We even­tu­ally left Panamá for Costa Rica. We returned from Boquete on Mon­day and spent a final night in David, our hub city, drink­ing beer and watch­ing movies at the local theatre.

It took us over two hours to fig­ure out how to do the bor­der cross­ing. We could either take a fron­tera bus (David is only an hour drive away from the bor­der) and then hop on another bus on the Costa Rican side. Or we could take an inter­na­tional bus going to San Jose, Costa Rica. The bus sta­tion in David was very chaotic and dusty and we went back and forth look­ing for the ticket booth. When we found it, the employ­ees had gone for lunch and would be back an hour later, más o menos. We ended up buy­ing a ticket on the inter­na­tional bus, leav­ing the fol­low­ing day at 8 am.

On Tues­day morn­ing, we boarded the bus, barely awake. It took us just an hour to get to the bor­der. There, we had to take our bags (stored under­neath the bus) and go to a small round room, with tables. We put our back­packs on the tables and waited for what was com­ing up next. Sure thing, a cus­tom offi­cer arrived 30 min­utes later and searched us.

After that, we rushed to put our back­packs back on the bus, and started queu­ing to get our exit stamp from Panamá. We bought an actual stamp for 1$ that a lady stuck in our pass­port (no idea what was that for) and then had our pass­port stamped.

The bus was wait­ing for us on the Costa Rican side, so we walked about 200 meters to the other bor­der con­trol. We got our Costa Rican entry stamp with­out much trou­bles. We weren´t even asked any question.

But once again, the bus dri­ver called us and we had to take our back­packs with us. A bor­der offi­cer took our pass­ports and we were told to line up. We were called, one by one, and searched again.

Back in the bus. Phew.

We had decided to skip San Jose, the cap­i­tal of Costa Rica, for now, and to get off at San Isidore Del Gen­eral. We bought a Coke and braced our­selves for a quite orig­i­nal ride…

Bus Sta­tion In David

Between Panamá And Costa Rica

Costa Rica, Bor­der Control

Final Bor­der Con­trol, The Bus Wait­ing For Us

Related arti­cles:

1. It´s A Wild Life…
2. Faces Of Cen­tral America
3. Bus­ing Around Cen­tral America
4. Peñas Blan­cas — Chaos And Chaos…
5. ¿Y Ahora Qué?