Costa Rica and Panama

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We flew into San Jose via San Salvador, skipping through our fourth country in two days since leaving Honduras. We landed in the capital city of what is allegedly the safest country in Central America and made our way to immigration who have adopted the most inconsistent arrivals policy we have encountered so far.

We had read that we would have to provide proof of onward travel upon arrival in Costa Rica which we found unreasonable and restrictive; it meant we would have to plan three weeks ahead, which was not something to which we were accustomed. However, after reading accounts of people being turned back at the land border, we decided to err on the side of caution and booked a bus ticket for our crossing into Panama next month as evidence that we didn’t intend to reside in the country permanently.

We pored over our schedule and tried to envision the next part of the trip as accurately as possible before booking our ticket. Predictably, the immigration officer didn’t ask for any documents.

The Costa Rican version of Spanish has been almost indecipherable for us here, and a phrase we frequently heard around the country was ‘Pura Vida’ meaning Pure life. It can be a greeting, a stand-in for ‘goodbye,’ ‘cool’ and as an acknowledgement for thanks. It was a handy phrase to pick up as it is also used as the Wi-Fi password for 99% of the hotels, restaurants and bars throughout the land.

From San Jose, we made our way to La Fortuna, a town at the base of the dormant Volcano Arenal. We spent a few days here, hiking the trails and the hanging bridges of the nearby rainforest whenever the weather permitted. Costa Ricans have over twelve different words for rain, so it was a safe bet that we’d become acquainted with a downpour or two during our stay and that proved to be the case. The daily deluge was difficult to predict, even for the locals, and it made planning our days a bit tricky as we never knew if it was going to arrive in the morning or afternoon.

The Monteverde cloud forest was next on our route, and we spent a few days in the town of Santa Elena, close to the famous reserve. Although Costa Rica takes up only 0.03% of the world’s land space, it contains 4% of all known living species of flora and fauna and has some of the greatest biodiversity in the world; with over 850 species of bird in the country it is unsurprisingly a must-visit destination for nature lovers. The country is made up of numerous national parks and over a third of the land is protected area, although prior to the 1950s, 75% of the country’s surface was still covered in forest.

After Monteverde, we moved down the Pacific Coast to a town called Jaco. En route, we disembarked at the side of the highway at Crocodile Bridge, which turned out to be an accurate name as there were about twenty fat, American crocodiles basking in the sun on the bank of the River Tarcoles, just metres below.

We spent a few nights in Jaco, mainly hiking the trails on the outskirts of town before moving on to Quepos; gateway town to the Manuel Antonio National Park, one of the biggest tourist attractions in the country. Manuel Antonio houses four pristine beaches within its coastal rainforest, and we spent a day navigating its network of trails populated by an army of monkeys.

We saw more wildlife at our accommodation though, as our lodge was enveloped by dry forest - the natural habitat of howler, squirrel and white-faced monkeys. I accidentally enticed the monkeys onto our balcony on our first day by eating cookies, and they appeared every morning like clockwork from then on. There were also woodpeckers, hummingbirds and sloths in the vicinity as well as a local Green Vine snake but that didn’t happen to make an appearance during our stay.

From Quepos, our next destination was Puerto Viejo, on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica. The country is only seventy-four miles wide, coast to coast, at its narrowest point, but because of the mountainous terrain, we had to take a bus back through San Jose in order to continue north.

With a socialised healthcare and highly developed sanitation system, Costa Rica has the highest standard of living in Central America, with a life expectancy equal to that of the US. It felt like we had arrived in a western country and although the country felt safe, orderly and more advanced in some ways than its neighbours, we were soon missing the vibrancy and endearing chaos of the CA-4 nations.

Puerto Viejo was a relaxed beach town, and as before, the picturesque beaches of the Caribbean far exceeded those the black sands of the Pacific side. The National Park coastal trail of Cahuita was particularly scenic and rivalled Manuel Antonio in terms of its coastal beauty.

Costa Rica represented a bit of a lull in the travelling action for us which was handy because you undoubtedly need time to unwind when you haven’t worked for nine months. We had already participated in a lot of the activities available here in previous countries, so didn’t really see the point in doing them again for triple the price.

Although it wasn’t the most exciting or challenging part of our trip, it was quite relaxing; we had no pre-conceived ideas about the place beforehand, so it neither exceeded or fell below our expectations. It wasn’t great; it wasn’t bad; it just wasn’t that memorable. Our last overland border crossing of the trip was between Puerto Viejo and Almirante where we took a boat across to the archipelago of Bocas del Toro. We were staying in Bocas Town, discovered by Christopher Columbus and built by the infamous United Fruit Company to develop its banana industry.

On our first day, we hired bikes to cycle to Playa Bluff, a beach situated on the eastern side of the island. The combination of the impact caused by the rocky trail and a bike that was well overdue for a service, caused my back wheel to become offset and buckle, it continually jammed up against the frame and was unrideable. Funnily enough, my solution of throwing it on the ground and stamping on it didn’t do the trick and, in fact, made things much worse, resulting in me being forced to push it 6km back to town in the baking heat.

The day after, we booked onto a boat trip that included snorkelling the off-shore reef; the coral there looked like somebody had been underwater spray-painting it in bright shades of purple, green, red and blue. There were fewer fish compared to the other reefs we have visited, but there was the ever-present yellow and black Sergeant Major fish - the pigeons of the sea.

When we arrived at the terminal in preparation for our transfer to Boquete, we were informed that our departure time had been brought forward as a result of protests that were taking place against the government on the mainland. We discovered this first hand as our bus came to a halt at a road that was blockaded by a huge tree trunk and a bonfire. We had no alternative but to disembark with our bags and walk through the protests for about half a mile to where another bus was waiting to take us the rest of the way to Boquete.

The following day, we struggled to complete the Lost waterfalls hike and in the process discovered that we weren’t as fit as in our volcano climbing heyday of a few weeks ago. A heavy storm had turned the trail into a quagmire; Melissa predicted that it was going to end in tears and that ‘she shouldn’t be doing something this dangerous so close to her birthday’. An hour in, we found ourselves wishing that the waterfalls had stayed lost and Melissa had taken the overly dramatic decision to ration the water supply as if we were in the middle of the Gobi Desert.

After making a meal of what was a relatively easy hike, we left Boquete and travelled east to El Valle, a town that lies inside the crater of an extinct volcano. There was only one road in and one road out, it rained for the entire duration of our stay, and after two days we were relieved to depart for the short journey to Panama City.

Panama City is the most cosmopolitan city in Central America, and it was a welcome change to be back in a big city for the first time since Mexico. Our first stop was to the mall where Melissa was in her element among the shopping on offer, and I retreated to the cinema to watch as many rubbish films as possible. There are two contrasting sides to Panama City: the skyscrapers of the business district, which make up a skyline that is often likened to Miami, represents the modern face of the city. Further south lies the Old Town which, with its collection of colonial buildings, bears a similarity to Havana. One morning we visited the historic Café Coca-Cola - the oldest diner in Panama. Situated in Casco Viejo, a local working-class neighbourhood, the café has received some famous diners in the past such as Roberto Duran, Teddy Roosevelt and legend has it that it is one of the locations that Fidel Castro and Che Guevara met to plan the Cuban revolution.

For Melissa’s birthday, we enjoyed the novelty of booking into the W hotel, with an upgrade and free breakfast thrown in. The unfamiliar surroundings obviously had an effect on us, and we spent most of the morning harvesting the buffet as if we hadn’t eaten for months. This brief glimpse of civilisation couldn’t last forever though, and we were devastated when the time to check-out finally came around - to the extent of toying with the idea of invoking squatters’ rights and barricading ourselves in the room.

To view the Panama Canal, we went out to Miraflores - one of three locks situated throughout out the 80km canal which links the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It takes between eight and ten hours for a vessel to transit the entirety of the channel through the continental divide here.

As we arrived, a freighter was making its way through the lock and Melissa looked giddy with excitement at the prospect of hearing some facts about the process.

The chambers have a capacity of 100 million litres of fresh water supplied from the nearby Lake Gatun which are either filled or drained depending on whether the ship is transiting from sea or river level. Without the aid of pumps - all the water is gravity fed by the use of valves and culverts - the emptying procedure is complete within 8 minutes.

The Panama Canal zone was only handed back to Panama from the US in 1999, and up until that point it operated on a break-even policy. Since the Panamanians have taken over though, the priority has been to increase revenue and a newly expanded section allows giant cargo vessels to transit through; the toll rates of which are currently between $500,000 – $800,000 per ship. In contrast, the lowest toll in the history of the canal was paid by the American adventurer Richard Halliburton who was charged 36 cents when he swam through in 1928.

The fact that the Panama Canal is one of the greatest engineering feats in human history was utterly lost on Melissa though, as she quickly became bored and wandered off to play on her phone.

We had a few options to get across the border to Colombia, the first of which was to sail across via the San Blas islands. This is a popular choice amongst travellers, but after weighing it up, we decided that we couldn’t justify the outlay of nearly $1000 - or spare the five days needed for the trip.

However, it still ranks above option number two. The Pan American highway stretches for 29,000 miles from Alaska to Argentina and holds the record for the world’s longest motorable road. There is a break in the highway between Panama and Colombia and in between is an inhospitable wilderness of jungle, swamp and rainforest known as the Darien Gap - one of the few remaining untouched areas in the world. It is also regarded as one of the most dangerous jungles in the world.

In addition to the natural hazards such as deadly pit vipers, blood-sucking bats, poisonous frogs and trees as well as scorpions, crocodiles, jaguars, and wild pigs, the roadless maze is also used as a drug smuggling corridor. In recent times, migrants desperately trying to make their way up to the US have utilised the route as an alternative to more commonly used paths. Colombian Paramilitaries control access to a 50-mile direct route through the gap with Senafront, Panama’s elite border police, monitoring the western side. The gap takes up the entire width - from the north to the south side of Panama – it is between 100 and 160km long, and there is no possible way around it by land.

Over the years, a number of missionaries and adventurers have disappeared in the area - any journey risks robbery, kidnapping and death. On the plus side, you could save yourself $200 on a flight. We gave this option the consideration that it warranted – none – and booked the flight from Panama City to Cartagena – a journey that signalled the end of our time in Central America.

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