Costa Rica 42

We grabbed a taxi from in front of our hotel and had him take us downtown to the pedestrian shopping zone. This is a stretch of about nine blocks, blocked to traffic and full of shops. Some upscale, some not so upscale.

I was looking for a cheap, small day bag. I had purchased more things than I could comfortably fit in my bags and needed an extra. I finally found one. I thought it was ok but while waiting in the Panama City airport, the zipper broke on it! Nothing to do but carefully carry it on home. We did try to take out what we could and rearrange the other three bags we were carrying though.
Mostly we just ambled in and out of bookstores and clothing stores. A few T-shirts were bought but not much else.

We took a break for lunch and one of the many street side cafes on the zone. We had a direct view to a guy who had imitation PUMA sweatshirts for sale. They were all spread out on a tarp and people were buying them like crazy. Of course, there were many other vendors displaying their wares up and down the length of this street. Nothing tempted us.

At one point, while L was looking at some new trainers (sneakers), B and I waited outside to have a smoke. While waiting, this long haired American dude approached us. He said he was looking for some hospital or other and did we know where it was? He explained that none of the streets have signs. We politely told him that we did not know and kept backing away from him, all the time scanning the people all around us. We were not going to be played for suckers and get pick pocketed while being distracted by this dude. He kept following us, chattering away, trying to keep our attention on him. I finally very rudely told him to take a hike or I would call a cop to give him directions!

Totally exhausted from this last afternoon of power shopping, we made our way back to the hotel and had a nice siesta before having to clean up and head out for our last dinner in Costa Rica.

We once again took a vote and decided we wanted to end the trip where we started. At the nice little soda down the street where the waitress had mopped my feet a few short weeks ago. She, of course, remembered us. It was a nice farewell meal.

Next morning found us fully packed and up by 4am. We had to take a taxi to the airport to catch our 4:45 AM flight to Panama City. A two hour layover there, where we enjoyed one of our favorite travel meals…..roller dogs! Then a two hour flight to Cancun, a bus downtown, taxi to the port, ferry to the island, and finally, a taxi home!

Our adventure over, it was just plain old good to be home!