Tag Archives: Panama

Panama

Boca Chica/Boca Brava

Leave a comment

I had heard of this spot from one of the reception people at the Purple House as a fairly nice area to go.  definitely not the best place to go, but certainly one to check out.  I had also read in the Lonely Planet that it was a nice place to go.  The main boasting point for Boca Chica/Boca Brava is that there is only one hostel there.  And it is on a remote island that is reachable by boat only.  So I thought I would give it a try…

Perhaps it was the weather, or perhaps my mood, but I wasn’t at all impressed by any portion of part of the trip.  It took several hours and different buses to get there, a private taxi and then a water taxi to get to a hostel high on an island cliff.  The weather was dull and overcast, threatening the look of rain but never producing.  Everything felt dank and dull.  The hostel itself was nothing spectacular.  It honestly was mostly a safety hazard as the paths were made of mosaic design of glass pieces which made everything very slippery.  I opted for a hammock as the beds seemed quite dangerous to sleep on (dirty and potentially moldy and were kept on the floor of the room that had no screens on the windows so you literally were one with nature).  The price to stay there was quite expensive for what they offered as was the trip just to get out there!  All in all I probably spent $60 on this dull detour that I could have done without.

Were it not for the hike I took to one of the beaches once the weather finally shone through with some sun, I would have seriously regretted the detour.  But I did enjoy the beach time as there were hundreds of crabs on the shore to chase and watch, and a troop of howler monkeys came by to chill by the waters with me.

I was literally the only guest at this hostel, so again perhaps it was just poor timing all around, but nothing about this area impressed me.  I slept that night in my hammock and rose early the next day to head to Boquete.

Travel

Costa Rica vs. Panama

Leave a comment

I thought now a good time to make my initial comparisons between Costa Rica and Panama.  I have split them up into categories with my opinions on each:

Overall Impressions:

To me, Panama has lost its wilderness and has the feeling of being back in the States.  It doesn’t feel like another country, just another State of the US.  Were it not for the indigenous people wandering around with their traditional clothing, I seriously would think I was in the US again.

Now, this is not to say that there aren’t areas of Panama that are wild or untouched and not built up and all, but just the infrastructure in general of Panama is so American that I couldn’t help but feel this way.  Roads are nicely paved, the buses are air-conditioned, their currency the Balboa is the same.  Let me explain:  I have yet to see any Balboa bills.  All the bills are US dollars.  The coins are stamped differently from our coins to say they are Balboa, but they have pennies, nickles, dimes, quarters and dollar coins that are the same size, shape, and same characteristics as our US coins.  If once wasn’t looking specifically at what was stamped on each side, they would mistake them completely for US coins.

Panama has stores, grocery stores the size of Wal-Marts back in the States.  Proper grocery stores that I had yet to see in Costa Rica.  The largest grocery store in Costa Rica was the size of a fast food place in the States.  Of course, you can find a Wal-Mart in San Jose (or rather Alajuela) as well as American fast food joints in Costa Rica as well (so sad, I know!) but I was just surprised to find such large stores so easily in Panama.  Perhaps it was just that I had been away from a city in so long that it was partially culture shock to come back to civilization as I’ve known it before, but Panama again just felt like it’s lost its wilderness and individuality as it’s very similar to the States.

Again, all the above is just my opinion.  I have met many a traveler who much prefer Panama to Costa Rica.  I am just not one of them though.

Price of Costa Rica vs. Panama:

Panama also has a reputation for being cheaper than Costa Rica.  Honestly, aside from food prices I have yet to notice this.  Food is definitely cheaper in Panama, but accommodations are priced about the same.  Costa Rica food prices are cheaper on the Pacific (Manuel Antonio and South as I have not been to the Northern Pacific coast as I hear it’s very touristy, so food prices there may also be expensive) than they are on the Caribbean as well.

Drivers and horns:

Both countries have without a doubt some of the craziest drivers!!  I would personally NEVER get behind the wheel of a car in either country, just because I lack the aggression needed to bully your way around the roads as drivers here do.  I will say however that I feel much safer in Costa Rica when walking along roads than I do in Panama.  I have never felt unsafe crossing roads in CR because I had full confidence that the drivers would actually slow down.  In Panama, not so much… Honestly I can’t say exactly why that is, but I just don’t.  I have found myself searching out old people and children in Panama to cross roads with them instead of on my own because I’m convinced they may not slow down for me, but for sure will for the elderly and youth.  People in CR use roads as their personal walkways.  And perhaps this is what makes the difference.  It is quite common for people to literally be walking down the middle of the road as if they own it and people in cars simply weave around them without a fuss.

The use of horns is quite different too.  Costa Ricans have somehow figured out how to rig their car alarms so they can play certain parts of the alarm while driving.  This action has resulted in a car alarm that when started sounds like a wolf whistle… So if they are trying to get the attention of a lady on the street, they simply play their car alarm bits to sound like wolf whistles.  They also use horns to warn other drivers of their approach around blind curves.  In other words, they use horns for specific purposes that are easy to recognize and always about communicating in some way, and that communication is easy to determine what is meant by the horn.  Panama on the other hand… Well, certainly there are horn uses that it’s easy to tell what they are communicating, such as bus drivers saying hi to another bus driver going the opposite direction.  But at least in the case of walking around and being in David, I can’t tell what is being communicated by horns.  They literally are being used every 5 seconds!  The sound of horns and honks is the most prevalent sound!  They seem to use it just for sport, lol!!

Mannerisms of speech:

Costa Ricans say “Buenas” in greeting, Panamanians say “Hola”.  Both countries say “Ciao” when leaving instead of “Adios” as we are taught in Spanish classes.

Speaking of spanish… I feel as if the Spanish I’ve acquired in Costa Rica isn’t the same spanish I should be using in Panama.  Just goes to show you how different even the speech mannerisms and words are from one Spanish-speaking country to the next!

On to David

Back to Panama

Back to Costa Rica

Costa Rica

Golfito Detour

Leave a comment

My initial plan in getting to Puerto Jimenez was to take a bus down and around the upper part of the Peninsula through Rincon to Golfito.  However on the way down, as usually has been the case during my bus rides, I struck up a conversation with a local.  He was a very friendly older gentleman who is a local Costa Rican but who now lives in Panama.  He was in Costa Rica just checking on some properties of his that he rents out to tourists and such.

Again most of our conversation was a mix of Spanglish and charades.  It was great to chat with him and to pick his brain concerning the best route for me to get to Puerto Jimenez.  My original route was to go to Chacarita, then to Rincon and down to Puerto Jimenez.  I was strongly discouraged to take to this route however as it would have taken over 8 hours since the terrain in this path was mountainous and rough.  Instead, I was instructed to go to Golfito and take the ferry across.  This route would save my 4-5 hours of travel, and upon hearing this I was definitely most grateful to my chatting partner for the information.  Once we got to Chacarita, he instructed me to get off the bus and told me where to find the bus for Golfito.

Once in Chacarita we said our good-byes and thanks and parted ways.  Now as a traveler, even though I was engaged in conversation with another person, my observations of my surroundings never stop.  It was on the bus down to Chacarita that I noticed two younger men consistently looking back to see me on the bus.  When I departed the bus for the bus to Golfito, I noticed the two men also depart and  after I got on the Golfito bus, so did they.  They sat next to me and tried to talk me up.  I wasn’t going to be rude, but also I don’t have a lot of patience for people who make me uncomfortable.  So mainly I ignored them and feigned ignorance for the Spanish language.  Luckily they didn’t know a whole lot of English so ignoring them was easier to show them my disinterest.  My instincts told me to stay on the bus until they got off at their stops and I did so.  While this action did make me feel better, it also took about an hour to backtrack to get to where I needed to be.

I had completely missed my stop for the ferry to Golfito but was thankfully guided by a very nice older tica on which bus to take and where to get off.  Of course the stop I should have gotten off on in the first place was one of the stops that the men I was getting away from got off at.  Luckily however enough time had passed that they were nowhere in sight and I continued on my way to the ferry.  This little detour however did cost me to miss they ferry by about 10 minutes and thus I was left to wait a few hours for the next one.

It was while I was hanging out near the dock enjoying a soda that I met two guys traveling Costa Rica together.  Though they didn’t know each other prior to a few weeks ago, they evidently had enough of a bong that made them decide to travel together for the rest of their time in Costa Rica.  One guy was from Austria and had an unbelievable amount of energy, and the other was from England but looked as if from India.  These two travelers (whose names have totally escaped me) were trying to get a group of people organized to take a whale watching boat tour.  Despite my better judgement on this occasion, as I really am not the biggest fan of boating around for the sole purpose of trying to catch a glimpse of a whale or dolphin, I agreed to be part of the crew.

The boat was to take off from Golfito the next morning which meant that I would have to stay the night there.  The two guys knew of a good place where they were staying right along the main road called El Toucan (honestly it seems every town has a place called El Toucan) so I went along with them so I could also get a room and settle in.

At this point it was about 5pm, so we opted to take a small boat ride to another part of the gulf area and do a hike that the boys had heard about.  Golfito has almost a gulf within a gulf as there is a large vast area of ocean at the town, but to actually get into the Golfo de Dulce, you have to cross the mouth of the smaller gulf into the larger.  On this boat ride we stayed within the smaller gulf area and crossed to a more secluded and foresty area.  Only a few tico homes were lined along this beach area and in fact, the man who boated us out there lived in one of the homes.  Once we arrived the very energetic Austrian and his friend found the hiking path they heard about and started on their way.  I opted to just hang about the coast area and simply take pictures of my surroundings close by.  I opted to do this for two reasons: first, because I honestly needed a break from the overly energetic duo, and second I knew that it would be getting dark pretty soon and didn’t want to get stuck walking along hiking paths as it got darker when the threat of potential snakes on the trail was possible.

As I was hanging about, I was fortunate to hear and see a troop of Capuchin monkeys come by.  I indulged in taking several photos of them as well as photos of the many crabs hanging along the beach.  And just as I had predicted, about a half hour after the two guys headed out on the trail, they returned because they heard some noises that they couldn’t identify from some large-sounding animal and got frightened back down the trail.  A little while later we made our way back to Golfito and went shopping for dinner.  The Austrian whipped up some pasta for us along with some carrots, onions and mushrooms.  He was quite upset however when he left the watch of the food to his friend who then ended up burning all the veggies.  It was by far the most interesting meal I had had as the pasta sauce he chose to use was ketchup!  I almost opted to just skip the meal altogether, but in not wanting to be rude, I ate it and it surprisingly wasn’t as terrible as I had thought it would be.

The next day we headed out early for our boat ride and not to my surprise but to the great disappointment of the guys, we didn’t see any whales or dolphins out in the vast and large Golfo de Dulce.  The Golfo de Dulce (sweet gulf) is one of the deepest gulfs and due to the calm and protected waters in this area, it is a very popular location for many whale species to come to during birthing season.  We drove around the gulf for several hours and while nothing was spotted, I still enjoyed just being on the water.  My two companions were not at all content on not having seen anything and were becoming increasingly annoying as they kept trying to get our tour to go here and there for potential whale spotting.  Needless to say I was probably more happy when the ride was over with and I was able to part ways with the energetic duo.  Once back on land I boarded the 1pm 40 minute ferry across the Golfo de Dulce (which if I had been smarter, I should have just asked to be dropped of there during our whale tour) to Puerto Jimenez.

Back to Costa Rica

Costa Rica

La Fortuna

Leave a comment

I arrived in La Fortuna the next afternoon and headed to the hostel I found on the internet called “Sleepers Sleep Cheap”.  The word ‘cheap’ of course caught my eye immediately when searching for somewhere and the reviews seemed good enough.

About 100 meters south of the bus terminal, I arrived at the hostel which was set back a little from town than most of the others.  For $10 a night, I got a private room with a private bath, hot water and breakfast!  I paid for 2 nights and proceeded to get settled in.  Honestly I don’t have any negative words for the hostel.  It was a very basic set-up and nothing fancy by any means, but it was cheap, my room was clean, the staff were very friendly and accommodating, and the breakfast area had one of the best views in my opinion… I will later divulge what that view was;)

Now, I wanted to state my opinion about the hostel before writing about this bit: interestingly enough, weeks later when I was in Bocas Town (Bocas del Toro), Panama, I met a couple who just happened to stay at the hostel at the same time that I was staying there!  But they had a very different opinion of the place… Though they did agree it was cheap, they said they believed they had bed bugs and that their door wouldn’t close all the way so all sorts of critters would come in during the day and night.  Their room wasn’t clean and they weren’t that thrilled with what was served for breakfast (toast, eggs, fruit and coffee).  So, I guess it just goes to show you that not everyone’s experiences are the same!

In any event, after getting settled in it was about time to eat something, so I found a local soda that was recommended and that was just down the street from my hostel and had a fantastic fillet de pollo casado!  I absolutely love those casados!!!

Waiting for my meal to arrive, two guys whom I had met on the bus showed up so we dined together.  I spent that evening wandering the streets of La Fortuna with them, drinking beer in the central park. Since we had all arrived in the late evening, there really wasn’t much time to get our barring of the area, so at this point none of us really knew where the famed volcano was.  Sitting in the park drinking, it became a little bit of a game trying to figure out where the volcano actually was.  If the volcano had been active, it would have been quite obvious, but alas the volcano was dormant while I was there.  And mind you, it had been dark since before dinner, so there wasn’t any way to see around us…

The next morning I rose early determined to check several things off my list.  First off, I wanted to do a tour of the volcano and perhaps the hot springs and second I wanted to go to the famed La Fortuna waterfall and finally, I wanted to get a plan in place on where my next destination would be.  Even though the purpose of my trip to Costa Rica was not to be a tourist, one really can’t help but do a tour or two once here!  They can be pricey, that’s for sure but I did a lot of tour “office hopping” prior to settling on the final place to book at.  And since it was the off-season, there were more deals available than not.

Red Lava, a tour office located at the bus terminal offered the best prices and most unique tours.  Through them I booked a tour of the Arenal volcano that was 5 hours long, including a nature hike to a waterfall (not the La Fortuna waterfall but another one), a history of the Arenal volcano and finishing off with a night dip in a natural hot spring.  I also booked for a Jeep-Boat-Jeep package that would get me from La Fortuna to my next destination of Monteverde via, well you guessed it: a jeep, a boat and a jeep:)

It was mid-morning by the time I got all my bookings complete and since my volcano tour wasn’t going to start until 2pm, I opted to spend my time in between by going to the famous La Fortuna waterfall.  Since my motto on spending money was “the less you spend now, the more you will have later” I decided to walk to the waterfall, located inside a National Park, instead of taking a bus directly to the entrance of the National Park… I really should have just paid the darn $8 for the bus!!!!!  But oh no, I decided to keep that money and hike there myself instead!  Afterall, it was a paved road to the park so I figured a little exercise would do me some good!  I have no idea what the temperature was outside, but the sun was shining and it was definitely humid!  I had my little personal bag with me so I could bring my camera for the trip and take plenty of pictures.  And I was off for my hike…

About 8 kilometers (about 3 of which were straight uphill- the end 3 of course) later I arrived to the park entrance red-faced and completely dripping in sweat.  In fact I was so saturated with sweat that both my t-shirt and breathable pants were completely soaked through!!  My bag, supposedly waterproof, even began to soak in some of my sweat so that the inside contents became damp!  The very first thing I did when I got to the park entrance was go to the bathroom and practically bathe myself in the sink with my clothes still on!  Thankfully I did have along with me my vapur water bottle and therefore was hydrated the entire way, but I still had to refill it twice before ever leaving the bathroom because of my extreme thirst!!  People were looking at me like I was crazy, but all I cared about at that point was that I had made it!!

But then, I glanced at my watch… it was noon… there was NO way I was going to be able to actually get to the waterfall and back down to town by 2:00 for my volcano tour:(  You see, I had made it to the park ENTRANCE but the waterfall itself was still about a kilometer deep into the park.  And tack on the fact that if I wanted to even try to see the waterfall I would have had to pay the $10 entrance fee, well, it just didn’t make much sense at that point to even try for it.  So I decided to simply head back down to the town, perhaps get a bite to eat and make it in time for my tour.

The walk back to town was much nicer!!  All downhill with a little breeze to boot!  The little breeze did wonders to dry my clothing on the walk down and by the time I made it back (about 1) I had just enough time to grab a bite to eat at the soda where I had dinner and get ready to meet my tour.

Oh and I promised I would divulge the breakfast view from my hostel… It was indeed the volcano!!!  I had been staring at it all morning during the first morning while enjoying breakfast yet never realized I what I was looking at, lol!!!

On to Volcan Arenal Tour

Back to Costa Rica