Golfo de Chiriqui

This place was referred to as the gem of the Chiriqui region by our guidebook, so we had to give it a try.


From David, we got a bus to the turn-off to Horconcitos. We were waiting for a pickup taxi, along with several other people, when a woman in a bright yellow pickup stopped. It wasn't an actual taxi; the woman driving seemed to be there to give some fellow locals a lift. But she asked us if we wanted to pay $15 for the ride we needed. Our guidebook said the journey would cost $15-20, and the guidebook prices are always lower than the current prices. So we took her up on her offer. We hopped into the back with our backpacks and three other blokes, and we were off.


She thought we were mental - I suppose we were grinning rather maniacally...
All the other passengers got dropped off in nearby Horconcitos, where some guy put more petrol into the truck. We were disconcerted to see him suck on the tube to get the petrol flowing from a drum into the tank, but he seemed to know what he was doing. Our driver invited us to move into the cab of the truck, and she found it humorous (or perhaps amusingly stupid?) that we chose the open air in the back of the truck. We drove for a wee while along a gravel road, past open spaces and bemused cows. Then we arrived at the dock in Boca Chica, just 200 metres away from Isla Boca Brava.

We then negotiated with a 12-year-old lad to boat us to the island. He wanted $2 each, but we only had $3,85 in change. Luckily he took it! We wondered if he went rather slowly just to make the fare seem more reasonable. We pulled up to the dock for the only hotel on the island, and we were thrilled to see lots of little crabs at the water's edge. We liked the place already!

We walked up and up to the main building and found a room available. After some very refreshing ice cream, we rented a double kayak and set off for a few hours. We stopped at three beaches on nearby islands and were especially thrilled with the first one. There were millions of hermit crabs as well as regular crabs; as we neared them, the hermit crabs crawled into their shells, and the regular crabs scarpered into their sand holes. They were genius. Chris spotted a gorgeous, stripey iguana on the beach; he looked lazy but ran away quickly enough when we got close. Chris also spotted a lovey bird of prey; we're not sure what kind of bird it was, but it had lovely spots on its belly and underneath its wings. I was enjoying walking along the lovely, soft sand sans shoes until I noticed more and more worms in the wee rivulets of water we were walking through. Plus there were loads of little snails in there, spiders sneaking about, and some freaky-looking bugs crawling all over the rocks we passed. I was glad to get back to the kayak and put my shoes back on!


We then went to two other beaches. One seemed to have only the freaky-looking bugs and large snails, so we didn't stay long. The other had loads of gorgeous rocks of every colour. It also had loads of those freaky-looking bugs, so we didn't stay terribly long there either. We went back to the first beach and saw the spotty bird of prey hanging out on the sand. We let the waves take us up to the sand, and we stayed a wee while to see what the bird would get up to...not much. The stripey lizard was nowhere to be seen.


We got back to the hotel and were happy to rinse off all the sand and muck we'd accumulated, then we had a surprisingly nice dinner in the hotel restaurant. We ate on the top story with gorgeous views of the surrounding islands as the sun slowly set.

On the trail of Quetzals...

We'd read and been told by travellers and locals alike that el Sendero Los Quetzales (The Quetzals Trail) is gorgeous and a good opportunity to see the elusive birds. It's supposed to be one of the most beautiful hikes in Panama. So we had to check it out.


We based ourselves in David, Panama's second largest city, for this. We happily stayed in the Purple House, a very cool hostel run by the very helpful Andrea. Highlights at the hostel included helping myself to lots of different nail polishes (including glittery ones!) and Iff making ACE mac and cheese. Brilliant!

Our second day there, we set out early for a bus to Cerro Punta, a wee town two hours away. It's famous for having lovely organic strawberries. So we stopped at a hotel in town and tried a gorgeous strawberry milkshake before heading off on our hike. We then got a taxi for the five kilometres to the end of the paved road. We walked two kilometres up a steep hill to get to the start of the trail. This is when Chris's highlight happened:


This gorgeous kitten is about six months old and loves to play. We got so many pictures of Chris playing with the kitten, that the camera batteries wore out! Luckily we had our phone as well so were able to take some pictures during the hike.

The hike itself was lovely. It goes through cloud forest habitat, full of lush vegetation and some huge trees. We went in the more downhill direction so it was never really difficult, but we took our time to enjoy the gorgeous views. There was plenty of rain and mud, which kept our shoes filled with rocks and muck. So whenever we had the opportunity to cross a stream or river, we were glad to wash it all off our feet and out of our shoes. We never managed to spot a quetzal, but we saw some other lovely birds. Iff managed to spot a gorgeous woodpecker, which was my wildlife highlight.

After just a few hours, we crossed a bridge and were surprised to emerge onto a road. We then walked about three kilometres to the end of the trail, all uphill! We encountered a group of four very clean (as opposed to us; although we had dried out a bit, we still had plenty of mud to show for our trek) tourists who grilled us about the hike. Would an hour into it allow them to see the beauty of it? Sure! Would they get all wet (looking suspiciously at our rain jackets and damp clothes)? Nah! Of course the rain had stopped by then.

We got to the traihead and saw a sign indicating that Boquete was only three kilometres away. That was a pleasant surprise; our guidebook said that Boquete was eight kilometres away! We could walk it, no worries; plenty of time. A family drove past us and offered us a lift into Boquete, but we fancied the wee bit of exercise. Surely we'd get to Boquete on our own in no time! Two hours later, our feet were killing us, and Boquete was nowhere in sight. At one point, a taxi drove past with the group of (presumably still clean) four tourists in it! They waved as the taxi drove around us.

We walked and walked and walked. It was 6pm, and we weren't sure when the last bus would leave Boquete for David, so we were getting anxious. We kept asking locals if we were headed in the right direction, and they all said we were. At last we got to the outskirts of Boquete. It was starting to get darker, and our legs felt like rubber. But then we saw some amazing rock formations, little versions of the Giant's Causeway, and we knew we might have missed them if we'd gotten a lift into town.


We walked and walked some more and finally got to the Boquete bus stop at 6:45pm. We were so happy to find a bus waiting there. We collapsed into a seat and ate the rest of the pasta we'd brought along for lunch. The bus left at 7pm, and we couldn't stop appreciating the fact that we'd made it in time. We'd already paid for our hostel room in David, and all of our stuff was there. It would have been really inconvenient if we'd been stuck in Boquete for the night. Whew!

We got back to David and to the hostel with no problems. We then intended to get up early the next day and head to El Valle, nearer to Panama City. But when the alarm went off the next morning, we weren't going anywhere. We spent the day chilling, catching up on laundry, and sampling some lovely falafel at a Lebanese restaurant in town. We also decided to change our plans a bit; next we're off to Isla Boca Brava...

Row, row, row your boat...

After a day of hard travel we wound up in Boquete - which is a sweet little mountain town in the Chiriqui highlands near Panama's second city of David. Chiriqui is such a nice place that thousands of Americans have taken it upon themselves to retire there. Luckily the influx has not yet reached the level at which they have a McDonalds, but is high enough that there are plenty of useful services like good restaurants, comfortable lodgings and a supermarket or two. The main reason of our visit was not simply to sample the local fare - I was in the market for the local speciality - white water rafting!


For those unfamiliar with the term (is there anyone?) the idea is that you and a team of fellow thrill-seekers board a rubber dinghy and try to avoid as many rocks as possible while staying in the raft. On a sale of 1-5 these rapids are 3-4 so a good time was pretty much guaranteed. Rafting is not Trace's idea of a good time (just like jumping off a cliff attached to a piece of string doesn't particularly appeal to me) so she stayed in bed while I set off to tame the savage river.

When I boarded the bus I found that I was to be rafting with an entire (23 strong) school party - twenty seventeen year olds and their three teachers. While that wasn't exactly a wonderful prospect, at least they were English speakers (they're from Staffordshire) and we ended up having quite a good laugh. The students were divided into fives and each five wound up with either a teacher or me plus a guide. I was 'entrusted' with five of the little 'uns and luckily we managed to get to the end without losing any.

To begin with the water was pretty rough. We had a few hairy moments straight away when we almost lost some people overboard but on the whole we survived unscathed. Things got a whole lot worse pretty quickly when we hit the next set of rapids. We were pitched around a bit and suddenly seven had become five. After a quick glance around we saw that one of the crew had managed to hang onto the side but the other had already been swept away. Worse still, in the confusion, we'd suffered a casualty as someone's paddle had ended up cracking a girl across the face. As I hauled the nearby 'overboardee' into the raft, the guide was trying to steer us past the worst of the rocks and into the calmer water at the edge of the river. In the end we managed to get everyone back in the dinghy and luckily our casualty was more shocked than hurt so after getting our breath back, we set off once again.


We were buffeted and tossed all over the place for the next couple of hours. The highlight was when we managed to lose three people from our boat at the same time - as well as four paddles(!) - when we hit a rock. One poor chap from another boat wound up perched on a boulder in the middle of a raging torrent and had to be rescued by an intrepid guide and someone else was almost impaled upon a jutting tree-branch, but after a while, the river calmed down and the last few kilometres were pretty tame. I was one of only a few who had managed to avoid being pitched over the side of the dinghy.

We got back to Boquete at about 4pm where I bid fairwell to my new-found companions and immediately had a well earned sleepie.

Bocas del Toro

We'd heard many good things about Bocas del Toro, a wee group of islands on the Caribbean coast of Panama, so we made it our first stop in Panama. We'd made it as far as the dock in Changuinola, then it was time for the water taxi to Isla Colón.

It took us about an hour on the water, and it was a lovely ride. All of the water was like a mirror reflecting the gorgeous vegetation on either side.


We saw lots of birds, locals who live and/or work along the water, lots of little baby Dexters, some dogs who weren't happy with us passing so closely to their territory, and some dogs who couldn't care less. We looked out for manatee noses but didn't manage to see any; that's a good thing since the boat mostly sped through the water.

When we arrived in Bocas del Toro (the biggest town in the islands, named the same as the group of islands), we were struck by all the tourists, hostels, and cafes. I soon realised it reminded me of Belize's Caye Caulker but bigger and with paved roads. We'd read in our guidebook that there would be a religious festival happening the next day, so we'd booked our hostel room in advance just in case. The place we'd booked appealed to us because it was billed as 100% bocatoreño; when so many businesses are owned/operated by foreigners, we appreciate the chance to give our business to locals (and hopefully learn more about local culture that way). We were happy to find the place a wee bit away from the main drag, right on the water, very chilled, and very peaceful. Right outside our room door, we could see big, fat starfish and various fish coming and going among the hotel stilts. The owner spoke very slow, lazy Caribbean English and never seemed to leave her chair on the porch.

That first night we just chilled, as everyone does on the island.


We figured that the next day we could look into tours to see manatees and the other islands. It turned out that it's not the right time of year to see manatees (sorry, Tom), and we coud only find snorkel-oriented tours of the islands. We enjoy snorkelling, but we've already done loads of it during our travels. There was one really appealing-looking Catamaran tour of the islands, but it involved fishing – not our thing. We seemed to be too late for volunteering to help with turtle conservation, and we didn't see any sort of festival activities happening. No matter, we just chilled again. It was really, really hot during the day so we weren't even inspired to go to the beach.

The next day we'd intended to wake up early and go to a local beach with lots of starfish, but the extremely lazy mood of the island enouraged us to sleep late instead. Doesn't take much! We chilled that morning, then got the water taxi back to Changuinola. Bocas del Toro is a lovely part of Panama, but at this time it doesn't have anything for us that we haven't already experienced in Central America. Time for more adventurous stuff!

Costa Rica a Panama

There were two places we definitely wanted to visit in Costa Rica: Monteverde (recommended by every person we spoke to about Costa Rica) and Tortuguero (for the turtles). There were a few other places we wouldn't have minded visiting, but from everything we read about Costa Rica, there wasn't anything else there much different from what we've already seen in Central America. Plus several people have told us that Panama is just as lovely as Costa Rica but cheaper and with a lot fewer tourists. So we decided to head on down there.

From Monteverde, we returned to San Jose. The bus back was a delightful 5-hour trip, as opposed to the 8+ hours it took us getting to Monteverde from San Jose! We enjoyed the afternoon in San Jose, finding more cow statues and eating at a cool vegetarian restaurant. We were also pleased to use the public bus system rather than getting taxis everywhere. We tried to get tickets for the next morning's bus to Bocas del Toro, Panama, but we were told we'd have to buy our tickets on the bus. All they could tell us was that the bus would leave at 9am up the street. (Seemingly thousands of buses leave San Jose for various destinations, and each of them leaves from a different terminal or random place in the road. It's chaotic.) We wanted to go on a Saturday, and our guidebook mentioned how busy the buses are on Saturday mornings. So were a bit anxious about the next morning.

We got up bright and early and had our free brekkie at the hostel. Then we got to the approximate area where our bus was supposed to be. There was a bus there with loads of people lined up by it. Luckily one of them told us it wasn't the bus we wanted, and we needed to join the much smaller queue up the street a wee bit. Chris saw some other backpackers in that queue, and they confirmed there were going to the same place as us. Phew! After about an hour, the bus showed up, and luckily there was plenty of room for all of us. Even better, the 7-hour voyage only cost $11 each. For once, our guidebook listed a price that was more than the actual current cost!!!

We drove through gorgeous scenery towards Tortuguero at first, but then we turned off to continue south along the Caribbean coast. At some point, our bus broke down, but another bus showed up at the same time and we all just transferred onto that. No worries. We got to the border, which we read was the most relaxed crossing between Costa Rica and Panama. Bear in mind that it took us something crazy like 8 hours to cross the last border (Nicaragua to Costa Rica). This border crossing was ACE. On the Costa Rica side, we had to fill out a short form, but we got through in a few minutes. Then we walked across a crazy rusted bridge lined with haphazardly placed, rotting boards to the Panama side. (It was scary enough walking across it. Our bus drove across it after us!)


I was the only American citizen in our little group of backpackers, so I had to buy my $5 tourist card, but it was easy peasy. Then some very informal border patrol guys (jeans, t-shirts, baseball hats, lots of gold chains, and loads of Caribbean charm) stamped our passports. We were through in about 10 minutes. Now THAT is how border crossings should be.

Our bus took us to the nearby town of Changuinola, from where a taxi took the 7 of us backpackers (crammed into a car built for about 5 people) to the water taxi dock. We paid $3 each for that privilege and then a $7 fee each for the water taxi to Isla Colón in the group of islands called Bocas del Toro. We waited about an hour for the taxi, but we spent the time chatting with an English couple, watching lots of little crabs all over the waterline, and petting a lovely dog.

It's great to be in Panama!

Monteverde

Monteverde reserve is one of only a few areas of cloudforest in the world and is rightly protected. Unfortunately the surrounding area - the towns of Monteverde and Santa Elena are not and development is rampant. It's hard to come somewhere like Monteverde and not feel like part of the problem. It's an odd situation in a way because some locals welcome the development and others oppose it - for instance we spoke to a taxi driver on our way back from the cloud forest one night and he said that where there was once a beautiful forest they were now planning to build a shopping mall. The trees had all been cut down and the land flattened. The upside for the local community is that they get new tourist facilities which will encourage more people to visit and they get easier access to more western comforts and increased employment opportunities. It's sad to think that the more tourists who show up, the more land will have to be cleared to house and feed them. The character of the place is already being worn away but it's hard to preach when they're just following our example.


While the situation in the town is problematic, there's no doubting that the main attraction - the Monteverde reserve is an amazing place. Even in the short times we were there (we did a day and a night tour) we saw many different insects and spiders - including a red-kneed tarantula - as well as frogs, millipedes, howler monkeys and even a sloth. Some of the insects had evolved some pretty impressive disguises. There were stick insects, moths that looked like leaves, moths with fake 'eye' pattern in their wings and many others. We didn't manage to spot a Quetzal but then if it were easy then it wouldn't be special if we did see one.


The hairy carpet man in this picture is a sloth. This was taken through our guide's telescope.

In between visits to the reserve we had another go on some zip lines. Canopy tours are practically synonymous with Costa Rice - so we couldn't leave the country without giving it a go. We went in a group of about 16 (far too many) and while there were 3 or 4 good long lines, there were a few 20-30 metre lines that were hardly worth the effort. One good part though was the 'Tarzan Swing' - basically a miniature version of the 'Canyon Swing' that Trace enjoyed in New Zealand. Unfortunately it wasn't miniature enough for me so I decided to skip it. A good time was had by all though and while it wasn't exactly a life changing experience, it was pretty good.

We spent another couple of days in Monteverde doing not very much - the rain can be pretty heavy and constant up there - so that kinda put a bit of a damper on things, but we had a great time nonetheless and woke up early on Friday for the inevitable trip back to San Jose.

Tortuguero

We got a 2-hour bus from San Jose to Cariari, from where we had to get another bus and then a boat to Tortuguero. The boat ride was better than some of the 'nature cruises' we've taken. We saw a crocodile, a couple of toucans and watched some howler monkeys swinging through some trees right by the bank – as well as the now customary kingfisher.

We reached Tortuguero at about 5:30pm. When we landed we were asked if we had reservations anywhere. The guy said we'd find it difficult if we didn't because the place was full. If we wanted to go with him he'd see what could be found. Occasionally we had been warned that people (especially taxi drivers) get a commision for bringing in customers – so we figured we'd see what we could find on our own. Unfortunately, we found out that the fella was telling the truth. There were so many touristy types walking about that it seemed that there couldn't be room for them all.

We wandered aimlessly for a while asking any places we passed if they had room – no one had anything – before a few locals decided they'd help us out. It was during this time that we ran into a nice French couple we'd met on the way over who were in the same boat – if you'll excuse the pun. So we wandered from place to place following a variety of local guys and eventually found some very expensive places. It seems they knew how few rooms were available and adjusted their prices acordingly. The French guy did say that he'd managed to find somewhere cheap but a bit nasty so we decided to check that out first. It was down a dark alley well off the main strip, but the lady only wanted $12 and it wasn't too bad. She also made us as much at home as possible by putting up a curtain, changing the sheets on the bed and folding the towel into a swan shape. Class. We bought some more mozzie coils, squished any obvious offenders and settled in for the night. Thinking back, what we found was pretty incredible – a nice French couple. That was a joke by the way. It certainly saved us from spending a night in a hammock – or worse.

After having dinner in a cool cafe and admiring the thousands of big fat frogs all over town, we managed to get a decent night's sleep in the end. Iff had to light another coil at about 5am after the first went out and the mozzies came back, but we got away relatively unscathed. When we came to pay in the morning, the lady first tried to charge us $20, then 12,000 Colones (about $24!) before she settled for 5000 C (about $10). I dunno what the French guys wound up paying, but in the end I reckon $10 was fair enough. Turns out the Frenchies were just here for the night before heading on elsewhere. We found that there were plenty of free rooms for the Sunday and bid adieu to 'The Ritz'.

It was our first full day in Tortuguero, and we weren't entirely sure what to do with ourselves. We definitely wanted to get a guide to show us (hopefully) turtles laying eggs on the beach that night. We happened to be staying next door to a guide called Don Chico, who's recommended in our guidebook. We went to chat with him to see if he could provide both tours for us, and we liked him instantly. He talks very quickly, so we couldn't catch everything he said, but it was clear that he believes in conservation first and tourism second; his job is to educate people while protecting the animals and their environment. Quite right. We asked him about searching for turtles that night, and he was delighted to do that for us. We agreed to buy our park entrance tickets during the day and meet up with him at 7:45 that night.

We spent the rest of the day wandering around the town. It's very chilled out, a lovely Caribbean coastal town. Our hotel was right next to a sports field, and there were baseball games happening that afternoon. We watched them for a wee while; those guys were good! We hit the souvenir shops looking for something for Kirsten, a postcard for Beth, and anything with manatees on it for Tam. We then made our way to the park entrance to get our entry tickets for that night. On our way we passed a little local boy who called to us and pointed into a swampy-looking area in front of his home. There was a big ol tiger heron in there, presumbly looking for fish. Very cool! We then got our park entry tickets and stopped to read lots of signs about the park until insects drove us out. We also spotted lots of little crabs around the park office. Genius.

We had an early dinner and then got ready for our turtle expedition. Chico had warned us to put on loads of insect repellent and closed shoes, so we followed his advice. Out came my horrid bowling shoes and Iff's old hiking shoes; we're glad we've held onto them! On went the nasty DEET spray and our trendy headlamps, and we were ready to go! Chico appeared right on time, and off we marched to the nearby Tortuguero National Park.

We didn't actually have to go far. There's a network of guys who work in the park to monitor turtle activity (and protect the turtles from ignorant people if necessary), as well as a team of researchers who monitor the turtles. Once we entered the park, various park guys gave Chico the info. He's been doing this for nearly 30 years and knows everyone; we were glad to be with someone who was a bit favoured by the park employees. They told us to go to a certain section of the beach, so we did. The beach has numbered sections, which makes it really easy to locate a turtle spotted by someone else. We got into place with a few other groups on the beach. The other groups each had about 15 people in them, but luckily there were only 3 or 4 other groups there; we'd been worried that the beach would be crammed full of tourists.

We waited around for quite some time while the park employees verified that a turtle was settled in enough for people to approach her. During that time, Chico gave us loads of info about the turtles. The ones laying eggs at this time are green turtles, but at other times of year they have other turtles there as well. He explained that the green turtle likes to come onto land during nights with little or no moonlight. She makes her way up the beach untiil she finds a spot she likes, then she “cleans” it (as he put it). She clears away any detritus, makes sure there aren't already eggs there, and then digs a huge hole. She lowers herself into the hole so that she's slanted over it. Then she deposits at least 100 eggs, each the size of a ping pong ball. Once they're all laid, she covers them with sand (blindly because she can't see underneath her own tail, let alone in the dark). Once she's happy with the area, she makes her way back to the water. She's huge and unwieldy, cumbersome on land, but this whole process takes less than 2 hours. She might repeat the process up to 4 more times over the next few months, each time laying fewer eggs.

Finally we were told that a turtle a few beach sections away was ready to be viewed. So we all made our way over there. I was so excited, I couldn't wait. We all neared the turtle but first had to wait until a group of 4 or 5 researchers did their thing. Then we were given the ok to approach the turtle 1 group at a time; a researcher laid down next to the turtle to shine a red light on her eggs as she laid them into the sand. We were the second group to see her, but unlike the other huge groups, Chris and I got to be with the turtle on our own. Chico stood back so we could see better. First up, I was struck by her size. She looked about 4 feet long and 3 feet wide, a massive creature whose head was barely visible in the dark. Secondly, I saw the pile of eggs underneath and gasped as she laid more eggs on top of them. Everyone was trying to be as quiet as possible, as unobtrusive as possible, but this turtle had to be aware of all the people around her (especially when each group of 15 people gathered around her, a number I thought should have been vastly reduced). I was amazed at how she just calmly laid her eggs as if nothing was happening around her. It was magical for me.

Each group then took a few turns coming back to the turtle to watch her lay more eggs. On our last turn, we saw her covering the eggs up with sand. She was blindly slapping sand onto them with her big back flippers and then patting down the mound of sand to be sure. All blindly. I was absolutely amazed. I wanted to see her finish the whole process and go back into the water, but all the guides suddenly had us all walk as quickly as possible to another bit of beach nearby. There was a turtle there who had finished laying her eggs and was making her way back to the water. Chico made sure we had a great view of her as we all followed her about 6 feet behind. I was awed by the sight of this mother making her way back home. She had to work so hard to heave herself over that sand, stopping every other push to rest. I could feel her excitement as she got closer to the water. And when she felt the first wave of water touch her, she was so powerfully energized that she only needed one more great push. When the next wave came, she was covered enough by it to disappear within it. We all clapped, and I was moved to tears. Chico made fun of me but in an affectionate way. “Tranquila, tranquila,” he said with a smile.

And that was it. Chico led us back to our hotel, and we thanked him profusely. We could not have had a better guide. We went to sleep very happy indeed with our alarm set for an early morning departure.

San Jose

San Jose is the capital of Costa Rica. It's also a necessary stop because, like a spider's web, all routes manage to go through the terminals of Chepe – as it's locally known. Following our border crossing experience, we managed to get a bus almost immediately – finally, a stroke of luck – which took us all the way to San Jose. Unfortunately upon reaching the capital, they dumped us in some dogforsaken spot in the backstreets of dog knows where. We managed to hail a cab and tried to find a hostel that was still open at 2am, but after circling a few blocks we were getting nowhere and the ladies on the corner were looking at us a bit funny so we wound up stopping at the rather posh looking Clarion hotel – which was the ony place that seemed open. We wound up paying about $120 for our night there which is slightly over our regular price range ($20-$30), but we figured that after spending 8 hours crossing a border and to save ourselves wandering the streets of an unfamiliar capital city at 2 in the morning it was worth it. Plus we were finally able to indulge in a long wished-for luxury: a proper bath!

After spending a while over our (thankfully included) breakfast, making the most of the free wireless internet and getting our bearings from the font desk, we set off in search of more appropriate (i.e. cheaper) digs. Just two streets over we managed to find the hostel we'd been after the night before. Figures. Still, we were pretty lucky that they had one double room left. It's pretty weird that there are this many people here. Not since Semana Santa in Mexico had we had any problems finding anywhere to spend the night. Still, we decided to spend the day doing some touristy things cos San Jose is known as one of the few Central Amerian capitals which is not a hole. What we did find is that with a few adjustments in shop fronts and national flags and a bit of de-pedestrianisation, San Jose could be just about anywhere in the USA. McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Wendy's etc are everywhere, mall-going is a popular passtime and they even had their own cow parade!

We decided that the Museum of Costa Rica was worth a stop. It details the history of the country and shows off some of the pre-Colombian artifacts. It was in fact Costa Rica where Columbus first set foot on the American continent. The museum was pretty informative, but seemed to gloss over more recent history and there wasn't much about its unique position in Central America (and possibly the world) as a country without an army: which is strange because the museum itself is an old army barracks. Still, we did learn a lot about the history and culture of Costa Rica – which is why we were there after all.

We switched accommodation for our last night in San Jose to a place out on the outskirts closer to the university and a selection of interesting-looking restaurants. Unfortunately Tracy started feeling a little under the weather and we wound up not doing very much except for catching up with our rest – we hadn't really been sleeping so well. We were woken up at 1am by a couple of inconsiderate people talking loudly outside our door. It made me feel rather old and grumpy to ask them to shut up, but it made me feel a whole lot better to get some sleep.

So we finally stirred ourselves enough to leave San Jose on Saturday. We decided to head for Tortuguero on the Caribbean coast. As the name suggests it's the prime turtle-spotting location in Costa Rica. You can only get there by boat. When we arrived we were in for quite a shock – but that's a whole 'nother story...

RIP Kathryne McDorman

Goodbye to a wonderful, wonderful woman, Aunt Kathryne. It was a privilege to know her and an honor to be related to her.

Learn more about this inspirational woman at www.mcdorman.com.

The best laid schemes o' mice an' men - Penas Blancas border cossing

As I think was mentioned in the last post here we'd planned to leave Ometepe early, hop on a bus to San Jose and see where we could get to from there. I guess you've realised already from the title that the situation quickly became FUBAR. If you hadn't realised this already, I suggest you read your Burns (or Steinbeck if you're American).

We woke at 7am to find the next ferry was at 9am. No worries. Had some breakfast and made pleasant conversation until the ferry showed up and fulfilled its ferrying duties. All going to plan.


Next stop, bus station. Quickly jump a taxi for the Rivas bus terminal. Bus is leaving imminently no time for snacks. Jammed onto a pretty packed bus. Shoot off for Penas Blancas border crossing. So far so good.

Arrive at border, pay $1 to local community (not sure why, but they won't let you pass without doing it - meh) and head for the border. That was easy. Little did we know that was just the beginning. It had just turned 11am.

Turned back at the border - we need an exit stamp. Walk back to the immigration office to find a disorganised mass of humanity, noone seemingly knowing what was happening and only one window open. We joined the back of what looked like a queue and quickly found that the only way to get anywhere is to march up to the front, find someone you know and get them to let you into the front of the line - either that or just stand around until you can push your way into the queue without anyone attacking you. Unfortunately, we didn't know anyone in the queue and we'd be a little obvious if we blatantly jumped the queue, so we were stuck waiting 3 hours until we could press our way to the front. Stamp, stamp, $2 each please, here's your receipt, done. Quite why it was taking so long? I dunno... Everyone else seemed to be Nicaraguan and carrying tools. Are they looking for work in Costa Rica? Why are they all crossing on a Wednesday afternoon? Is it always like this we asked? Yes. Madness.

So, stamped passports in hand we were relieved to get out of the press of humanity and across the border. Anything to declare? No. Welcome to Costa Rica. Nice. Little did we know that was just the appetiser. The main course was yet to come.

We'd just walked across the border when we were confronted with Costa Rican immigration. Basically the same people we'd just waited behind were now waiting in a line which snaked around the building, into the car park and wove back and forth across the car park like a drunkard who's forgotten where he parked. Nice. It was now 4pm.


The line moved as slowly as the last. Every 10 minutes or so we'd pick up our stuff, move it a few feet and put it down. The queue was showing no signs of dying down or speeding up. By 5:30pm we were still nowhere near the building. 6pm arrives and so does the rain. Little drops pepper those waiting in the line - a few umbrellas go up but mostly everyone maintains the same dispassionate attitude. The shower puts an end to our reading though. Very quickly though the rain intensifies and suddenly people break ranks and dive for the cover of the immigration building's porch. The fairly orderly queue has become a rugby scrum complete with pushing and shoving, complete disregard for any rules and noone to sort it all out. After another hour or so of fighting (almost literally) for a spot to stand in, we're at the immigration desk. Stamp, stamp, no charge to enter Costa Rica, don't need a receipt the stamp is enough, done.

8 hours after arriving at the border we were finally out of the other side. It felt like we'd just been come out of a slow wash cycle with extra spin - we were certainly wet but we weren't any cleaner. Dazed, confused, tired and hungry we stepped into Costa Rica.

Isla de Ometepe

One of the things we really wanted to do when in Nicaragua was visit Ometepe island. Ometepe is basically two volcanoes that have made an island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. Of the two volcanoes, only the larger (Concepcion) is active but both can be climbed.

From Granada, we caught a chicken bus to Rivas, then a taxi to San Jorge. From there, we went to the island in a rickety old boat which looked like it had seen many years of faithful service. We were just hoping it would keep going for another hour or so and see us safe to the other side. The views on the way were amazing. Concepcion looked like a huge conical cake with a ring of clouds around its peak and rivulets of red streaking down the sides through swaths of bright green forest. The rest of the island looked completely green and gorgeous.

We had met up with a couple of American students who were keen to stay at a cooperative, organic coffee farm near the smaller of the two volcanoes, Maderas. We liked the sound of the place and figured we could share a taxi, so we tagged along with them and luckily there was space for us all at Finca Magdalena. Approaching it as the sun went down and fireflies randomly appeared, everything seemed magical. We had dinner together and decided we'd have a go at climbing the volcano in the morning. Despite being smaller than Concepcion, Maderas is still a 5km hike up the side of a 1400m volcano and usualy takes about 8 hours. At the summit, the crater has filled with water to form a huge lagoon which you can swim in, providing a respite from all the hiking and giving you an opportunity to wash off all the mud just so you can get all muddy again on the way down!

We got up bright and early (5:30am!) to get an early start before it got really hot. Unfortunately we'd been plagued by rodents during the night and hadn't slept well. Also, the kitchen only opened for brekkie at 6:30 and our guide didn't show until 7. Luckily we were able to get a decent breakfast inside us and get sandwiches for lunch. So we set off at about 7:30 to tackle the arduous climb to the summit. Things started off well, but I quickly felt a bit queezy. I figured it was just the early start and the interrupted sleep. However by the time we reached the 2km point I wasn't feeling so well at all and was falling further behind the suspiciously fit American students. (They're 19 years old, and they live and hike regularly in the North Carolina mountains. They didn't break a sweat or pant for air once, and the guide very annoyingly kept their pace.) By 4km I was getting ready to turn back, but the thought of missing out on the lake and having the volcano defeat me was too much and eventually we reached the summit.


Although we'd brought swimming gear, we were so wet and dirty from the ascent that it was easier to swim in our hiking clothes rather than get changed. After washing the clinging clay mud off our shoes we took the plunge into the crater lake. The water was pretty cold, but very refreshing after the sticky, humid climb up. I could feel the sweat and grime of the ascent wash off me as I swam around. I was only troubled by the thought that we'd need to get all the way back down again. Also, the cheese sandwiches we'd been given had egg in (which we'd asked them to remove) although even with the egg taken out they were still pretty nasty. After what seemed like a terribly short time (but must have been at least a half hour) our guide gathered us for the trip back down.

Coming up was tough, but the descent was dangerous. The smooth rocks were lightly coated in wet clay soil from the boots of other hikers as they went up or down the path, making footing extremely treacherous. It seemed like we'd been walking for hours when we passed the 3km sign – only half way down. I was physically and emotionally spent when we reached the 1km sign. Everything started to look a lot more familiar and the terrain flattened out. When we got back to the farm we could do little other than flop down on the bed. The electricity was out so the fan didn't work – we went for cold showers instead. Luckily when we got back the fan was working again so we spent the rest of the evening in front of the fan drinking water and resting our aching muscles. When we finally made it downstairs for dinner we found our hiking companions talking with some friends of theirs from Granada. When asked how they were feeling, they said that all they'd needed was a cup of coffee and after that they were fine. Oh to be 19 and fit again... Ho hum.

Besides the swim at the top, the other things that made the climb worthwhile were amazing views and spotting some wildlife on the volcano. On our way up, we were delighted (and somewhat surprised) to see a medium-sized crab on the trail. He very anxiously and menacingly snapped his pincers at us as we passed by him. Unfortunately, in our rush to catch up with the guide and kids, we didn't have time to find our camera in the backpack and therefore didn't get any pictures of him, but he was ace. We also saw a tiny, gorgeous frog which sparkled in the sunshine. He was so tiny, pictures of him didn't even come out clear; by the time we saw him, we were beyond caring about catching up with the guide and kids, so we took time to find and use the camera! We also saw and heard howler monkeys, always a treat. Plus there were the usual assortment of birds and cool leaf-cutter ant groups.


We spent the night there at Finca Magdalena again, but this time we were so exhausted we slept through the rodents getting into our leftover sandwiches from the hike. (We forgot to throw them away. The rodents clawed or chewed their way through tin foil, leaving bits of it all over the floor, and we slept through it all.) We slept as late as possible and then hung out at the Finca for a couple hours until it was nearly time to catch a bus to Moyogalpa on the other side of the island. We walked a kilometre (very slowly thanks to Trace's aching muscles) to the bus stop and then waited nearly an hour for the bus driver to feel like leaving. We didn't mind waiting; there was a set of 5 piglets to watch, so we were happy!

Eventually the bus started off. It took us about an hour in the taxi from Moyogalpa to Finca Magdalena. Getting back to Moyogalpa, the bus took twice that long on the mostly rocky, unpaved roads. Still, passing through so much greenery with views of volcanoes peaking through made the journey pleasant indeed. We arrived in Moyogalpa and made our way to "the Ritz" of the island, Hotel Ometepetl. We thought we'd treat ourselves since we were so sore and tired. We tried to find a laundromat, but after much searching and asking for directions we wound up at a hotel with "the only laundry service in town", and their dryer was broken. We planned to leave early the next day for Costa Rica, so there was no time to wait for our clothes to dry outside; it's quite humid here. We figured we'd just wait until we got to Costa Rica.

We really took it easy for the rest of the day. We read a lot, had some pizza, used a painfully slow Internet service, and prepared to get up early for making our way to Costa Rica the next day. The next day, the alarm went off at 7am, and we both agreed we weren't going anywhere; both of us ached from the volcano climb. We figured that we should at least get something worthwhile done - so we decided to do some laundry, use the internet and get some breakfast. After a few hours of listening to the local crazy ex-pat America, we'd got our laundry done (turns out there's more than one laundromat in town!) and heard all the latest conspiracy theories. Now we're catching up on all the latest Internet happenings before getting ready for Costa Rica tomorrow.

Granada

So leaving Selva Negra was interesting. The plan was to walk the 2k to the main road and catch a bus heading south. It was pouring rain still, though, and we were dreading it. We happened to chat with the two Californians from our tour of the area the day before, and they mentioned they were going to Masaya, an artisan village near Granada. When we mentioned that was our destination too, they said we could join them in their rental car for a road trip down there! Genius!

We agreed to meet up in half an hour. We were already packed and ready to go, so we walked around the lovely goose-inhabited lake until it was time to meet up again with Scot and Caitlin. It turned out that they accidentally locked their car keys in the trunk. Someone from Selva Negra tried to jimmy into the car, but no success. Luckily someone from the car rental agency drove up from Matagalpa and managed to break into the car rather than break a window. So after a couple rather tense hours (during which the rain stopped of course, but we preferred to stick around for a direct ride to Masaya rather than strike out for a bus), the four of us headed off.

Scot and Caitlin are really cool. Caitlin has spent quite a bit of time in Nicaragua and taught us some of the things she's learned in her time here. We stopped at a quesillo cafe and Chris and I got our first taste of this common dish. It's a thick tortilla with thick strips of quesillo cheese on top, lots of onions, and then a bucket load of sourish cream poured on top. It's eaten without utensils and is messy (and unhealthy) beyond belief. It was really tasty actually, but Trace had to stop eating hers once the quesillo cheese got cold. (Quesillo is a very stringy cheese we first tasted in Oaxaca, Mexico. When melted, it's pleasantly stringy like Mozarella. When it's cold, though, it's like rope fiber.) We followed Caitlin's example and had a double quesillo, which included two tortillas and was HUGE.

Due to the delay caused by the keys locked in the trunk, Caitlin and Scot no longer had time to go to Masaya. They needed to go straight to Managua instead, but they very kindly dropped us off in Tipitapa, the town at the fork in the road between Managua and Masaya. After thanking them profusely and waving them on their way, we caught a bus to Masaya. We were excited about the artisan element of Masaya and had high hopes of finding a nice gift for Kirsten there. Instead, we found a huge market of the same tourist tat sold everywhere else. It was really disappointing in that respect. We'd planned to spend the night there, but instead we made our way back to the bus station and headed to Granada.

Having already visited Leon, it seemed fitting we should get the other side of the story in Granada. Granada is at least half responsible for the bitter rivalry that existed between the two. Leon eventually upped the stakes in 1855 by hiring a 'colourful' (or perhaps insane?) American mercenary: William Walker, who captured Granada. However, the story goes that he had himself 'elected' president and decided to conquer the rest of Central America too. Eventually he was driven out of Nicaragua, but not before he'd torched Granada's principal buildings and left the place in ruins. Unsurprisingly, for visiting such destruction upon the country, Leon's Liberals found themselves out of government for some time after.

Anyway, this was over a long time before we got there, so luckily for us, eveything has been rebuilt. Granada is a great place to walk around. They seem to have made a special effort to make the square and the avenue leading down to Lake Nicaragua suitable for walking and people watching from the innumerable cafes and bars whose tables look out onto the street. It's not unlike a European city in that respect. We did a lot of walking around the square and down to the lake. Granada also has a few decent museums and churches to nose around. Most of the churches were closed but we did get to look at the church and museum of San Franisco. Rebuilt after William Walker's departure in 1856, it's a pretty blue fronted colonial church. The museum holds some interesting exhibits including carved stone figures from ancient times (not sure when – signage ws a bit sketchy...) and some exhibits on pre-Columbian life. For me though the highlight was just wondering around the museum. It was a lovely temperature and just sitting for a moment in the adobe clad terrace gave me something of a glimpse of how the rich colonial landowners must have enjoyed themselves. Then I remembered that the place was sacked by pirates a lot and there was constant danger from natural disasters, hostile natives and ambitious political rivals. Maybe it is better to be a 2008 museum visitor after all.

We stayed in a basic but welcoming hostel near the market. The market itself was a disorganised chaotic affair – not a tourist market by any means. They were selling fruit, hardware, music and DVDs (mostly pirated seemingly), housewares and pretty much anything else you could imagine. They were even trying to sell cheese. Now most of you know I'm a big fan of cheese, but given that there was no refridgerator, the temperature was about 90 degrees in the shade and they were constantly having to ward off hoardes of flies all keen for a spot of lunch I think that it'd be wiser to go cheese shopping at the supermarket. To my mind you'd be lucky not to pick up some sort of stomach bug one way or the other. Anyway, the lady who ran the hostel was very nice and kind and helped us out a lot. All of the people who worked/lived/hung out there (it's difficult to know the difference) were very helpful when we wanted to know where something was or looked a little lost or confused.

So all in all we had a great time in Granada. The only problem was that we weren't able to get a boat straight to our next destination, la Isla de Ometepe. Fortunately we were able to bus it to San Jorge and hop across the lake that way.

León a Selva Negra

We wrapped up our time in León with a visit to the Gallery of Heroes and Martyrs. It's literally a few rooms filled with many pictures of sons and daughters who were killed during the civil war, plus some of their personal possessions. It's run by their mothers, some of whom were hovering as we looked at all the pictures. It was very sad, but we're glad we went. It's important for the mothers to know that their children's sacrifices are recognised.

We also tried to see inside the cathedral, but it was closed. We did manage to have breakfast at a cafe dedicated to Ben Linder, a very young American engineer who was in Nicaragua helping to build a hydroelectric plant when he and two Nicaraguans were killed by the Contras. He was killed by his own country.

We then made our way to the hectic León bus terminal. We're used to being hounded by people asking us where we want to go and directing us to the right bus. This was our first Central American bus terminal without such help. It was absolute chaos. We'd hoped to get a bus direct to Matagalpa, from where we would make our way to Selva Negra. When we asked one guy about it, though, he said it would be a few hours before a bus left for Matagalpa. So we hopped onto a bus bound for San Isidro, from where we would go to Matagalpa. After the bus filled to capacity and then some, we took off.

The bus crawled like molasses! It was painful. Worst of all was about 30 minutes into the journey, when a León - Matagalpa bus flew by us! Argh. In any case, we were happy to see the scenery change from flat to mountainous and to feel the temperature drop. After a few hours more than it should have taken, we got to San Isidro. A very nice Nica (how Nicaraguans refer to themselves) on the bus guided us to the caseta in San Isidro where the bus to Matagalpa would stop.

Sure enough, a Matagalpa bus soon picked us up. By the time we got to Matagalpa, it was dark. Our guidebook advised us that it was too late to get a bus going in the right direction for Selva Negra, so we got a taxi. The driver dropped off a couple other people and picked up his partner, daughter, and nephew before we left Matagalpa for the 12 kilometres of winding, potholed, foggy, mountain road. In complete darkness. We were so happy to get to the hotel, not only because we were starving and were arriving 3 hours later than we'd told the hotel but also because there were no seatbelts in the taxi for that harrowing drive!

Selva Negra is a huge, self-sustaining, award-winning coffee plantation with loads of other crops as well as an ecolodge. We were so excited about getting there. We had great plans to hike in the many trails through the cloud forest, possibly spotting the many types of birds and animals living there. Ha! It was pouring the whole time. Normally we wouldn't let weather stop us. But tramping through rain and mud is sure to ward off any animals who we might have seen otherwise. So we just relaxed. Our room looked out onto a big lake with loads of geese. We checked them out and also all the information about the owners' family history. The plantation and the local area have a colourful history that's displayed all throughout the large restaurant and wee museum upstairs. We took a tour of the grounds with Eddy, the owner. It's a fascinating place, and it's very beautiful. We were impressed with how many crops they manage to grow and how they waste nothing; even human waste is composted! We spent 2 nights there and were (surprise, surprise) very lazy.

We wound up getting a lift with 2 really cool Californians, Scot and Caitlin, to get back down south. More on that in the next post...

Leon

Our first stop in Nicaragua is Leon - the old colonial capital and the Lancaster to Granada's York. Leon and Granada have been at each others' throats for centuries with their rivalry occasionally boiling over into electoral fraud, military coups and even civil war. Heavy stuff... Fortunately a compromise was reached between the two when Managua was chosen as the capital, thus defusing some of the tension.

Leon is a nice place though. It seems disorganised enough to be interesting, but developed enough to have some useful services - it even has a veggie restaurant. Unfortunately it does seem to be overly touristed right now with the early 20's gap year crowd - but it's no so bad that we can't find anywhere to stay.

When reading about Leon in the guidebook we were intrigued by the option of 'Volcano boarding' - which involves sledging down 650m of active volcano. We'd never slid down the side of any volcano before - active or not - so we figured it'd be worth a go at least once. Plus it was only $20 and they'd give us a protective suit!



It all started at 9am when the 13 (a worrying omen perhaps?) brave volcano boarders (us) were picked up from a local hostel by two pickup trucks and bussed to the foot of the menacingly black conical volcano. We were issued with orange jumpsuits and a piece of wood with intriguing additional fixtures and some sort of plastic square stuck on the bottom. We were never asked to sign any waver or asked if we had taken out any insurance. I could see that this was certainly going to be interesting... We set out towards 'Mount Doom' with more than a little trepidation.

The hike up was pretty tame, but some of our companions were flagging badly - perhaps too many jars the night before? We had to stop and wait several times for them to catch up. By the time we reached the top the view was incredible! On one side we had a view all the way back to Leon with the Pacific Ocean just beyond and on the other we could see the swathe of black sand deposited by the volcano when it had last erupted in 1999. Once the rest of our group had finally made the summit, we skirted around the crater to get a better look. It was certainly awe inspiring to walk along the rim of the crater as the steam rose from the ground and the smell of sulphur hung in the air.



Finally it was time for us to fling ourselves off the side of the volcano. We heard that the record descent was 22 seconds who reached somewhere in the region of 65kph on the way down. The slowest decent was an astonishing 12 minutes! We received a rudimentary instruction session before 'Right - who wants to go first?'. The 3 boys were lined up to go last so we sent the girls on their way first. As each pair made their way down the hill our guide offered instructional commentary such as: 'Look she's leaning the wrong way', 'Well, that's what not to do', 'She shouldn't have done that' etc... Tracy managed to get down the hill without too many problems, just coming off the once which seemed to be better than average.

When it came to the last 3 boys our guide decided that we should forget all the safety tips she'd given the girls like we should sit up straight and occasionally brake. Basically the instruction was lie back and steer by lifting one foot or the other into the air. Of course this all went straight out the window as soon as I'd left the top of the hill. Within 10 seconds any hope of staying on the board was dashed and we parted company in a rather ignominious fashion. Luckily I managed to stop it from continuing down without me and got back on. Once back on board (no pun intended) I actually managed to pick up some speed and realised what I was doing was incredibly dangerous. The surface is actually ball-bearing sized rocks rather than sand and as I went faster they were increasingly flying up into my face - rather like being sand-blasted. Thank dog for the protective glasses we'd been issued with. The bottom of the slope was approaching rather rapidly and I noticed that there was a rather abrupt gradient adjustment at the bottom. Faced with the 'devil & deep blue sea' options of staying on and hitting the bottom at some speed or coming off the board and potentially removing large areas of my own skin I chose the former and apart from a rather spine jarring jolt I escaped unscathed.



Before and after: a daring vulcanaught!
We were all united in our excitement at what we'd just been through - although we were all lightly coated in fine black powder as if we'd just spent a half hour as down a coal mine. Two showers later and that stuff is still coming out of my hair... Anyway, a good time was had by all and upon returning alive we were all handed an ice-cold mojito to drink.

So we're still hoping to have a look at the cathedral (the largest in central America I hear) and a civil war memorial/museum run by the mothers of the fallen soldiers before we leave for Matagalpa (I think - we're still undecided...).