off my luggage I went for a little adventure over to the closest island. I cought a water taxi for $1 and just started walking. It was actually a long walk to find a beach, but I did find it :) A nice and calm beach with a nice reef break where people were surfing the nice waves.

When I was walking back from the beach I meet some of the people I took the shuttle with, and I joined them. Back on the main island we searched for a tour for the next morning. We wanted to go on a boat and see different spots on the different islands. We quickly found Captain Willy who was a nice guy, and had a good tour for us. So the next morning we went with Captain Willy on his boat. The first stop was Dolphine Bay :D There's supposed to be about 400 dolphines in the bay, and some of them came up to greet us!

And show off some of their tricks ;)

We drove the boat in circles and the dolphines would play in the waves we made. It was such an amazing experience!! I just wish I could jump in and swim with the dolphines, maybe some other time!

Next stop was Crawl Cay where we had time to eat lunch and snorkle around :) The water was so clear, and there was so much life under water! I could have stayed snorkeling the whole day, but our next stop was the islands in the background, Isla Zapatillas, which I have heard are unbelievable pretty.

And just as I heard they were like paradise!! So calm, so pretty, so clear and warm water. I would just bring my hammock and live there!!!

And there's always time for some gymnastics ;)

 Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to stay on the island, so we headed back to the main island for the evening. I had a little walk to look what they had around. This is their main street which by night gets crowded by people ready for a party.

I spent a lot of time with a couple from Germany, and we checked out what offers we could get for scuba diving the next day! As a perfect dinner for this day I tried my first lobster. It was a challeng trying to figure out how to eat it, but it was so delicious!

The next morning we decided to go to Playa Bluff on the main island before we would head out scuba diving.

Now I started to believe the rumors I had heard about all the perfect beaches they have here, and still there are so many I didn't even have time to see! I also had a funny experience in the taxi on the way to the beach. When I sat down in the taxi I could here the girls that were sitting there talking swedish. So I started talking to them, and believe it or not the one girl had a sister who went to Ollerup! As if that's not enough, she went there with Maja and Jorge who owns the club I'm teaching at in San Jóse!!

It's impossible to describe how much I am enjoying travelling around!!

Puerto Viejo!!

The weekend I went to the carnival in Limón I met a couple from Canada, they were living in the same hostel as me. They asked if I wanted to join them to a rescue center for needing animals. I joined them, and I loved it. Volunteers from around the world come here to help injured and young orphant animals get back into nature! I was lucky to meet Marloes, who was my guide in the center, on the bus back to San Jóse. We talked the whole bus ride, and I said I would be back in Puerto Viejo soon! So when Troels and I arrived Puerto Viejo we invited Marloes and her friends out for dinner and some drinks. It was so nice, and the next morning we got a tour with Margherita ;)

As you can see from the pictures we got really close with the animals in the rescue center :)

The owner of the center is the mother of all the animals in the center, and they just love hanging around her!

After our group tour with Margherita we got a private tour with Marloes :D

We have never been so close to these kind of animals, and we even got to shake hands with the monkeys.

Also playing around and doing gymnastics with them :D

And hand feeding a tucan!

I have never seen a kinkajou, but the first time I got to tickle him ;)

Taking care of a sloth wouldn't be so bad.

I got a new friend to play with ;)

As this sloth, just enjoy life!

¡Pura vida!

Cahuita!!

From Tortuguero the trip went towards Puerto Viejo where we would stay with a friend I met there the weekend before. On our way we made a stop to walk around in Cahuita national park.

We would still find monkeys ;)

Also some other animals we have never seen before, and some of them were really difficult spotting.

We found a perfect spot to climb some palms and stop for a short swim :)

Unfortunately when we reached Punta Cahuita the trails were getting closed so we couldn't continue and see the whole park.

On our way back to the motorcycle we saw even more new animals!

And also some nice tree fungus :)

Tortuguero!!

I've bought a motorcycle for my stay in Costa Rica so that I could have the possibility to go for road trips outside of San Jóse. There's just so much to see in Costa Rica if you get out of the city! Last week Troels and I decided to go for a roadtrip down the caribbean coast of Costa Rica. Our trip started in Tortuguero in the north. October is the last month of the great Green Sea turtles nesting season in Tortuguero.

When we arrived La Pavona we had to park the motorcycle and catch a water taxi to get to the island. Tortuguero is an island between water canals on the west and the Atlantic Ocean on the east.

Riding through the canals we saw a lot of beautiful nature and wildlife. Crocodiles, birds, monkeys and different lizards were among the animals we could spot.

Tortuguero has a really nice and small city center with restaurants, supermarkets and a lot of tourist spots ;) When we arrived in La Pavona there was already a guide waiting for us there. He had a cheap hostel for us and he would take us for all the tours we wanted, so we didn't have to spend time walking around trying to find tours for our stay.

So instead of walking around looking for tours we found the beach and started to look for hatching baby turtles. This was not an easy quest and we walked the whole beach without finding one single baby turtle. Unfortunately the baby turtles are threatened by other wildlife on the beach, like birds, dogs and sharks in the ocean. We could see several empty turtle shells on the beach :(

At night the big turtles come to the beach to nest their eggs. We were prepared to see this, but it's not allowed to bring a camera. Again we were lucky and got to see 2 big turtles. One couldn't find a good spot for nesting, and we saw it going back to the sea. The second one was in the process of laying eggs, and we also got to see the next part of camuflaging the eggs.

Early the next morning we got up for a cano tour down the canals.

The wildlife is great early in the morning, and we saw so many nice animals close up!

After a few hours padling the canals we got back to the island and went for a hike in the national park. We saw more monkeys, but also a lot of different insects and colorful creatures!

In the afternoon it was time to hike up the highest hill for some great views of Tortuguero and Costa Rica!

Down to the left you can see Isla Tortuguero!

Hiking the hill we saw even more wildlife (surprise)! There were loads of the famous Blue Jeans frog.

And a tucan posing for us ;)

When we got back to the island we had a friend waiting to show is a baby turtle nest ready to make their run for the sea. It was an incredible sight, and it just completed our trip to Tortuguero!!