While I still can’t get over how beautiful the Pacific Coast sunsets at Nosara were, I think I’m still more of a mountain person than a beach person. I find comfort and tranquility in the terrain, the greenness, the cool air that comes with each fresh breeze.
In the morning I met up with Aiko again for breakfast, together with the rest of her yacht crew, for breakfast at Kwang Chow Restaurant for DIM SUM - YES I never thought I’d have DIM SUM for breakfast in Central America. To be fair it wasn’t great. The owner even gave me some recommendations for better Chinese food in the city, maybe because I talked to her in Cantonese. She said her restaurant is more for the ‘gwai lo’ tastes. But still it filled a craving for me.
The minibus to El Valle De Anton had 2 gears - death speed, or dead stop. It stopped several times along the way to wait around to pick up passengers, sometimes we waited for ages for just a few more passengers; the only consolation was seeing all sorts of bus snacks being sold by snack-sellers popping into the bus during those stoppages - cups of cut up fruit with condensed milk, plantain chips and nuts, churros…If I didn’t already have so many snacks with me I would have bought them all. When we were in motion, the bus would be going at full speed along the Pan-American Highway.
I stayed at the Bodhi Hostel - a nice simple hostel with a huge kitchen, huge garden and smoothies from heaven. I’m normally not one for dorms but they didn’t have private rooms and thought I could give up a couple nights of quality sleep and catch up when I’m back in my air-conditioned room and double bed in the 10th floor apartment in the city. More on sleep later.
The next day, I set off for the first day of hiking with 3 others - 2 boys and a girl from the hostel. Chatting away, we missed a turning and ended up walking a much longer way up the hill, but much quieter - there were no other hikers on this route. We were in and out of the clouds, caught fabulous views of the town as we stood on the edge of the volcano. El Valle De Anton is a town built inside the crater of a volcano - an extinct volcano. And one of the sides of the volcano is named The Sleeping Indian, which we hiked up.
After the 4.5 hour hike and a big plate of asado con pollo, we were pretty much immobile all afternoon, lying around in hammocks and on sofas in our very chilled out hostel sipping smoothies, reading, trip planning, and studying Spanish.
The best meals are usually not the most expensive, or the most exciting, or even the tastiest. And I wouldn't call this the best meal, but my bowl of instant noodles, lettuce and cheap ham really hit a food spot read good. Maybe because quite often in Hong Kong we'd end a hike with a good ol' bowl of instant noodles. This dinner was a little fill of home comfort.
The next day I hiked up a different side of the volcano with the 2 boys from yesterday's hike, and 10 mins into our hike we were joined by a random but lovely little dog from the village who followed us all the way up and all the way down.
The rest of my Panama stay was back in Panama city - going to the Miraflores Locks on the Panama Canal, celebrating my birthday on a rooftop bar, enjoying Gabriel's pool and gym, and painstakingly shopping for an iPhone.
Ah the iPhone story. I get more frustrated every time I told it. So here’s the short version (sort of).
I already mentioned in my last post that my phone had died. During my time in Panama, my host Gabriel had a spare iPhone 7 to lend me which was super helpful. But I had to return it before I left Panama.
So I found a pawn shop to see if I could get a second hand one for cheap. Found a shop that had an unlocked iPhone 6 in shabby condition, and a locked but nicer iPhone 6s at a cheaper price. so I said if we take it to get it unlocked and it works then I'll pay for the unlocking and the phone. By then I had already been the pawn shop for almost an hour. A guy took me for a very long walk down the road to another shop to get it unlocked. At that shop, it took a while to explain what we wanted, the guy was messing around and getting distracted every 5 mins by other customers. No one told me how long it was going to take, I waited for over an hour, and after more messing around and waiting I got so fed up I just got up and left and said I’d come back the next day.
So I went back the next day - the day of my flight to Colombia - and the shop had just been sold an iPhone 7. So I ended up buying that, as well as changing some Colombian Pesos at the shop. That night, I flew to Cartagena Colombia.
The next day, I signed myself up for a 4pm free walking tour, so I had the morning to explore and get a SIM card for my phone. After looking for ages for a shop that would take credit card (trying to reduce my cash usage - that’s another story), I finally found one. But it turns out that my phone won’t work with a Colombian SIM! We tried all the companies. The guy checked the phone’s IMEI number and found out that this phone was blacklisted in Colombia!!! WTF. WTF. I felt so frustrated. It definitely worked in Panama, and worked with my Japan SIM. But just when I needed it to work in the country that I’m in, it’s freaking blacklisted. Luckily I have my ridiculously old Samsung phone, which I can use as a hotspot. So I bought a SIM for that phone, and just tethered my iPhone to it.
And yes that’s already the not-so-long version of this iPhone debacle.
Next post: Cartagena, Colombia! The food, the friends (new and new-ish), the football and the walls.
In the morning I met up with Aiko again for breakfast, together with the rest of her yacht crew, for breakfast at Kwang Chow Restaurant for DIM SUM - YES I never thought I’d have DIM SUM for breakfast in Central America. To be fair it wasn’t great. The owner even gave me some recommendations for better Chinese food in the city, maybe because I talked to her in Cantonese. She said her restaurant is more for the ‘gwai lo’ tastes. But still it filled a craving for me.
The minibus to El Valle De Anton had 2 gears - death speed, or dead stop. It stopped several times along the way to wait around to pick up passengers, sometimes we waited for ages for just a few more passengers; the only consolation was seeing all sorts of bus snacks being sold by snack-sellers popping into the bus during those stoppages - cups of cut up fruit with condensed milk, plantain chips and nuts, churros…If I didn’t already have so many snacks with me I would have bought them all. When we were in motion, the bus would be going at full speed along the Pan-American Highway.
I stayed at the Bodhi Hostel - a nice simple hostel with a huge kitchen, huge garden and smoothies from heaven. I’m normally not one for dorms but they didn’t have private rooms and thought I could give up a couple nights of quality sleep and catch up when I’m back in my air-conditioned room and double bed in the 10th floor apartment in the city. More on sleep later.
The next day, I set off for the first day of hiking with 3 others - 2 boys and a girl from the hostel. Chatting away, we missed a turning and ended up walking a much longer way up the hill, but much quieter - there were no other hikers on this route. We were in and out of the clouds, caught fabulous views of the town as we stood on the edge of the volcano. El Valle De Anton is a town built inside the crater of a volcano - an extinct volcano. And one of the sides of the volcano is named The Sleeping Indian, which we hiked up.
The best meals are usually not the most expensive, or the most exciting, or even the tastiest. And I wouldn't call this the best meal, but my bowl of instant noodles, lettuce and cheap ham really hit a food spot read good. Maybe because quite often in Hong Kong we'd end a hike with a good ol' bowl of instant noodles. This dinner was a little fill of home comfort.
The next day I hiked up a different side of the volcano with the 2 boys from yesterday's hike, and 10 mins into our hike we were joined by a random but lovely little dog from the village who followed us all the way up and all the way down.
The rest of my Panama stay was back in Panama city - going to the Miraflores Locks on the Panama Canal, celebrating my birthday on a rooftop bar, enjoying Gabriel's pool and gym, and painstakingly shopping for an iPhone.
 |
| Sipping birthday cocktails at the Panama Canal |
Ah the iPhone story. I get more frustrated every time I told it. So here’s the short version (sort of).
I already mentioned in my last post that my phone had died. During my time in Panama, my host Gabriel had a spare iPhone 7 to lend me which was super helpful. But I had to return it before I left Panama.
So I found a pawn shop to see if I could get a second hand one for cheap. Found a shop that had an unlocked iPhone 6 in shabby condition, and a locked but nicer iPhone 6s at a cheaper price. so I said if we take it to get it unlocked and it works then I'll pay for the unlocking and the phone. By then I had already been the pawn shop for almost an hour. A guy took me for a very long walk down the road to another shop to get it unlocked. At that shop, it took a while to explain what we wanted, the guy was messing around and getting distracted every 5 mins by other customers. No one told me how long it was going to take, I waited for over an hour, and after more messing around and waiting I got so fed up I just got up and left and said I’d come back the next day.
So I went back the next day - the day of my flight to Colombia - and the shop had just been sold an iPhone 7. So I ended up buying that, as well as changing some Colombian Pesos at the shop. That night, I flew to Cartagena Colombia.
The next day, I signed myself up for a 4pm free walking tour, so I had the morning to explore and get a SIM card for my phone. After looking for ages for a shop that would take credit card (trying to reduce my cash usage - that’s another story), I finally found one. But it turns out that my phone won’t work with a Colombian SIM! We tried all the companies. The guy checked the phone’s IMEI number and found out that this phone was blacklisted in Colombia!!! WTF. WTF. I felt so frustrated. It definitely worked in Panama, and worked with my Japan SIM. But just when I needed it to work in the country that I’m in, it’s freaking blacklisted. Luckily I have my ridiculously old Samsung phone, which I can use as a hotspot. So I bought a SIM for that phone, and just tethered my iPhone to it.
And yes that’s already the not-so-long version of this iPhone debacle.
Next post: Cartagena, Colombia! The food, the friends (new and new-ish), the football and the walls.
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