Panama - it's not just about the canal

You'd think that we'd have got the hang of border crossings by now, considering how many we have passed through, but it doesn't seem to get any easier. We reached the Costa Rica/Panama border in good time on Thursday morning (8th December) and unsurprisingly there were no directions or signs and there were the usual hoards of people milling around everywhere. We picked up a helpful 'fixer' who earned himself a few dollars by steering us around the various officials but it didn't seem to speed our passage much, it was two hours five minutes this time to get through.

After a late lunch we headed east along the Pan American highway for a while and then turned off south to a small fishing village called Boca Chica where we stayed for a couple of nights.
The village suited us very well. It was a bit shabby but not sleazy, scruffy but not dirty and little children ran freely in and out of the banana plantations.

Health and safety Panama style

Supper on Thursday evening was at the establishment of Senora Wimpey. Alan called her that in homage to the character in Popeye movies who was somewhat generously built in the rear section. Her establishment was very relaxed, consisting of a corrugated iron roof, a concrete floor and a number of white plastic tables and chairs. Amongst these, in no particular order, roamed children, chicken and dogs although only the latter seemed to be interested in our food. Supper however was a triumph, it was a fish called corvina and it tasted wonderful.

Fishing boat setting out to sea at Boca Chica

On Friday morning we pottered down to the boat dock past all the fishing nets drying in the sun and asked around until we found somebody who was prepared to take us out to the islands, of which there are apparently more than a hundred. Our boatman took as around various islands for a while and then we were dropped off at a little uninhabited island with a palm fringed, pure white sandy 'Bounty bar' beach on both sides with just a very small ridge of rock between the two sides.

Our personal treasure island

Sue pretending to be Ursula Andress

After an hour or so of gentle snorkelling we picked up the boat again and were taken to another larger island where there was a restaurant which had both beer and prawns. The whole trip (about four hours) was immensely enjoyable and after we got back we both agreed that the little 'treasure island' that our boatman took us to must rank among one of the most wonderful places we have ever visited.

Lunch stop

Bounty bar country

Blue footed booby landing on our boat

On Saturday morning we set off on the road again heading east through Panama with the hope that we might get to the Darien eventually. The Darien is an area, about 200 kilometres long, of thick jungle which stretches between Panama and Columbia and is inhabited primarily by indigenous Indian communities. One of the main attractions, particularly for Alan, was the possibility of seeing one or more Harpy eagles which inhabit the area.

After stopping off at a rather seedy town on the Pan American Highway for lunch and to pick up provisions we discovered that our fridge was no longer working. Alan lifted the bonnet and started rummaging around and scratching his head and before too long a chap came along and he also started rummaging around under the bonnet. Ultimately it was agreed that what we probably needed was a new domestic battery and, like so many other kind people that we have met on our trip, the chap then went out of his way to take us to a 'Casa de Baterias'. Wonder of wonders, the battery specialist stocked the correct Optima battery and, after checking that ours was completely dead, a new one was duly fitted and the fridge started buzzing nicely again.

On Sunday we had another long drive along the Pan American highway which included navigating our way through Panama city. Panama City itself was not a delight to drive through, in fact it was b....y awful. Matron, the verbal manifestation of MapsMe,  threw up her hands in horror and we navigated by a combination of intuition, the compass and reference to MapsMe without Matron's interference.

We had a bit of trouble finding somewhere to stay on Sunday evening but eventually found a pleasant enough place which was something between a farm and a hotel not far from some attractive lakes.

Farm stay at La Margarita

Our plan to have a day's respite visiting the lakes did not come to fruition. When we got up on Monday morning the light in Lucy's rear door was not working, the invertor was complaining and although the fridge was buzzing it was not cold. To our simple minds this suggested that the means whereby the power is transmitted from the primary battery to the secondary battery had somehow become interrupted. So, we had a day of electro-mechanics instead.

This involved returning to Panama City which did not fill us with joy. First stop was at a 'Casa de Baterias' who said they couldn't help because the problem was not the battery, it was the electrics that were 'mal'. The chap there pointed us in the direction of an auto electrical mechanic and he rummaged around inside the vehicle in the time honoured manner, scratched his nose in a way that has become ominously familiar and then directed us to a different and even more specialised auto electrical engineer.

The second specialist was a fine fella, he rummaged around quite a lot and said he thought he could sort it out. After about an hour and a half he decided that he couldn't fix it but he thought his brother could. Whilst all this had been going on we had got chatting to an exceedingly nice young taxi driver whose name was Gustavo and he then guided us through the heavy Panama traffic to specialist number three. By this time it was about four in the afternoon and specialist number three, Senor Juan, said he could fix it but not today and asked us to return at eight o'clock the following morning.

Faced with the prospect of a four hour drive back to La Margarita where we were staying and a four hour drive in the morning to get to the mecanico by eight in the morning, our only sensible option was to spend the night in Panama city. Gustavo then took us across the city to a perfectly nice hotel which we would never have otherwise found which charged us only thirty dollars a night for a perfectly decent room.

We delivered Lucy to Senor Juan at eight o'clock on Tuesday morning and he had the vehicle until half past three. We filled in the time sitting on a tour bus, complete with commentary in four languages which we neither of us listened to. We did however go and have a look at one of the locks on the canal but there were no ships in it at the time. The canal system runs some 80 kilometres from the Caribbean to the Pacific and consists of lakes and inlets connected together by stretches of canal with locks. We did wonder why there are locks and apparently it is because the lake is significantly higher than sea level on either the Pacific or Caribbean side.

Pacific to the left, Caribbean to the right

The under side of Panama City

Old Panama fish market

Fishing fleet with Panama City skyline behind

When we returned to Senor Juan at half past three he had indeed fixed the electrics but even he wasn't quite sure how he'd managed it. So, we were good to go again!

By mid afternoon on Wednesday 14th December we were in the Darien. Our aim was to get to La Chunga, a village inhabited by the Embera indigenous people, where we had the best chance of being taken to see a Harpy eagle's nest. After driving for about four and a half hours we got to Puerto Quimba where the road finishes beside a river and where there were lots of boats and a lot of army who asked us lots of questions. Having satisfied them that we were not smuggling cocaine we left Lucy in their care and got into a very rickety launch and sped off to the village of La Palma where we stopped for the night.

On the way to La Palma

Riverside property at La Palma

Nobody in La Palma could tell us when or if there would be a boat leaving for La Chunga which is reached by going some way around the Darien coastline and then up the Rio Sambu. So, it was more in hope than expectation that we wandered down to the boat dock on Thursday morning. By a stroke of serendipity a launch was leaving right then and after a two and a half hour boat trip and a forty five minute walk through the swampy, steaming, mosquito infested jungle we arrived at the Embera village of La Chunga.

Fishing boat adorned with pelicans

The pontoon on Rio Sambu

Walking through the swamp to La Chunga

We were immediately greeted by the village 'hospitality officer' and guide who took us to our lodgings with one of the local families. Sue was slightly fazed to begin with as our bedroom was a piece of wooden floor shared with several sacks of rice and the washing, however someone produced a mattress and mozzie net later on so all was well.

The La Chunga Hilton

Honeymoon suite at La Chunga Hilton

The slightly disappointing news was that the Harpy eagles are no longer in this area. We found out later that one of the nesting pair was shot and killed a couple of years ago, apparently by a 'jealous' member of a neighbouring community who resented the little bit of 'tourism' that La Chnuga was getting from the interest in the birds. The surviving eagle had unsurprisingly left the area after its mate was killed.

We spent a wonderful couple of days in the village. The Senora cooked our meals with the food we had brought with us, our guide took us for walks in the jungle, Alan wandered around taking photographs whilst Sue chilled out in a hammock, we bathed in the river and generally soaked up the atmosphere of the village.

Village house, La Chunga

La Chunga village

I'm a celebrity, get me out of here

Bath time in La Chunga river

Curassow, La Chunga

Squirrel monkey, La Chunga

La Chunga river

We really warmed to this small Embera village. There was a pervading air of contentment and happiness, we never heard any signs of discord, the children ran freely and we only heard a child cry once when he banged his head. Their horizons are limited by the river and the jungle of the Darien but it seemed to us that their wealth could be counted by the fewness of their wants.

La Chunga swimming club

A child's life in La Chunga

Children playing in La Chunga

Wash day, La Chunga river

Siesta time

The journey back from La Chunga on Saturday was not without its events. First of all we had to get to the launch pick up point which involved walking at two thirty in the morning with only a half moon along a muddy track and then fording a river (let it be noted that Alan gave Sue a piggy back for this bit). We got to the boardwalk which consisted of a half mile long series of rotting planks with swamp underneath harbouring various unkind creatures upon which one would not wish to land. With the help of our mentor and guide, his wife and three torches we got to the pontoon without mishap.

The first launch that came along was full to overflowing so we let it go and so frankly was the second one but as there were only two we got into the second one. We then had a three and a half to four hour trip which to begin with involved going at fairly high speed with a grossly overloaded boat down a muddy river that was full of fallen trees. Luckily there was a man sitting on the prow with a large flashlight and depending upon the degree of anxiety with which he was flashing it the driver either went to left or to right.

All was well until we got out on the open sea when a fishing net snagged the propeller which took some time to disentangle. Then about a mile from La Palma we ran out of fuel so the driver picked up a very large single bladed paddle and he, Alan and someone else took it in turns to paddle the boat along the shoreline until another launch came along and gave us a tow as far as the gasoline station at La Palma. Having refuelled we finally got back to Puerto Quimba where Lucy had been domiciled for three days and, lo and behold, there she was without a screw missing!

Our little adventure into the Darien was a wonderful experience but Sue, for one, was quite pleased to get back to civilisation and a hot shower! Since we returned to Panama City on Saturday 17th December our time has been devoted to catching up on the usual admin and domestic tasks but, more importantly, working through the complexities of getting Lucy shipped across to Cartagena in Columbia, there being no road through the Darien gap.

The first stage involved taking Lucy to the Vehicle Inspectorate in Panama City early on Monday morning. We had been fortunate in being able to link up with a fellow traveller, a young American called Josh, in Nicaragua and we had agreed to share a 40 foot container, thus reducing our costs. Josh had found a really helpful agent, Boris, who gave us very clear step by step instructions of exactly what we needed to do.

We thought the inspection would be very detailed but, in the event, it only involved them making a note of the chassis number and then telling us to come back after two o'clock to collect a certificate. We went back at about three o'clock and then waited around until about half past four when we got the required certificate saying that the vehicle could be exported.

We all met up with Boris in Colon (the port city at the northern end of the canal) on Tuesday morning and, having produced five photocopies of just about every document and piece of paper in our admin folder, we proceeded to customs. The customs office was in festive mood and most of the personnel were wearing party hats and reindeer horns but it didn't seem to make them any more efficient.

From there we took the trucks, in the company of Boris, to the container port which actually more closely resembled a large scrapyard. The vehicle was reversed onto a low loader and the low loader was then jacked up so that Alan could drive it into the container and then exactly the same procedure happened with Josh's vehicle. They then secured the vehicles with wheel blocks and large nylon straps and then they closed and sealed the container with the customs seal. They wouldn't let Alan put a padlock on the outside due to customs regulations so we hope Lucy will be safe on her journey.

Loading Lucy into the container

Lucy safely tucked up in the container

Our flight to Cartagena leaves early tomorrow morning, Friday 23rd December, and so a new chapter will begin. Our Christmas will be a different one this year and we shall miss spending it with our loved ones but we shall certainly be raising a glass of margarita or two in the warm Columbian sunshine.

Costa RIca- - do ya wan' fries with that?

Instead of crossing to Costa Rica as planned on Thursday 24th November we remained in San Carlos awaiting the arrival of Otto. Lest it be thought that Otto is an old friend from Munich we need to say that Otto was in fact a Category 2 hurricane. Otto made landfall at San Juan de Nord on the Caribbean coast at about 7 am and then made its way steadily inland reaching San Carlos just after lunch. We decided then that we had made the right decision to stay put as Otto turned out to be quite an impressive hurricane and, in any event, we found out later that the border crossing close to San Carlos had been closed.

Predicted path of Hurricane Otto

After finding some lunch at one of the few restaurants that was still open we went back to our hotel and then the wind really started to blow and the rain started to lash down and after a little while the power failed, various bits of corrugated iron roofs started flying around and branches of trees falling off.

In typical fashion, Alan decided to walk along to the lake front in order to take some photographs of the hurricane in action, much to Sue's dismay who thought he was going to get decapitated by flying roofs, but he came back unscathed!

Palm tree about to be blown over

We then sat on the khonde along with a bunch of Honduran motor bikers who called themselves 'Los Piratos' and were happily working their way through a bottle of Jack Daniels and a rather bemused looking French couple who had only just arrived in Central America. They stood in a corner hugging each other and periodically poking their heads round the door post and looking at the mayhem that was going on outside and then going back to their mutual comforting routine.

At the height of the hurricane

The horizontal rain continued for about two hours and then everything was quiet for a couple of hours whilst we were in the eye of the storm and then the wind and rain started up again, this time coming from the opposite direction but not for nearly as long as it had previously.

It was an interesting experience. We felt ourselves exposed to nature red in tooth and claw and when some of the more impressive gusts were going on we realised just how insignificant man is in the great scheme of things.

Supper was a bottle of wine and a bag of crisps which we enjoyed whilst our IPod played our favourite classical music and our camping light illuminated our scummy little hotel room.

Next morning there did not appear to be too much damage. There were a lot of trees down but mercifully none that we saw had landed on any houses which were  mostly intact. So we set off bright and early to cross the border only to discover that it was still closed.

Cleaning up after the hurricane

Now, San Carlos is on the south eastern side of Lake Nicaragua whilst the only other crossing is near the south western side of the lake but unfortunately there is no road on the southern side to connect them. Not wishing to hang around in San Carlos we decided to drive all the way back up and around the lake (a mere 100 kilometres long by 70 kilometres wide) to Granada which is situated on the north eastern side of the lake.

Crested caracara seen on road back to Granada

After an overnight stop in Granada we had an uneventful trip to the border on Saturday morning. The Nicaragua/Costa Rica border gets the putty medal for the most shambolic border crossing that we have found so far and it also gets the record for time taken (two hours thirty five minutes).  Among the delights was the fact that everybody in the customs department had gone to lunch so there was a substantial queue building up until one of them sauntered back to his station. The man at the insurance office was one of these types who inspects every document from both sides and upside down and we're reasonably sure he'd never seen a form V5 before.

We got all these trials and tribulations out of the way and finally arrived in the city of Liberia at about six in the evening.

There's not much of interest in Liberia itself but we had a couple of days there to catch up on domestic chores and on Monday we took a trip to Buena Vista, a local nature reserve, where we picked up a guide and went for a very pleasant walk through the jungle followed by lunch and some lovely hot springs to laze around in.

Crested blue jay, Buena Vista nature reserve

Waterfalls at Buena Vista

On Tuesday 29th November we set off for Lago Arenal and the volcano of the same name. Lake Arenal is the largest lake in Costa Rica (it's actually a man-made lake created when the Arenal dam was built in 1973) and is quite beautiful set against the rolling hills and with the majestic volcano at one end. Volcan Arenal is reportedly one of the ten most active volcanoes in the world. You cannot climb it due to the constant showers of boulders and toxic gases that it emits. However, on a clear night you can apparently see the red lava streaming down the slopes or shooting high into the air. Naturally we were keen to view this spectacle and so we pitched up at a small campsite next to some developed hot springs right at the base on the volcano, so close in fact that there were basalt boulders all around us.

Lunch stop at Lago Arenal

We arranged to do a canoe trip on the Rio Frio (the same Rio Frio that we had been on in Nicaragua close to the border at San Carlos) in an area called the Cana Negro which is full of wildlife. It had been raining ever since we arrived at the campsite on Tuesday afternoon and it was still raining when we got up at six am on Wednesday for our canoe trip.

After a two hour drive we got to the Rio Frio and our guide looked at the river and decided that he would rather not take canoes out on it because it was in spate due to all the rain and flooding from the hurricane. In fact, on the way there we saw much of the damage the hurricane had done on the Costa Rican side with numerous trees flattened and widespread flooding. Ten people were actually killed in the town of Upala following massive mudslides and flooding there. Costa Rica has not suffered a hurricane for over 170 years and they were taken very much by surprise.

So, we had to settle with going on a river launch along with a dozen other people and a jolly tour guide (definitely not Alan's cup of tea). The trip was however admittedly good. We saw a lot of Capuchin monkeys, spider monkeys, howler monkeys, a couple of sloths, some exceedingly large iguanas, a Jesus Christ lizard (so called because it can run across water on its two back legs), as well as numerous birds.

Black howler monkey, Cana Negro

Three toed sloth

Grumpy looking female iguana

Impressive male iguana

Jesus Christ lizard

Capuchin monkey

When we got back to the campsite it was still raining, the blessed volcano was still shrouded in mist as it had been ever since we arrived and we were wading around in about six inches of mud. But were we downhearted? Well actually yes, a little bit, but we got over it!

Campsite at Arenal with invisible volcano behind

Thursday was a better day. The rain cleared in time for us to de-camp and then we set off back round Lake Arenal to Monte Verde cloud forest which sits high on a mountain ridge.

Monte Verde, like Lake Arenal, is very much geared to tourism and has been sanitised somewhat to provide the 'ultimate cloud forest experience' with prices to match. It is however undoubtedly a beautiful place and we were lucky enough to find a small hotel with a cabin opening out onto a lovely wild garden which was teeming with humming birds and nature trails where we could explore the forest.

We went to Monte Verde cloud forest reserve on Friday on an unusually clear day and spent about four hours wandering around in the forest, or rather the tiny little bit of it which is accessible to tourists. We didn't see much in the way of wildlife but we saw a lot of trees and enjoyed the moss covered orchid clad mighty big trees that grow in that area.

One of the main excitements was when Sue nearly tripped over a tarantula. It was a very nice friendly orange and black tarantula and it posed nicely for us and then wandered off in the direction of some shrubbery.

Big hairy tarantula

After that we went and stood on a lookout and looked out over miles and miles of verdant cloud forest and across to Lake Arenal and life felt good.

The top of the cloud forest

View of Lake Arenal from the top of the cloud forest

And, of course, we did an early morning walk with a very pleasant and knowledgeable guide (whom we had to ourselves this time) and were rewarded with viewings of numerous beautiful birds and a family of Capuchin monkeys who posed obligingly for their portraits.

White bearded Capuchin monkey, Monte Verde

Blue crowned motmot, Monte Verde

Emerald hummingbird, outside our cabana

Another emerald hummingbird

By Sunday morning the rain and cloud were enveloping us again so we decided it was time to leave the cloud forest. We drove down the pacific coast to the town of Quepos which is close to another very small national park of which much good has been spoken.

The park is in a place called Manuel Antonio which is one of the main tourist destinations in Costa Rica, rammed with hotels and restaurants and very expensive, so we were glad to be staying in Quepos which is a local fishing town, a little rough around the edges but where we felt much more at home. The gutters in the streets here seem to have water in them on such a permanent basis that they actually have minnow size fish in them, a phenomenon which neither of us has come across before.

We tried to visit the park on Monday. We got most of the way there and then a man jumped out into the road and waved his arms and said the park is closed today and, by the way, why don't you park here and we can do this, that and the other tour for you, so we didn't.

We turned around and went down a track and parked up close to the beach and had a walk in both directions. One end was very busy with people on sun loungers, but the other end was much quieter and we noticed that there was a place where some people had brought their vehicles down onto the beach. Alan said wouldn't it be nice to bring Lucy down onto the beach for us to have lunch and then disappeared for an hour because the track leading back to the road where we had parked Lucy was about a mile away. Needless to say he had his collar felt when he finally returned with the vehicle but then we had a very nice lunch looking at the surf and the pelicans and the frigate birds.

The beach at Manuel Antonio

Rocky shoreline and pelican, Manuel Antonio

Lunch stop on the beach

Lucy was booked in for a 10,000 mile service yesterday, Tuesday 6th December, but once that was done we did finally go to the Manuel Antonio national park. It was something of a disappointment although only in so far as the predominant species was homo sapiens. We duly went to the entrance and solemnly trooped along together with about 500 other people all doing exactly the same thing and most of them talking.

There was however plenty of wildlife. We saw a number of sloths including one with a baby clutched to its breast and when we got to the beach which was undeniably beautiful there were racoons, coati and capuchin monkeys. Unfortunately, because the place had become so corrupted with tourists the animal life spent most of their time trying to nick people's food.

Racoon on the beach at Manuel Antonio National Park

The highlight of our visit to the park was a lovely swim in the beautiful semi-circular bay, perfectly shaped with lovely golden sands and warm sea.

Ready for a swim

We had a discussion yesterday evening about what we should do and where we should go next and we decided that as time is a little limited (we have to be in Panama city by 20th December to get Lucy loaded onto the container ship for Cartagena in Columbia) we will crack on straight away for Panama. So, we departed this morning and have stopped at a pretty coastal spot close to the border with the intention of crossing tomorrow.

It has been raining fairly unremittingly for the last two or three days so we will head along the Pacific side in the hope that the weather might be slightly better than on the Caribbean side. Hope springs eternal ....

Our time in Costa Rica has been quite short so we can't claim to have explored it as thoroughly as some of the other countries we have visited. However, our overwhelming impression is that it is civilised, organised, very much under American influence and with a highly developed tourist industry. Not really our thing.