Thurs 3 Dec

Today I woke up a 5am to get packed and ready to go. First I went to the horse barn to let the guys know that I wouldn't be able to work the rest of the week. After I packed and then waited until 1030am. Then I hit the road and hitch hiked my wait to the front gate of EARTH. Shortly after, Matt came in another car and then we walked to the bus stop right outside of EARTH. We waited for about a half an hour and then the bus came rolling along. The trip took about 4 hours to the border. Once we got to the border, we walked and got our passports stamped. Then we saw that we had to cross a bridge to cross the border. This bridge I will never forget. It was old and had probably rusted from the inside out. Also, there were holes in the walk way that were big enough for someone to fall through that would lead to a plummeting death into the river. To add to this wonderful experience, our walk way was also a road for huge 18 wheeler semi trucks to get across. So when they came, you had to some how get out of the way and also try to not fall. After getting across the bridge, it turned into a scavenger hunt. The first booth we went to told us we had to go buy a returning bus ticket, when we went to the bus ticket booth, they told us we needed a visa, and once we finally figured out the order of what to buy, we had spent about 30min. Finally we got all of our stuff figured out and it was time to look for a way to get to Boca Del Toro. Right when we went down the steps to the right, to men started trying to grab our bags to put them in the taxi, when the guy tried grabbing mine; I threw him off me and told him to calm down. The men told us that they could get us to Boca Del Toro for $10 a person, then a boat ride for $4 a person. It seemed that we didn’t have any other choice. So we hopped in the car with two girls from Australia. There names were Sandy and Amy and they had traveled through the northern part of Central America and we passing through Boca Del Toro before leaving Panama. Once we got to the dock, we got crammed into a boat taxi with about 25 other people. Once the taxi left, we headed into complete darkness. I had no idea how these drivers knew were they were going but I guess I had to trust them. The trip took about 20min and I couldn’t see anything until we arrived on one of the many docks of Boca Del Toro. Once we got off the boat, we walked through town until we arrived at a hostile named Hostile Heike. We got into our room and started unpacking when one of our room mates came in. His name was Aaron and he was from Amsterdam and was very nice. He told us all about Boca Del Toro and where to get good food. He told us to go to a small truck were a man from Argentina made the best chicken sandwiches in the world. So we took his advice and went to the sandwich man. We walked up to the truck and ordered a grilled chicken sandwich and the man went right to work. About 5min later he had Matt's sandwich ready but wouldn't give it to Matt until Matt followed his orders. The man explained that if Matt didn’t hold this sandwich the right way, everything would fall out, so the man to Matt to use two hands to hold the sandwich. He showed Matt where to hold the Sandwich and made sure that Matt was doing it right. Talk about pride in what you do, this must have taken about 2min just for Matt to get the right hold on the sandwich, then finally the man let go and Matt finally got to try it. I had watched closely on how to hold the sandwich so when it was my turn I got the sandwich right away. The whole process was well worth the waiting because the sandwiches were amazing. They tasted so good and filled us right up. After dinner, we went back to the hostile, and found out that there was a third floor patio were everyone could hang out. When we went up there, we saw Aaron and he introduced us to everyone. Soon we made a lot of new friends and I almost felt like this hostile was like a family. Later we went with our new group to a bar named Iguana and sat around and talked. Later we traveled to another bar that had dancing. All of the bars were open air and stationed right next to the water and were really cool. After bar hopping, Matt and I decided to go home and get some rest.