The road to Panama

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Sat 4th Feb - Cahuita

Most of the day was spent ambling round town. We mistakenly thought you had to pay to get into the Cahuita National Park on what is said to be the best beach in Costa Rica and so gave it a miss which we were to regret the next day on learning it was free to enter. So rare that you find a free attraction as a tourist it's even more annoying when you're trying to scrimp on as many pennies as possible. On our 10th and final night in Costa Rica we once again experienced Costa Rica's ridiculously high priced food for what is distinctly average and just as likely as anywhere else to commit you to doing some serious toilet time.

Sun 5th Feb - Cahuita to Bocas, Panama

We'd learnt on the internet that there was a hugh protest going on in Panama between the indiginous people who had the support of most of the country and the government and they'd blockaded many roads as the government was seeking to renege on previous promises not to mine copper in protected national parks. Naively this did little to deter our travels and later as it turned out we were ok but 2 protesters were shot dead not far from the region we were in. We're told by Panamanians and it's fairly plain to see, that the whole of Central America is corrupt so it doesn't seem like there's much hope for the majority of poor people in these countries for many years to come. Our timing was lucky also as the day after we traversed the rickety old banana train bridge separating the 2 countries, the border was closed for the next 3 or 4 days until the dispute was resolved. It was delightful to see some of the enterprising locals take advantage of the situation by charging over priced taxi's and boat rides for alternate routes around the blockades but still that was what we had to do to get to our destination. Arriving in Bocas felt kind of odd compared to all the places we'd been, since a lot of money has clearly been spent on the place with its multicoloured clapper board hotels and it now resembles a typical western tourist resort as opposed to the untouched, backpacker like place we were expecting. Apparently it was undeveloped until about 10 to 15 years ago when tourism took a hold of the place.

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