Today, we left Hotel Limbo in Bocas Town, Boca del Toro, Panama, and made our way across the border into Costa Rica via boat, taxi, and foot. The bridge is reminiscent of the trestle at the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz before the foot bridge was added, but with planks across the outside of the ties for foot and vehicle traffic. Few vehicles actually cross the border, most of them being tractor-trailer rigs.
Once across the border we met a woman who suggested we call the person who picked her up and brought her to the border, and we did so. But we failed to settle a price before we took the trip and ended up paying twenty dollars a piece, which is a bit exorbitant especially considering the driver was going that way anyway. The first hotel we tried had a room that stank of mold worse than anywhere we've been yet, so we went down the road to Rockin' J's and rented lockers to store our packs in while we looked for a hotel. Just another spot or two up the road (actually, up the path on the beach side of these seafront establishments) we found someplace that looked promising, the Agapi Apartmentos. Naturally, we'd not read the reviews on TripAdvisor before we arrived. The room smelled okay and had a couple of beds (we can't sleep together without a king due to toss and turn factor) so we went ahead and booked two nights.
Yes, we failed again.
After a somewhat exorbitantly expensive lunch of mediocre sushi (at high quality it would have been acceptable) we returned to find that the room stank of mold. Apparently, without having the door wide open and the temperature at maximum, you can't really smell the difference. This was especially disappointing because we'd told the lady at the desk that we came here because the last place we looked at was terribly moldy. She went so far as to discuss the importance of always airing out the rooms every day, occupied or not, to prevent this from happening. So here we are in another mold shack; oh, pardon me, mold apartment. This is getting to be a bit of a habit.
Puerto Viejo was apparently a sleepy little town six years ago, but the number of "hospitality" establishments has about doubled, and everything that's not gone (as are a couple of the smaller places) has grown. Bars have become restaurants, and single-story facilities have become doubles. Most importantly, prices have about doubled, and yet quality has not improved; only quantity. As I write this, the power has gone out. I suppose I need to be periodically copying and pasting the contents to a text editor.
Back to the subject; Puerto Viejo is now a tourist trap. I'm aware that the U.S. economy is in decline, but a beer costs about two bucks, while cocktails are more like six. Ah, here comes the power again. This room has no A/C, only a ceiling fan, so the difference between having and not having power is not as marked as you might imagine. Unfortunately, it also lacks bug netting, which you can find at numerous thatched-roof surf cabanas in the area. The necessity of keeping the windows wide open does not jibe well with this idea, although I suppose I've only been bitten five or six times. This is much better than the hotel in Santa Fe. Of course, this is a tourist town...
The beds here are the worst we've experienced so far. The mattresses are heavy on springs, and light on padding. There's no phone in the room, and the medium-sized mini-fridge (have fun with that one) is largely taken up with presumably-expensive bottles of beer, water, and orange "juice" which can probably safely be assumed to be sweetened with high fructose corn syrup.
The people here are also tragically less enjoyable than those in Panama. Where Panamanians are quiet and relatively considerate (though until you've been a part of it, you couldn't tell from their driving) the Costa Ricans in this area (I haven't been here long enough to learn to hate anywhere else) are loud and rude. That's another fantastic thing about our current hotel; the woman said she was putting us where it is quieter, but when people sit around the pool and talk, I can hear them through my earplugs. This is partly because this is not a quiet spot, and partly because people are just loud here. I'd have called the office to complain, but my Panamanian phone doesn't work here and there's no phone in the room. Did I forget to mention the pile of sticks and leaves that was set alight while we were out for lunch after securing our hotel room? It not only filled our room with smoke (we took a break in the overchlorinated pool at this time) but blew across the complex for hours during the day. SOP for garbage disposal in this area seems to include building these fires on the shore (upwind) side on a regular basis. Luckily we've not smelled any burning plastic here, as we did almost immediately after getting into the car with the guy who overcharged us for the trip.
Even the included internet is a qualified failure. The access point visible from my room actually is internet connected, but the DNS proxy does not permit connection. Luckily I remembered Google DNS' IP, since it's so very easy: 8.8.8.8. 4.2.2.1 doesn't work here.
The intention is to travel around to the other side of the bay here and look for a hotel room where it's more peaceful. Hopefully we can fnd something there without mold. I'm holding off on writing a TripAdvisor review on this place until we leave. We were offered a more expensive room, and if it is somehow mold-free where this room is not, then we may take it for one night, as opposed to trying to get our money back from the management. I have some ideas as to how to go about that, however. Parking myself in their office and informing prospective customers that this is a mold farm will be a good starter. I hope it won't be necessary.
We were not big fans of Bocas Town, but so far, I prefer it well over Puerto Viejo.