22-27 June - White Water, Volcanoes and Butterflies

Photos coming soon!

Following Tortuguero, we headed by boat/bus to San Jose, then hotfooted it to Turiallba to try to get off the beaten track a little more. We visited some ruins in Guayabo which date back to 2000BC, it was here that people first came to Costa Rica and lived nearly 10,000 strong until 1400 AD at which point they disappeared, leaving archaeologists to ponder over what happened... there's no trace since.

Turiallba is the Costa Rican home of white water rafting, so we found a group (Loco's), and got on the Pacuare River - class 2 to 4 rapids and some brilliant waterfalls, canyons and scenery.

The next night was in Cartago, in preparation for visiting Volcan Irazu. Our impressions: very emerald green lake in the principal crater, and a fantastic lookout, pity the clouds obscured much of the view beyond the volcano - you're supposed to be able to see coast to coast.

Back through San Jose and out the other side to Alajuela, where we stayed at home the first morning so Phil could watch the travesty and injustice perpetrated during Australia's loss to Italy - honestly, what sort of umpiring awards THAT sort of PENALTY in the last 10 seconds of the match - we were robbed!!! Following that, on to the La Guacima Butterfly Farm which exports pupae of dozens of types of butterflies around the world - even Taronga Zoo. Quite impressive, with a very enthusiastic guide who enjoyed feeding some lame butterflies to a praying mantis, a spider and the fish, just so we could watch! This farm is a cooperative of some 300 families who all provide pupae (cocoons) to the farm for distribution... they've even got the extended community involved with an annual mural competition which dots the landscape with a butterfly theme on every other building you see. Good karma despite the praying mantis'!

Yesterday we ventured up Volcan Poas, the world's largest active volcanic crater. It was white, very, very white - a view of clouds everywhere blanked out the whole crater. We did manage to catch about 30 seconds of clear viewing in about 2 hours of waiting.... there's also an acidic lagoon in a secondary crater which we did see quite clearly and a nature trail through a mountain top cloud forest - so not everything was lost in clouds. A coffee stop on the way back had a hummingbird feeding station, which challenged Phil's photographic ability - the little bastards fly bloody quickly!

19-21 June - Tortuguero

Tortuguero is an isolated national park on the North Caribbean coast, which is only accessible by boat or air. This area is known as Costa Rica´s "mini-amazon", and more particularly for the large groups of loggerhead, green sea and leatherback turtles that nest here annually.

We were lucky enough to run into Victor, who works there. He held the boat for us, and we enjoyed the 3-hour trip by boat through close canals surrounded by rainforest, even seeing a crocodile on the way up (and back) along with a lovely sunset mirrored in the still waters of the canals. We also picked up Emily and Mark from an isolated town along the canal, a lovely dutch/english couple we spent much of the next few days with.

We enjoyed a 3-hour canal cruise, which included being soaked, but was enjoyably punctuated by some local narrative on the wildlife. Pity the wildlife was at home keeping warm and dry, unlike us! We chilled through the day, then went out at night with a different tour guide to see a nesting Green Sea Turtle, she was laying a good 60-80 soft-shelled ping-pong sized eggs, then covering it up with her hind flippers... it´s actually quite amazing to see in real life. Turtles are big.

Next morning cruised out again along a fast-flowing river, and were deposited on the doorstep of a banana plantation, unsure of when a `connecting` bus was going to show up. Uneventful trip into San Jose, we´re now here planning a couple of volcano visits, hikes and dives.

Costa Rica really does spoil you for choice.

17-19 Puerto Viejo de Talamanca

Bananas, bananas and more bananas... Phil fell asleep for an hour on the bus and awoke to see more bananas, and was convinced we hadn´t moved anywhere.

Puerto Viejo - touristy town with a calypso feel and loads of americans enjoying their summer break. We hired a bike and went for a ride along the coast to Manzanillo and found more locals and some good snorkelling. Enjoyed a Japanese dinner, and Phil managed to put his hand on a sea urchin, and is still sore several days later. Other than that, we are left wondering if one particular local always lives in a tree in the centre of town, where we saw him lazing for 3 days straight!

PanamaTrip Map

Panama Scorecard
Buses: Thumbs Up (Great Stereo Systems, crowded, hotted up and personalised)

Food: Thumbs Up (Patacones, beans and rice everywhere)

People: Thumbs Up

Traffic: Look Both Ways and Get Used to Horns!

Countryside: High Country and Coast better than Cities

15-17 June - Bocas del Toro - Last days in Panama

To quote the Lonely Planet "If you're looking for a place to get away from it all, Bocas probably isn't the place for you."

It was right, Oh god, we found a tourist trap.... we freaked out at the number of americans in one place. Also the weird, "we're here for you, but we don't really give a rat's ass, give us tourist dollars and leave" sort of attitude we found here. Everyone speaks English too, authenticity is NOT Bocas' strong point. We've got to wonder about Chinese food served with Patacones (a fried squished banana chip served with everything all over panama).

We don't mean to sound completely pissed with Bocas, but our impressions were tarnished by a lack of ALL water to toilets/showers/basins etc throughout the main town centre. Promises of water coming back on were only kept because it rained heavily the following night, filling up local tanks rather than relying on town services.

However, we did have a good day touring the local beaches and dive/snorkel sites. The area itself is quite beautiful with a few islands and mangroves on the caribbean. All the islands are serviced by water taxis.

We joined Bocas Water Sports on their day tour (which was the same route every tour group used.... so we weren't short of people to keep us company)...

Site 1: Coral Cay - lots of tube sponges and sea stars in purples, pinks and oranges and loads of small fish typical to the Caribbean coast. We had lunch at an over-the-water restaurant which was pleasant.

Site 2: Red Frog Beach - a place to check out the tiny local red frogs (about the size of your thumbnail!) and visit one of the few surf beaches in the area.... did we mention the 40 minute maximum visit time to be shared with all the other foreigners.... we didn't spot a single panamanian apart from tour guides on the beach.

Site 3: Hospital Point - so-called because the site was a hospital used to segregate yellow fever victims early 20th century. A wall dive, we were led by Hector, a dive "instructor" (I use the word very loosely) who surged off without his three paying customers and did his own thing. Karen was a bit puzzled when she spotted 3 divers with no dive guide from the surface. (Help - what weird creature is this? Please identify!)


On our way out of Panama - we took a water taxi to Changuinola through the tight canals near local farmland and people living on stilt houses and travelling by boat. Quite a ride... definitely worth a go.

17th June - Border crossing to COSTA RICA!!!!!

Border crossing involved a couple of quick stamps on either side of a single lane, wooden-plank lined, traffic-filled bridge. Everyone was avoiding traffic and carrying all their belongings on their back between countries. On into new territory!

12-13-14 June - Cerro Punta - Boquete

Hi all, the last 3 days have involved the high country in Central Panama... after sleeping a night in David in the lowlands, in the severe heat it was a 2 hour bus trip up to Cerro Punta and beautiful scenic vistas and farmland and above all, a COOL climate. Jumpers needed and hot water for first time in Panama!

La Comida Fantastica de Cerro Punta
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1. Licuado de Fresas (Muy Bueno!! Particulamente con los panqueques, many fresas died to make Karen happy!)
2. Batido de Guanaban o Zarzamora (Phil's choice - I obviously had no idea what I was ordering but it tasted damn good anyway)
3. Arroz con pollo y vegetales (that they kept leftovers of for us and had wrapped up for lunch during the walk the next day.)
4. Bistec Ajillada (which was fantastic also!)

By the way, we're still not sure what the Guanaban is - any thoughts, maybe custard apple?

From Cerro Punta we took a famous Panama walking trail through Parque Nacional Volcan Baru... the trail is known as Sendero Los Quetzales (the Quetzal being a locally famous bird). This was about 6-7 hours of walking through gorgeous forest, high country ridges and lower elevation cloud forests along river banks. We saw a complete lack of Quetzals however. About 3 seconds after stepping out of the forest, the heavens opened and we got pissed on from a great height. We were supposed to have only 3 km to the town of Boquete, this turned out to be 8km through drenching torrential monsoonal rains. And No, it wasnt because of the following sign (pictured below). By the way, we took neither of the suggested paths and found the right road!!

The two guys in the photo are Jose and Roberto (a Spaniard and a Panamanian travelling together) who we had good conversations with on two separate buses, on the way to Cerro Punta and on return from Boquete. Hola!

Sorry there aren't more photos of the region, we saw some great lookouts which were completely whited out... clouds as far as the eye could see, which was about 3 feet. Makes a forest kind of creepy too!

10-11 June - Santa Fe

We ventured up into the mountains for a little break from the coast and a visit to cowboy country, and definitely found it, with cowboys on horses riding up and down the main road... Santa Fe is a small town perched on a mountain in the midst of larger ranges so the scenery was spectacular. Phil however was a little distracted with two armfuls of mozzie/gnat bites so he wasn´t quite so appreciative...

We walked for about 6 hours on the first day... down to a big river and around in a large loop through farmland looking for an elusive orchid farm which we never found despite it being on the maps! Today we caught a ride in a 4wd with two belgian women who were staying in the same hotel, up to Alto de Piedra (a fantastic viewpoint) and down to the Salta (waterfall). We bushbashed along the path, if it could be called that, as it required the steadiness of a mountain goat due to the narrowness, mud and slimy rocks. We did find some spectacular waterfalls and enjoyed a swim in one of the pools. The walk back had nice views which disintegrated into grey with the rain. Santa Fe, two thumbs up, provided you bring repellent!

8/9 June - Peninsula Azuero

Hi all, we ventured across the country from Portobelo (Caribbean Coast) to Chitre, Los Santos and Pedasi on the Pacific Coast. We both got across the whole country by bus for a grand total of $6 EACH. That´s for about 6-7 hours of road travel.

Chitre and Villa de Los Santos were primarily a church/museum tour... baroque stylings in Los Santos, simpler in Chitre, and hot local museums with ceramics from Pre columbian and BC era, and other local costumes and documents including the independence document for Panama.

Pedasi is a little laid back fishing/farming town on the bottom of the peninsula with a yum dulceria (cake shop). And just off the beach is Isla Iguana, which we´ve renamed as crab island due to the astounding amount of crabs - both small hermit crabs and these handsized purple and orange crabs. The noise of them scuttling through the undergrowth is amazing... there were iguanas too (hence the name) but the crabs were something else.


Karen and Ben (a dutch guy we befriended) went snorkelling while Phil was off diving the local reef again. Heaps of fish and at least a dozen moray eels. The first dive site was actually called Los Moranas (Moray Eel). Second dive site was south of the island, similar fish, but a bit murky, but with large schools of jacks and apparently a circling Wahu (I think it was).

For those surfers out there Pedasi and Tonosi are known for their surf - the billabong pro panama comp is held here, and proof in the form of signed posters were on the bakery wall. The beach at Pedasi was pretty calm, but apparently southern facing beaches have much better waves.

3/4 June - Diving Day!!

We teamed up with ScubaPortobelo for Phil´s first dive (and Karen´s snorkel) in Panama!

Dive 1: San Marino, 45 mins @ 15 metres, Air: 60 bar used.

Loads of wildlife on a local coral reef, including parrotfish, trumpet fish, and numerous spyrochetes.





Dive 2: Drake Island, 35 mins @ 12 metres, Air: 60 bar used.

More wildlife including an Arrow Crab and a really tiny octopus.

Water temperature on both dives - 32-34 °C, so Karen could quite happily stay in the water for an hour..... gotta love diving in the Caribbean!

When we got back to shore, we were starving and had a really yummy seafood lunch.

1/2 June - Isla Grande

Isla Grande is about an hour NE along the coast by bus from Portobelo. It is a small island, we visited in the low season, so it only had about 5 other tourists, one of which was an 80 yo polish american named Stan. Stan had an uncanny ability to sneak up on us and start very slow conversations...

The island has a coral reef which is great for snorkelling, Phil saw a dozen lobsters and caught none. :-( Lots of fish to watch, and plenty of sandy beaches. We walked across the island to a local resort, Bananas, and then around and across the rocks until blocked by rocks and sea. Rock climbing was out as the rocks crumbled underhand, and we were too lazy to walk all the way back and around. So we field tested our waterproof bag with camera and all inside... As our only means of escape was to swim for it around the point, to somewhere accessible.

Question for all... What animal is this? If it helps Karen´s response to seeing it was EEWUGH, where as Phils response was to grab the camera, and nearly fall in the rockpool in his eagerness to get a better look!

ESPANOL

Isla Grande es una hora por bus, norte-este de Portobelo, y necesita un barco pequeño para ir alli. Es una isla pequena, que visitamos cuando no hay muchos turistas. Pero uno de los turistas eran Stan, un americano de 80 años que vive en Seattle y visitar sus amigos en sud america cada año. Era un hombre amable pero no puede escuchar muy bueno.

Isla Grande tiene un Reef de coral que es muy bueno para snorkellear. Phil vio muchos langostinos pero no podimos comer esto para cena. Tambien era muchos peces y algunas playas con arena blanca.

30/31 May - Portobelo

Portobelo is an out of the way town on the Caribbean coast. During the 16th and 17th Centuries the Spanish fleets carted the Inca treasures from Peru to their homeland transporting gold by Ship to Panama City, overland to Portobelo and by ship back to Spain. A third of the world´s gold was weighed and taxed in the Portobelo Customs House before it continued on it´s (its) voyage to Spain.

Portobelo was attacked seven times by a mixture of pirates and the English Fleet, with such lofty names as Sir Francis Drake amongst them. Drake died of yellow fever in 1596, and was given a burial at sea just outside the Bay of Portobelo. Anthropological groups have identified the coffin and offered to send it home, but the British Ministry of Defence has declined, saying Drake should, quite appropriately, be left in peace.

Portobelo itself is a small town, yet with lots of life. Our balcony over the central plaza provided a good view of the passing human traffic. Kids playing soccer, old men on the corner, people waiting for buses and rotissery chickens. With minimal shops and no bank (which led to a priest being mugged for the collection plate money, the town is best known for its Iglesia de Cristo Negro (Church of the Black Christ). This statue inspires an annual pilgrimage with a strong African (Congo) influence on the festivities.