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From
the Quetzal to the Canal - 18/05/04
As I said last time, my first impression of Costa Rica was a bit
of a culture shock. Liberia itself was a pleasant enough
town to spend the night in but it didn't have much in the way of
attractions. Just a relatively low-key introduction to the
country.
 The next day I moved on to Monteverde, under 100km away but a
nine hour trip due to bad connections and worse roads.
Still the wait was eased by a friendly baker who provided me
with unlimited free coffee while I sampled some of his tasty
bread-based offerings. At Monteverde I was greeted off the bus
by Brendan and Becky who had been there a couple of days and
later on I bumped into Luke and Poppy who had also turned up in
town. After drinks that night the others went their
separate ways the next day and I started to explore the area,
undertaking extensive treks into the surrounding hillside,
pastures and cloud forest, though disappointingly I didn't see
much wildlife, certainly not the elusive Quetzal (a famous
inhabitant of Central America and high on every dedicated
Twitchers list). In order to recover after these treks I
visited the Monteverde cheese factory and indulged in their
delicious home-made ice-cream. Monteverde is very much
like the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia, full of tacky
attractions. But whereas the Camerons had tea plantations,
strawberry farms, rose gardens, honey farms, butterfly gardens
and buddhist temples and you can visit the whole lot on a tour
for about $5, Monteverde has coffee plantations, orchid gardens,
frog house, serpentarium, insect museum and the aforementioned
cheese factory, as well as the two cloud forest nature reserves,
all with at least a $6 entrance fee. Needless to say I visited
none... except the shop at the cheese factory.
Thoroughly tired I moved on
next to La Fortuna, where the main (only?) attraction is the
very active Arenal volcano looming over the horizon.
Unfortunately whilst I was there it rained continuously and for
the most part I couldn't even see the base of the volcano, let
alone the summit. After waking up to another torrential
downpour I admitted defeat, bought a postcard of what it should
look like and headed on to San José.
Monteverde trail
San José is not a pretty city and you can't use the terms
familiar to the other Central American capitals, i.e. historic,
colonial, vibrant, active, etc. It isn't even particularly
dangerous. In fact the word that best describes the grey
mass of shopping precinct, monolithic towers and cement plazas
is "Seventies". Very 70's. But then again the
main attraction in Costa Rica is the environment and wildlife.
Having said that it was pleasant enough to stroll around for a
few hours and as I was leaving on the bus to San Isidro de
General the next day I regretted not dedicating more time to the
city as we passed some nicer looking areas, both in the centre
and in the leafy, University suburbs.
As it happens I only stayed in San Isidro long enough to buy a
bus ticket onwards, this municipal town not encouraging a longer
stay. I eventually found myself in San Vito, a small hill town
just north of the Panama border. It is a peaceful little
town formed by Italian immigrants after WWII and as a result you
can indulge in all sorts of treats such as proper pizzas and
pasta. I however had become addicted to the Costa Rican
casados (rice n' beans, meat, salad and plantain set meals) so
missed out on the Italian culinary delights. Again the
surrounding countryside up here was very scenic and once again I
went off walking for many hours.
Like I said, Costa Rica is by far the most touristed country in
Central America. This has a variety of effects.
First it means everything is more expensive, BUT in most cases
you get more for your money as the infrastructure is better
developed. Secondly, you can see what stimulated the
tourism growth - the national parks, countryside and wildlife
live up to its claims as an eco-tourist paradise. This
does mean more people. Costa Rica was surprisingly one of
my favourite countries, I normally seem to be more impressed and
happier in the lesser travelled, more undeveloped places, but it
seemed to have the right mix of everything.
Slightly disappointed not to have had more time to see more of
what Costa Rica had to offer I came down from the hills and
crossed the border into Panama. After a quick minibus ride
to David, the provincial capital, I transferred onto a chicken
bus up to Boquete in the Chiriqui highlands. Following the same
trend as Monteverde and San Vito, the Chiriquis offer a variety
of roads, treks and trails ro follow, with stops along the way
at coffee plantations, farms, free gardens, fields of
strawberries and other 'attractions'. The first days
walking was interrupted several times by heavy rains and slowed
at others by the not unwelcome light showers ("Its
spitting, Its spitting!"), this was OK however as my
friendly guesthouse owner Pancho had supplied me with a map
scrawled with his directions and a jumper to protect against the
rains. I stopped for a while at the cunningly titled free,
and pretty, garden 'Mi Jardin es su Jardin' (My Garden is your
Garden) complete with fibreglass animals among the flowerbeds.
After leaving the gardens the rest of the walk took a leisurely
3 hours. Upon returning to town I undertook a second hike
up Cerro la Popa, offering great views of the town in the valley
below. Returning from this hike I bumped into Brendan and
Becky and we all decided to undertake Pancho's 6.5 hour trek the
next day. This again passed the coffee plantation and
gardens before continuing on past a neglected swimming pool with
torturous looking slide and diving board, past a basaltic wall
(the highlight of the walk!), up and down hills, beside and over
rickety wooden bridges and past a road-side waterfall. It
led up to the start of the Quetzal trail but this being another
6.5 hour walk we sacrificed the last chance to spot this phantom
bird and started the climb over the hill and descent back into
town.
Heading out to Bocas del Toro
Again we went our separate
ways and I headed to the Caribbean coast, despite 11 days of
tropical storms and TV reports of flooding in the Bocas del Toro
province! Bocas is similar to the other Caribbean islands
I have visited on this trip (Caye Caulker and Roatan) in that it
is heavily populated by English and patois speaking
"islanders". Due to the still unstable, but much
more positive, weather situation I decided to devote my time to
more walking as opposed to any attempt at sun-bathing. The
first day I headed to a cave in the middle of the island, got
caught in a storm, saw the cave had started charging a $1 fee,
didn't bother paying, turned around and walked back, checking in
on the rubbish-strewn beaches on the way back. Tropical paradise
this was not. In fairness most of the rubbish seemed to be due
to the storm and I also witnessed big gangs of men trying to fix
the islands electrical and telecommunications systems whilst
walking. I have been assured that the beaches are normally much
nicer. The second full day I returned to a viewpoint about
an hour out of town that I had enjoyed the day before. All
in all I had a very enjoyable three days on Bocas del Toro and
it was a new experience to walk in hot and humid conditions,
much more gruelling.
After a one night stopover back in David on the way back I
turned up in Panama city, again in the middle of a storm.
The supposedly amazing crossing of the Bridge of the Americas
was a non-event as visibility was down to about 20 feet!
Panama City is probably my favourite capital city in Central
America, simply because it has a wide range of places to go and
things to see and do. It is also one of the most dangerous
(though this is restricted to certain areas) and walking around
the Casco Antigua was probably the most unsafe I have felt since
walking around Naples, and that was a long time ago.
Casco Antigua, Panama City
The first day I undertook this walk around the Casco Antigua
area. Despite the feeling of insecurity it is an interesting
area to wander, full of neglected wooden slat buildings, old
churches and colonial buildings, the Panama Canal museum and
also the shiny clean and heavily guarded home of the president,
somehow you felt safer there! In the afternoon I took a
bus out to Miraflores locks to see the famous waterway in action
and witnessed a true feat of engineering in all its glory.
Somehow I managed, totally by accident, to evade the $10
entrance fee. I know my past records suggest a pre-meditated
avoidance of all cover charges but I swear this time it was
unwittingly done. Honest. Still the cost saved there was halved
by the necessary purchase of a disposable camera as the ship
passed through the lock, mine having died a strange death! You
win some, you lose some I guess!
Yesterday I wandered around some of the more opulent areas of
Panama city including the financial district and more lavish
residential areas which provided a different perspective than
that of Casco Antigua and the Calidonia area that I am staying
in. I also went across to the far side of town to visit the
ruins of Panama Viejo, the site of the very first settlement
here which was very interesting and a quiet escape from the
maelstrom of the city centre. Today I have done very little,
other than meeting up with Luke and Poppy a final time this
morning.
Panama has also been one of my favourite countries, primarily
due to the range of attractions - hills, beaches, towns and
cities, old ruins (though something pre-Colombian would have
been very impressive) and the world-famous canal.
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