Day 147 - "Abandoned" in the rain

David (Panama) to Quepos (Costa Rica)

We arrived at the bus station in David at 8am to buy our ticket to Quepos and met Trina there, she was going all the way to San Jose. The border crossing leaving Panama was quite strange as they inspected our bags - first with a sniffer dog, then by getting us to open them up - since when do you need to have your luggage inspected when leaving the country?

We saw a couple entering Panama who were dressed in very old fashioned clothes, K later read that a group of Quakers had settled in Costa Rica in 1951 to escape conscription for to the Korean War - they obviously liked it so much they decided to stay.

After the Panama border formalities we walked across to the Costa Rican side, dragging our bags from the bus and getting them checked again, this time though we were just waved through - we also didn't need to show our "proof" of onward travel - that's the second travel document in a row that we've faked and didn't get to show!

After a lunch stop at Uvita we drove into a heavy rainstorm right at the time the bus dropped off at a petrol station on the highway outside Quepos. We said our goodbyes to Trina, its unlikely we will cross paths again on this trip.

Bye ....

We stood stranded in the pouring rain wondering how we were going to get to our accommodation (we were told to just wait for a taxi to come past) when a man in a tourist van filling up with petrol said he was heading our way and he could drop us off.

A short while later we arrived at a nice little studio apartment on the main road between Quepos and the Manuel Antonio National Park. After settling in we took the bus into Quepos to do some shopping. There was a bit more variety in the supermarkets, with a lot of imported goods from the USA available, though with USA prices too.

After dinner our great airbnb host Eugene gave us some coconut pie that he'd bought from the Quakers at the weekly farmers' market - our second Quaker encounter of the day!