We were about to leave Costa Rica and cross into Panama and according to the itinerary
notes, would be met on the Panama side by a driver called David holding up a
sign to make it easier; all sounded straightforward. Well we were dropped off on
the Costa Rican side of the border, our driver immediately doing a runner.
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| Riot police surrounding noisy migrants |
So with no idea of what to do next, we were confronted with a
scene of heavily armed riot police surrounding a rowdy crowd of migrants
wanting to cross the border illegally.
In
the distance on the Panamanian side of the border, we could see an equally
large group of armed police waiting to stop anyone attempting to cross.
All the police ignored us as we walked past the commotion and
thanks to an American living in Costa Rica and who crosses this border often;
he gave us guidance on how to negotiate ‘the process’. First task, get the right departure document
from Costa Rica, pay some money, walk through ‘no-man land’ past their riot
police to the Panama Immigration area to get passports stamped, pay some more
money and we’re in.
Well David wasn’t waiting for us, so we waited and waited and
waited and waited, border crossing chaos all around us… no-one! As normal now it was very hot and steamy,
when Robert worked out that with the border crossing also came a time zone
change, watches having to go forward an hour.
Hmmm… had the next driver already come and gone?
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| Boquete nestled amongst mountains |
Thankfully buried in the trip notes we found a phone number for
David, so now we had to find a local who spoke English willing to try contacting
David to find out where he was.
Finally
and for a price, we did find someone who told us that David was 10-15 mins
away. Well eventually he did turn up,
did have a sign, did not speak English but seemed to know where we were meant
to be going… Boquete.
Boquete is a small town located in a valley surrounded by mountains
and extinct volcanoes, about 60kms as the crow flies but about 2.5hrs drive from
where we crossed the Costa Rican border.
At an altitude of 1,200mtrs, it has a cooler and more temperate climate,
making it a very popular destination for people wanting to get away from the
heat. Its residents also include many retired
Europeans and Americans living there enjoying a cheaper lifestyle.
It is a nice quaint little town with very good restaurants and
quirky bars, plus an excellent barber who correctly interpreted my poor Spanish
request for a haircut, and it was also in Boquete we started seeing stalls
selling that hat of the same name as the country we were now in… the
panama.
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| Haircut in Panama |
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| On the Quetzal Trail |
We were in Boquete for one main objective, to walk, should
actually say trek, the Quetzal Trail, criss-crossing its way around the dormant
volcanic Rio Caldera.
With a guide, we
trekked what is casually described as the ‘downhill’ direction from west to
east covering 9-10kms on the trail proper but before we got to the actual
trailhead, we had a complete a steep 2km hike.
The trail in this direction was thankfully mainly ‘downhill’ but for the
5-6hrs we were on it, but we did a lot of clambering up steep sections and down
around the side of the caldera, climbing over large rocks, steps and tree
roots.
The hike started at an altitude of 1,981mtrs and reached
2,500mtrs before the descent, and it really was a stunning area, with lots of
beautiful jungle to walk through, constant panoramic views across misty valleys
whilst constantly being surrounded by large trees or making multiple small
creek crossings.
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| Male Quetzal (photo by Robyn Seal) |
The name of the trail also provides a clue as to why we hiked it.
Quetzals... keep trying to find more of them and again, we were in luck, our guide finding a few more
of these stunning birds, along with many others varieties, keeping the 2 real
‘twitchers’ (not us) in our group very happy indeed, mind you the rest of us think they are a REALLY beautiful bird.
At the end of the trail though, we were all
pretty stuffed, which made our meal that night in a terrific little Italian
restaurant, all the more rewarding.
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| Female Quetzal (photo by Robyn Seal) |
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| Hummingbird at Australian callistemon in Finca Lerida plantation |
After spending the next day near Boquete at the Finca Lerida
coffee plantation, we enjoyed more hummingbirds zipping around us, some great
scenery, coffee and food. Next morning, David
picked us up for the drive to Almirante where we
boarded another small boat. Thirty
minutes later we arrived in Bocas del Toro, the capital on the main island of Isla
Colon, in the province of Bocas del Toro, a 4,657km2 archipelago on
the Caribbean coast, which Christopher Columbus first visited in 1502.
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| Boat taxi port at Bocas del Toro |
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| Walking to hotel down main street of Bocas del Toro |
This place is a tourist mecca for backpackers and surfers
especially, with many open-air bars and reggae music and the simple reason for
being here was to relax and chill out and we soon learned it was full of a
variety of restaurants; many of them located over the water and soon understood
how cheap the local crayfish was! It was
nice to do what the locals do, eat your food and then throw any food scraps
into the water behind us and feed the waiting fish.
With only one full day here, Rob and I took a taxi boat to visit
Red Frog Beach on another island, and try finding the diminutive red frogs. After disembarking on the island and after
organising to be picked up by the same boat in a few hours, the taxi departed
and the skies opened with torrential rain!
Part of the island was a private wildlife reserve within very
thick jungle and we could hear the frogs, but with the steady heavy rain, the
frogs croaking for joy dispersed into the lagoons. Also on the island is a fabulous tent based
environmental ‘resort’ for backpackers, so we spent a few hours with them under
cover in the café enjoying good coffee whilst watching the rain falling on a
deserted but beautiful beach.
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| deserted Red Frog beach |
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| Stunning architectural design |
It was only a short flight from Bocas to Panama City and boy
what a change in environment!
This city
is home to 1.5M people and reminded us of a larger version of the Gold Coast
with many very modern high-rise buildings soaring skyward along the coastline.
It also housed some of the most exciting architectural
designs in buildings we have personally seen.
To get a good feel for the city, we used a 48hr pass on the hop
on/hop off bus.
One of the stops on its
route was at the reason this city exists, the Panama Canal, and to commence our
learning curve of this amazing 100-year-old engineering feat, we hopped off at
the visitor centre at Miraflores where one of the canals two lock complexes is
located.
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| The VERY modern skyline of Panama City |
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| Approaching Panama City |
As we arrived we were also in
luck to see a massive passenger ship departing the locks and towering over the surrounding
buildings.
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| Approaching Centennial Bridge and Pan American Hwy on way to Miraflores Lock |
During our stay in Panama City, we completed what was meant to
be a ½ day partial transit of the canal, boarding on the artificial Gatun Lake before
heading back to and through the locks at Miraflores, then out to sea under the
massive Bridge of the Americas where a queue of ships were anchored waiting to take
the full 77km transit to the Caribbean coast.
Our partial transit actually ended up taking 10hrs due to delays waiting
for an appropriate ship for us to follow into the locks.
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| Bridge of the Americas |
When we boarded in Gatun Lake we were able to obtain a great
vantage point at the front of the boat on the upper deck, and as the boat
filled with more tourists, our challenge was to retain our spots over many
hours. We had people try to push in, we
even had one old Japanese lady do the, ‘I’m short and very old and need
sympathy’ thing without a single word being spoken… she was successful! We did get a great view as we went through
the locks but under the relenting heat we looked like slow baked meals when the
day had ended.
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| Ship entering lock we were also in |
There is such a massive amount of history and facts about the
Panama Canal BUT I’m not going to inflict it on you… except for a few
fascinating learnings.
The canal is not
a canal for the full 77kms, instead there are short canals at both ends, each with
3 locks, and a huge manmade lake in the middle at a higher level than the
oceans, the lake being used to supply the water to operate the locks to
raise/lower the ships into the lake.
If they had dug a massive canal for the full 77kms from coast to
coast, as originally commenced by the French in 1881, the ships would not have
been able to control their passage through it.
On one coast there is a ~1mtr tidal movement whilst on the other coast
it’s over 20mtrs which simply would have meant, a massive rushing of water
through the canal and out of control ships.
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| Ship in lock as tourist boat waits |
Everything is charged to go through the canal, the cheapest
transit being 36 cents paid by Richard Halliburton in 1928 when he swam the full
length of the canal, and the most expensive toll paid so far by the ‘Norwegian
Pear’l at $375,600, all tolls being based primarily on weight. With the opening soon of the larger/wider 2nd
set of locks at both ends, to handle the super ships, the tolls are going to
increase significantly.
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| Ship in lock and canal tourist boat waiting to enter |
Finally, 13,000 to 14,000 vessels pass through the canal a year at
the rate of about 35-40 per day, with traffic going in one direction for half
the day and then reversing for the other half.
The ships waiting to transit in front of Panama City are all allocated a
slot in the queue, and if the Captain of each ship doesn’t exactly follow the
instructions of the pilot required for each transit, the pilot will disembark
the ship and the boat goes to the end of the queue.
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| Container ship in 2nd lock next to our boat during transit |
It is an amazing construction and very worthy of a visit and
admiration!
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| Biomuseo |
There is also an old town in Panama City, which we visited a few
times and enjoyed walking along its many narrow streets lined with old Spanish
colonial buildings.
Another favourite destination for tourists is the Biomuseo,
a historical environmental museum of Panama, designed by renowned architect
Frank Gehry, which opened in October 2014.
It was fantastic and we spent a few hours enjoying it.
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| The old & new of Panama City |
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| Old town in Panama City |
On our last night in Panama City, Rob and I hiked 8kms along the
waterfront from our hotel back to the fish market near the old town to take
night photos. This was an unplanned hike
because we could walk faster than taking a taxi in the peak hour traffic. It
did let us see hundreds of Panamanian locals keeping fit as they jogged and
rode past us.
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| View back to city during 8km hike |
The location we had spotted during our hop on/off bus rides we
hope enabled us to capture some photos of the energy and modern style of Panama
City, but combined with its reliance on the movement of boats past it.
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| Panama City at night and boats moving with in the waves |
46kms from Panama City is the town of Gamboa, originally created
to support the canal and it was here we stayed in the huge Gamboa Rainforest
Resort for 3 nights, a delightful way to finish our time in Panama.
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| View from Gamboa Rainforest Resort |
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| Aracari Toucan - Gamboa |
Surrounding Gamboa is Soberania National Park which we visited
twice, once by boat watching baby crocodiles, numerous birds and monkeys
combined with walking part of the famous Pipeline Road, a world famous destination
for twitchers.
Our final visit into the
park was to the Rainforest Discovery Centre with its 32m high observation tower
enabling great views over the canopy of the rainforest.
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| Broad billed Motmot |
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| Tamarin monkey |
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| Baby crocodile |
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| Hummingbird |
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| Tanager... I think |
This large resort not only provided excellent scenery around it,
especially at sunset, but also the opportunity to see plenty of wildlife. Every morning just after sunrise we could be
found standing on the upper balconies outside the rows of rooms, watching an
abundance of colourful birds in the surrounding trees and even another sloth
came down for a close look at us.
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| Hunting hawk |
In the resort, at long last we saw those elusive and very colourful
little frogs. They were about the size
of a thumbnail and their colours a warning to everything, because they are very
poisonous and capable of killing a person if touched.
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| Red Poison Dart frog |
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| Juvenile Golden Frog |
The resort also runs a rehab centre for injured wildlife and
whilst looking at frogs, we had a quick look at the holding pens where they
were caring for an injured jaguar, one of the most elusive species anywhere in
Central America. We managed to see only a
small part of this big cat but it was still a very exciting opportunity.
Our rewarding time here had come to an end as we headed back to
the international airport in Panama City for the flight to our final
destination on this trip and stories for the next post.
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| great photo by Robyn Seal |
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| sunset on our time in Panama |
Go well!
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