Central America

A Man, A Plan, A Canal… Panama

July 3, 2009 By Danny

The same thing forward, the same thing backward…a palindrome. We had finally made it to the Panama Canal.

Arriving in Panama City at the crack of dawn presented a new problem for us. Usually when we arrive at dawn we walk into a hotel and sleep for a couple more hours. This time we walked to six different hotels before finding one (which ended up being the most expensive thus far of the entire trip) that didn’t want to charge us by the hour. Things were really going well.

As one of Spain’s first settlements in the Americas, Panama City has tons of old Spanish ruins. To be honest, these weren’t particularly special but what was interesting was the museum at the ruins of Panama Viejo. This museum detailed the history of the Spanish Conquest and Panama’s importance 400 years ago. Spain used Panama to move goods into the Pacific ocean and to colonize the Pacific side of South America. Later burned by English privateers, Panama City was rebuilt and continued to act as method of commerce between Europe and the entire Pacific. It would be two hundred more years before the French would first begin working on a canal (in then Colombia) before Panama gained independence and allowed the US to do the job.

After two wrong buses we finally got to the the big ditch…also known as the Panama Canal.

The Pacific side of the canal has two sets of locks and one of these, the Miraflores Locks, has a museum and observation deck where we learned about the canal’s construction and watched two boats lowered simultaneously in two different locks. While watching I couldn’t help but think that with two locks side by side the water could be recycled between the locks, rather than require a constant flow of water from the lake. It seems however that the abundance of water here lead the canal designers to ignore this option and instead fill the locks with water from the lake and then send the same water out to sea. As part of the canal expansion plan, there are talks of building new locks (just like non-engineer Danny thought up) so that bigger boats will be able to use the canal. I’m sure the original locks were designed this way for a reason but that reason eludes me for now; anybody care to shed some light?

Panama City is by far the most modern city we’ve visited in Central America, yet it still has its quirks. City buses are still old US school buses and some even play music when the horn is honked…rather than the boring sound of a honking horn. Mostly though, it shopping malls and skyscrapers reminded us more of the USA than anywhere else we’d been so far.

Rio Chiriqui

July 2, 2009 By Jillian

We made it to Boquete, Panama in time to kayak the next day with Boquete Outdoor Adventures–. Having emailed every rafting company we could find in Central America as we moved south, it was a relief to find one that actually offered whitewater kayaking trips. Even better that the rafting group we were supposed to go down the river with canceled so we had the trip all to ourselves.

Driving to the put in my stomach was in knots. If you remember the last time we went kayaking, I got thrashed so I was more than a bit nervous about hitting the river again. In fact, I was petrified. Karma though had a different plan for me. Navigating the entrance rapids without the hint of a flip, I turned around at the bottom only to see the wrong side of Danny’s boat. Rolling up Danny’s hand looked like it had been in a bar fight, only with a rock on the bottom of the river instead of a man named Bubba.

Hearts racing, we continued downstream through a series of long class III rapids. Danny’s boat, a magnet it seems for rocks, flipped again, and this time after several roll attempts he was pulled up by our guide. Bruised now from shoulder to hand after scraping along the bottom he was more disappointed than injured. Sometimes you just have one of those days on the river and when it starts its hard to shake it.

After portaging around a dam we came to the biggest rapids of the day. Everything always looks bigger when you are in the middle of it, but as we came over a rock I stared into a huge wave trough that seemed to swallow my boat. Somehow I kept myself right side up and turned around in time to see Danny clip the rock and flip. Spun around in the wave he took a decent beating before it spit him out. At this point Danny had seen more than he wanted of the river’s bottom having combat (in the rapid) rolled at least three or four times already. His shoulder and elbow were pretty battered and he had two small gashes on his hands. No pain, no glory right?

It was a bad day on the river for Danny but a great day on the river for me. And yet, making it through each rapid, instead of building my confidence, gripped me in fear for the next one. All afternoon I felt like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting to scrape along the bottom of the river. After the Rio Pescados it seems that I have developed a very real fear of whitewater kayaking, so much so that when I flip I am unable to roll back up, my mind won’t let my body remember what to do. Thankfully it didn’t happen this time, but I am still fearful of getting in a kayak again. It’s frustrating to say the least given how much I’ve enjoyed whitewater kayaking in the past. I only hope its a short term phobia that a few more times on the river can cure.

On our way to Panama

June 30, 2009 By Danny

Up at 4:30 am to catch a 5:30 am bus from Quepos to San Isidro. If we missed the first bus, no getting to Panama in time to kayak the next day.

Costa Rica immigration was easy, we got our exit stamp – no fees – and continued on our way. Upon reaching Panamanian immigration we were accosted, truly that is the only word to describe it. One man grabbed my passport, put in a sticker and demanded $1. No explanation. The immigration official on the other side of the glass, who had Jillian’s passport merely nodded and told her she needed the same. Another ayudante (helper in spanish, but they generally are anything but) grabbed my hand and told me I needed to go to the tourism office. There we were provided tourists cards and asked for $5 each, the fee we had expected to pay, and were told that we did need to give this other man a dollar for the sticker in our passport. Pushed back out the door to immigration we stood in line waiting to get our passports stamped. Next up, Customs.

Lets keep in mind that we’d been up since 3:30 a.m (time change!) and hadn’t eaten.

Our first customs inspection of the trip. The bus pulled up and we all got our stuff out and brought it to a little room. While the others on the bus merely had to open their suitcases for a cursory check, we, the backpackers, had to empty our packs of their entire contents, open all of our small bags and cases and submit to a full inspection of our toiletries, dirty clothes and even medications. Ugh. I wanted to tell him that drugs move from the south to the USA, not the other way around. Why use a dog to search for drugs when you can go through a persons underwear…should have kept the really dirty stuff on top!? After making us declare our computer (my shoe inserts are more valuable) and asking us numerous times how much money we carried, he finally let us go. Oh the joys….TSA doesn’t even go through these lengths with backpacks…

Pulling our bags back to the bus we got more than a few sympathy looks from our fellow passengers and continued on our way.

More Monkeys

June 29, 2009 By Jillian

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I can’t remember the last time we had seen each other, probably the summer after our high school graduation. When a friend from high school messaged me on facebook a few weeks ago I didn’t really know what to think. She invited us to come stay with her and her boyfriend in Costa Rica, which lets be honest is not a hard invitation to accept.

We got to her place in a rain storm after 9 hours of buses. Thankfully they looked past how smelly, wet and tired we were and let us stay. 🙂 Spending the next two days lounging around her apartment, making the best of a stormy beach day and watching movies (in english!) we caught up on the last few years and even found time to buy me a replacement bathing suit. Turns out Costa Rican bathing suits are cut similarly to those in Brazil. You get the picture.

Just as we were relaxing in the comforts of a real apartment we got the exciting yet somewhat bittersweet news, we could whitewater kayak in Panama – if we got there in two days. Dying to get in some whitewater we quickly altered our travel plans and set off early the next morning for Manuel Antonio, our last “must do” in Costa Rica.

We’ve been to a lot of beaches on this trip, both on the Pacific and the Caribbean but none that had monkeys on them. If you’ve been reading this blog you know that I want to see monkeys almost everywhere we go, so when we entered Manuel Antonio National Park my eyes immediately drifted upwards. From what everyone said about this place I expected it to be a zoo of tropical Costa Rican creatures.

Unfortunately there were no monkeys waiting for us to enter the park, which was shall we say perturbing. Plodding ahead towards the beach I kept my eyes peeled for shaking trees. “Seriously.” Danny said. “Haven’t you seen enough monkeys already.” The best response to a question like that is always silence so I ignored him and continued to scan the tree tops. Within meters of the beach we finally spotted them- an entire clan of capuchin monkeys. (Not sure if monkeys travel in clans, but it sounds good so lets go with it!) Clamoring through the trees playing with each other and eating leaves the monkeys seemed unphased by the crowd of humans near by, virtually ignoring us. Enthralled by them I continued to watch them play along the branches until Danny eventually pulled me on to the beach and the monkeys moved on. Not for long though. From the water we spotted the clan’s return and within seconds a “cheeky fellow” had grabbed another beach goers grocery bag and was making off with it into the trees. This is what I had waited to see- the famous thieving monkeys of Manuel Antonio. Wave after wave, like an aerial assault this monkey tried to grab things from beach goers, grocery bags, fruit, even clothing. Ever vigilant, I fastened our bags together with carabiners creating what I called a “monkey proof” design. Unfortunately it was never tested, apparently thieving monkeys do not want cookies covered in chocolate. Their loss.

For the $10 entrance fee into Manuel Antonio we saw: capuchin monkeys, a cayman (like a crocodile), tucans, a huge bird eating snake, coatis and agouti. Pretty good if you ask me. In my intense focus on seeing monkeys we somehow missed the sloth that everyone else saw, but really sloths aren’t as cool as monkeys so thats ok!

Hola Costa Rica

June 24, 2009 By Danny

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With Nicaragua behind us we practically sprinted into Costa Rica…full of excitement for all the eco-adventures that awaited us. We’d planned to take multi-day whitewater kayak trips and spend the better part of a week learning to wind and kitesurf. We allocated just over two weeks for the fun of Costa Rica, hoping against hope that we’d have enough time to do it all.

Our first target upon arrival were the cloud forests of Monteverde in Santa Elena to take a canopy tour. While the name “Canopy Tour” might conjure images of a breezy nature walk through a forest, this could not be further from the truth. A canopy tour is actually a series of zip lines (metal cables strung through the forest that when harnessed in send you flying through to the other end of the line), some of which are as long as 700 meters and cross high above a ravine. This is a thrill ride to the first degree and something we had to do before allowing ourselves the more simple pleasures of Monteverde such as a guided night hike (to see the wild animals of the night…including bats and tarantulas) and a hike through the world renowned Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve.

While in Monteverde we got a bad taste in our mouth. This country has changed since I was here last. In our opinion it has been overrun by tourism. In many parts of the country, little seems to be left of native culture. Expensive restaurants have replaced family run sodas. It seems the largest difference between the people of Costa Rica and Miami is that here people actually speak English. Don’t get me wrong, the landscape is incredible and the biodiversity unmatched, but through promoting tourism at the expense of all other pursuits I believe the government here has thrown away some of the country’s magic. Indeed, much of the pura vida culture I’d experienced 6 years ago has been replaced with condos, timeshares, and greedy tour guides. We arrived excited at the opportunities that awaited us but now that we are here many of those opportunities seem to have lost their luster. Costa Rica is by far a on the beaten track tourist destination, a great place for a relaxing vacation, but not a good place for independent adventure seeking travelers, especially those on a budget.

Having said all that, we realized we needed to readjust our plans. Rather than paying for expensive ($17 pp just to walk through a park, unguided, for a few hours) tours and visits we moved on from Monteverde with the a few new friends we’d made and headed over dirt roads and big lakes to the city of La Fortuna, home of the mighty Volcan Arenal. Regular readers of this blog are well aware that we’ve had our share of volcano encounters and as powerful as Arenal is we’ve already seen volcanos, hiked their peaks, and felt the heat of their lava. While in Xela we also enjoyed hot springs and were a bit dismayed when we discovered the $60 pp option here in Fortuna; a little bit of looking paid off and before long we found the “local” watering hole for 1/10th (that’s $6) of the price. We relaxed, played cards, soaked in the spas, swam in the pools, ate food that was bad for us, and drank a few beers while we were at it too.

We left La Fortuna much much happier than when we arrived. It seems we will be unable to kayak any rivers here in Costa Rica…mostly because we’ve yet to find an outfitter that has any kayaks for a reasonable price. Surf lessons-be it regular, wind, or kite-all cost here as much as they do in the USA so that is also out of the cards. We have a few more tricks up our sleeves to get the most we can out of Costa Rica and then we’ll be heading to Panama to get that whitewater kayaking in and maybe see some sort of “big ditch” (I hear they call it a canal.)

A Man, A Plan, A Canal… Panama

Rio Chiriqui

On our way to Panama

More Monkeys

Hola Costa Rica

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