Panama: David - Pedasí - Las Tablas - El Valle - Santa Fe - Costa Rica : Puerto Jiminez - Corcovado - Golfito

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The title of this entry says it all. I´ve gone too long without updating. I´ll try to pick up where I left off. I was in David, Panama the last time I updated and now I am in Golfito, Costa Rica. This is what I did in between: Tom and I went to Pedasí a small town south of Las Tablas on the Azuero Penninsula in Panama. If you look on a map Azuero is the bulge on the south and center part of the country. The plan was to find a place to stay during Carnevales. Las Tablas has the largest and most authentic Carnevales in all of Central America. So since we were close we thaught we´d check it out. We took a day trip up to Las Tablas (1 hour north). All of the hotels we found were booked or wanted obscene ammounts of money for their shitboxes. But we ended up meeting a local who had a room to rent to us for $8 a day per person. About the same price as a cheap hotel(normally). So we agreed and went back down to Pedasí. The one thing that I really wanted to see in Pedasí was Isla Iguana. A small uninhabitted island surrounded by white beaches and a coral reef. We didn´t end up making it out there due to bad business practices on the part of the guy with the boat. Some of these guys around here are so disorganized and sloppy in the way they do business that they make it really hard for foriegners to trust them enough to hand them any money. Besides Isla Iguana there is absolutely nothing to do in Pedasí. But the people who live there are extremely friendly. I have never been anywhere with people as nice. For example, you can not pass anyone on the steet without them saying hello to you. The town is also very clean and well kept. You seldemly see a piece of garbage on the ground, which is rare for Panama. So that is what we did for the 3 days in Pedasí. We sat on the sidewalk in front of our hotel room and talked with the steady stream of people walking by. It was fine for a couple days. I never got bored once. I met a guy fron NYC, who I also had met in Panama City. He had been there for 3 weeks because he like the locals so much. On friday the 23rd or 24th we went up to Las Tablas for Carnevales. The room we got was bare with a cement floor and no light. By the time we got there it was mid-day. Time for ciesta. Tom and I both got in the habit of taking naps at around 2 in the afternoon, because of the heat. I reached nearly 100º every day. Luckily as we were napping on the cement floor using our backpacks as pillows, the family came in with a light bulb, a cot, a pad for the floor, and some blankets. Then began the 5 day drunken wet dirty rager called Carnevales. There are two main commercial steets in Las Tablas. Calle Arriba and Calle Abajo. Which means up street and down street. They both compete during Carnevales with floats, beauty queens, and fire works. Every day both streets present a new float according to the daily theme, with the beauty queens dancing on top. At 10 in the morning everyday the party would start with the floats coming out and circling the central plaza. On all four blocks surrounding the park there was a tanker of water hosing down the crowds with a fire hose. There is no way of getting through the crowd without getting soaked. The band wagon following the floats was even getting hosed. Even if you made it past the hoses, you would get drenched by kids with squirt guns. The only place in town to get a cup of coffee was on one of these blocks. So every morning with a stupifying hangover I would push and shove my way there. In the park vendors were selling 50 cent beers and 25 cent kabbobs. I love street meat. The party would die down at 4 in the afternoon, then start up again at 8, minus the water. Saturday, the first full day. I started partying at 10 am and didn´t finish till 5 the next morning. I lasted at that pace until Tuesday morning. By that time I´d had enough. I had a good time and met some good people. There was one guy in particular, Jorge from Panama City. He got me in to the discos for free because he knew the security people. He introduced me to women. He even had his wife teach me how to salsa dance. If he ever made it to Bellingham I would roll out the red carpet for him. There were only about ten gringos that we saw there out of about 40,ooo people. We all knew eachother after a couple days. It´s good like that because there isn´t overpriced crap everywhere. And no people trying to capitalize on you "cúz gringo es rích and dúm." Tom and I both decided to clear out of there on tuesday morning, the last day of the fest. Tom wanted to recoop in Las Lajas, but I had been there, so I went to El Valle. El Valle is a town built in the crater of an extinct volcano. It´s a really cool looking town with some good hikes an sites. I met a couple of English girls on the bus on the way there and got a room with them. If I didn´t meet them I would have nothing good to say about El Valle besides that it´s pretty. It´s only 2 hours from Panama City and full of snobby rich SUV driving Panamanians, who a few of which were very vocally anti-American. I told one such woman that she is welcome in my country any time as a visitor, and any person in in my country who gives here a hard time because of where she is from is stupid and ignorant. Sure, the U.S. had some overly harsh policies involving the canal zone, and used extremely excessive force while capturing Noriega, but I had nothing to do with it. I was seven. I almost asked her if her last name was Noriega. I stayed in El Valle for 2 nights. On thursday I went to Santa Fe. I loved Santa Fe. I want to move there. It´s one of those places a backpacker plans on going for a couple nights, because they no nothing about it, and ends up staying for a couple weeks. I met a few which that had happened to. It didn´t happen to me though, I had plans to meet Tom in David on Saturday and I showed up on thursday. I also only brought $25 thinking there would be a bank or ATM there. I was wrong. The hostel was $8 a night and the bus ride back to the transit town was $2.25. So I was working with a $6.75 food and entertainment budget for 2 nights and 3 days. I got back to Santiago with .75 to spare. I did miss out on a couple things because of my budget. For $5 you can rent a tube to float down the river. Those who know me know that I jump at the chance for some good tubing. Some other people from the hostel went on a horse toure to a big organic farm in the mountains and a bunch of water falls. If I had the means I would of definately done that as well it was $12 a person - all day. But all and all I really enjoyed it there. and I will definately return soon with some plato (cash). I met Tom late on saturday night in David. We left to Puerto Jiminez, Costa Rica the next morning along with a Swiss guy named David. We got there in the evening and rented tents for camping in Parque Nacional Corcovado, a massive park full of primary coastal rainforest. Early in the morning we caught a truck taxi to Karate, the entrance of the park. The first day we hiked 20k to the Sirena ranger station. The terrain of the hike is somewhat easy besides some of it is on beaches with soft sand. The temperature and humidity is what makes it challenging. We were all exhausted by time we got to the station. Besides Tom Dave and I we had a new member to our team. An Iranian guy from L.A. who was on a two week trip and had no idea of what he was getting himself in to. He had to borrow my tiny daypack for the hike, and fit all of his food and clothes in it for three days. As much of a pain in the ass he was, I´m glad he came. He had no idea what he was doing and why he was doing it, but it was really funny for the rest of us. After Sirena we hiked another 20k to los Patos the next day. Then the next day 13k more back to civilization. The park is stunning besides the the harshness of it. I guess all great beauty comes with a cost. We saw alot of wild life. Scarlot Maccaws by the flocks, monkeys, an ant eater, peccaries, caotis. We didn´t see any pumas but there were alot of paw prints in the sand. Yesterday morning(thursday) the other guys took a direct bus to San Jose. I just slowly made my way across the bay here to Golfito. Yesterday and today have been somewhat boring, but comfortable. On our last night in Puerto Jiminez after the hike we had a room that was open to the outside. Puerto Jiminez is completely sorrounded by swamp, which makes it a year round mosquito paradise. That night I drank quite a bit and went straight to sleep. I woke at about 3am with my whole body itching. If I counted I think I´d find about 150 visible mosquito bites on my body. I´ve been asked if I got attacked by jelly fish. In fact I would have rather been attacked by jelly fish. It happened in Pedasí and it wasn´t nearly this bad. I also found 5 ticks that had boroughed into my body without me noticing. I found 3 last night and 2 this morning. Hopefully I got them all. The one on my ass was the hardest to burn off. So I´m sitting here now recovering, and feeling fairly low on the food chain. I´m planning on going to Pavones tommorrow. I here there´s no mosquitos there. I wont be able to post any pictures until I get somewhere with better connections. Until then Pura Vida.

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Comments

[nicole]

feeling sorry
i just felt sorry that there were no comments so great job very insperational!!!!!!!!!!!! keep the good job up