I'm not sure if the stamp was worth it...

So, I will preface this blog with this disclaimer:

We were very stupid Gringa girls for getting ourselves into this mess, and my God is a powerful and faithful God.

Now to the story...Elena, Amanda, Brittney, Renee', and I left our town of Heredia on Thursday evening for a city on the Caribbean coast called Puerto Limon. Upon arrival I immediately decided it was the sketchiest place in Costa Rica and I couldn't wait to leave for Panama on Friday morning. The hotel wasn't exactly 5 star, understatement...but it had beds and a lock and it was 10:30 at night, so we weren't complaining. (Side note: We later found out that one of the girls lost her shoes in this hotel and upon calling the owners several times, they told her that she would not be getting her shoes back. Great place, huh?) So, we got up on Friday morning, "refreshed", and ready to hit the Panamanian border! After 5 hours or so we were finally there, and made it through with no problems. We had another stamp in our passport, yay! We then hopped on a bus to a town on the Caribbean coast in Panama and then we took a boat to get to the main island of Bocas del Toro. Once we got there, though, we decided to stay on one of the smaller islands nearby because it was cheaper and less touristy, so we then took a water taxi to get to it. Our hostel on this island, Isla Bastimentos, was comfortable and the owner was a sweet woman whose son took us everywhere in his boat. We enjoyed a nice evening of island life on Friday night with no clue what was to come on Saturday...

We had been told that there was a beach on our island and that you could get to it by walking on a little path for about 15 minutes. So, Saturday morning, we got all geared up to go to the beach: swimsuits, food for lunch, towels, flip-flops...your basic beach needs, and we headed for the trail. We walked to the end of the sidewalk and up a huge flight of concrete steps and ran right into a cemetery...looking back, this could have been foreshadowing of what was to come. None of us doubted that we were on the wrong path or even thought for a second that we should ask for directions. Hence, we were very stupid Gringa girls. So, we're walking on this pretty steep, muddy trail tripping and falling when we come to a little stream with a log over it to cross. Elena and Brittney walk across it first and both slip and fall into the stream. Elena's leg gets stuck in mud up to her knee and both of Brittney's flip-flops break, so she is now shoeless. For some reason though, we didn't turn back. We thought, oh, the beach is really close, you can get all cleaned up there. So we kept going. At this point we had also picked up an old woman from Canada that was studying Spanish by herself in Central America and saw us walking into the jungle and thought we knew where we were going...she turned out to be much more of a hindrance than a help. So, we continue walking through the jungle on a dwindling path and don't think anything of it. Thirty minutes later we were lost in the Panamanian jungle and the panic started to set in. There were spiders as big as our fists everywhere and we expected to see a snake at any point. Everyone started to freak out a little bit. There was no way we could go back because we couldn't remember where we had come from and everywhere we looked was pretty much impassable. Having no choice, we continued to trudge through this jungle, barefoot, and praying the whole time that we would somehow get out of this. We walked for about an hour and found a sign that said: Private property of the Tom family, bought in 1987, don't touch what isn't yours. There was a little Nazi symbol underneath it. I'm pretty sure we were all pretty pissed. What the crap is a Nazi sign doing in the middle of the Panamanian jungle and how in the world will they know if someone has touched their stupid mud and spiders!? Everyone's terror was continuing to mount the longer we were in there, so I started moving as fast as I could. At this point, we were all pretty much barefoot because flip-flops don't have that great of traction in the mud, and I shudder to think of the things that I stepped in and on running through the jungle. We came to a little marsh eventually and the 5 of us booked it across it in fear of the snaked most likely living there, but the Canadian woman had other ideas...it took her 45 minutes to cross the thing!! Brittney and I were standing on a tree limb to keep from standing in the muck and the other girls were attempting to stay out of the marsh as well with little success because we still hadn't run into solid ground yet. I was pretty mad at this point because we were burning daylight, standing still in the middle of the jungle, and were still completely lost and terrified. I just started praying, "Lord, please get us out of this. Guide us to the beach and to safety. I have no clue where I'm going." We eventually got the Canadian out of the marsh, and I ran until I could find solid ground. The sound of the ocean was getting louder and louder and the trees started to thin out more and more. I finally broke free out of the jungle and I've never been so happy to see anything in my entire life. Brittney and I just started sobbing and praising the Lord. Everyone else did the same as soon as they walked out. I know all of you back in the U.S. are probably reading this and thinking that I'm exaggerating, but I assure you that this is the closest I've ever come to a near death experience. We were lost in the middle of the Panamanian jungle for 4 hours without the proper footwear and poisonous spiders at every turn. Words cannot describe our fear. By some miracle, we all came out of it with only scrapes and bruises, no broken bones or major bites. The worst part was that when we came out the policemen patrolling the beach came over to us and told us that the path we should have taken was about 50 or 100 feet away from where we came out. So, yes, we were ridiculously stupid, but God got us through it.

There were a few times when Elena pulled out her camera so I will try to post a few of those pics so you guys can see just what we went through. After this ordeal we continued to try and enjoy ourselves so on Sunday we went on a guided tour where we saw dolphins, went snorkeling, and enjoyed a different beach on a different island where the waves were awesome and we rented a boogie board to play around with.

I can honestly say that this trip was a huge learning experience, and although if I could do it again I would do things differently, I'm really glad that we went. As the title suggests though...I'm pretty sure the entry stamp on my passport wasn't worth what we went through once we got into Panama.

Hope everyone is safe and sound in the U.S. I'm super happy to be alive and out of the Panamanian jungle!! Saturday marked our halfway point, so I'll be home in 2 and a half months!
Appreciating the blessing of life,
Amelia