90 Days In

For me August marked my being in country for 90 days which meant that I needed to exit the country for 3 days to renew my visitor status. Otto joined me, even though his time wasn’t expired, so that we would be on the same ‘exit’ schedule. Plus, neither one of us was too keen on my doing it alone. One of the other owners of the Rancho, Wouter, was here vacationing for 3 weeks so we planned our jaunt out of country during his stay here (so he could manage the place).

We thought about going into the mountains of Panama – near the Costa Rican border – in Bogote because the Lonely Planet Guide made it sound like a pretty nice place. But then, I thought that it might be getting a lot of rain (it being the ‘rainy’ season and all) and the temperature would be much cooler than we are accustomed to, so we decided, instead, to go to the Playa Las Lajas (an hour south of David) on the Pacific side of the country … which was only a 2.5 hour bus/taxi ride from the border. Never-the-less the entire trip (one way from the Rancho) takes about 8 or 9 hours when you travel by bus and then have to go through customs etc.

Crossing the border from Costa Rica to Panama at the border town of Paso Canoas is an amusing process, I think, because the customs offices of the two countries are about 1/3 of a mile apart. And there are no signs indicating what to do or where to find it. First, you must get your exit stamp from CR (in your passport) and then you must locate the Panamanian office and get your entry stamp. The border is so extremely loosely guarded that it is super easy to just wander from one country to the next. Back and forth and back and forth … many people do. Paso Canoas (La Frontera) is a busy shopping town for both countries so it’s really crowded … and very, very, very dirty … and ugly … but it has some great prices … $4.50 for a liter of Bacardi Gold (rum). Crazy, no?

Anyway, we got to Las Tajas and checked in to our dirty little room that was right on the beach and had its own bathroom. This establishment also had a restaurant and the staff (probably all from the same family) were very nice. We enjoyed our stay but switched to a different location the next day because we found a much nicer place for the same amount of money … and, that first night it rained and our roof leaked right on top of our bed … so we had to busy ourselves with positioning our bed in between leaks so we could stay dry …and then try to fall back to sleep. We got up early that next day and went for a long walk along the beach which was very nice – you know, tropical sunshine, warm breezes, the ocean, solitude. Then, we packed our stuff and walked down the beach to the next family-owned set of cabinas, had a cup of coffee while we waited for our cabina to be vacated, and then moved in. We busied ourselves with long walks, yahtzee with beers, reading, and playing in the ocean. Quite nice and relaxed for a ‘forced’ vacation.

We headed back the next morning hoping that the customs officials would accept our interpretation of what constituted ‘3 days’. No problems.