Quest to See the World

There is just not enough time in the day and not enough internet cafes in Panama City.

Going back to when I was in Tortuguero, Costa Rica (one of the most interesting parts so far), well even though it was really rainy, I loved it there and I wished that we wouldn´t have rushed out so quickly. So we went on the morning canal tour with Ernesto and it started raining…

I thought that it would be a passing tropical downpour which is very common in these parts, but not so. We tried to seek refuge under the tree that i had previously mentioned, but that didn´t work for too long. Luckily I had good rain gear and pretty much didn´t get wet through the hour and a half downpour. Unfortunately for 3 girls on the tour with us, they didn´t have raincoats. Two of them were sharing an umbrella and the third was just sitting there in the rain getting drenched. I was thinking that they weren´t very smart to go to a place that gets 60 meters of rain a year without bringing anything, which is still true, but after the tour they said that Ernesto told them that they could use his rain ponchos so they didn´t buy any. In the morning when we were about to leave the first storm had cleared up and he told them that it wouldn´t rain anymore and they wouldn´t need the ponchos. Boy was he wrong! I really enjoyed the rain, even if we did just sit on a boat in the middle of the jungle for an hour. It was really beautiful! Those girls started asking if we were going to head back before the time was up for the tour which bothered me because i wanted to stay out longer.

When we got back to the village at 8:30am we decided to catch the 10am boat to the town of Moín and head to the southern Caribbean area. The ride was supposed to be 3 hours and costs $20, but we did it because we would save time and the canal ride would be fun. The ride was pretty, but turned out to be just as long as if we had returned the same way we came in to Tortuguero because we stopped halfway to switch boats. The other boat got there 15 minutes after we arrived, but for some reason we had to wait at a hotel on the river bank for over an hour. The entire boat trip ended up taking around 5 hours. We could hear howler monkeys roaring along the way and saw a couple of caymans. Once we arrived to Moín we had to wait about a half an hour for the bus to the town of Limón and then got a pretty quick connection to Cahuita.

Once we arrived to Cahuita we checked out a few rooms and decided on Spencer´s Seaside Hotel which was $20 for a room in front of the sea with hot water showers (supposedly). There was another place, Belle Fleur, that was $15 and nicer, but it wasn´t by the water. Spencer´s was a bust because there was no hot water and i had to kill a roach. The hammocks by the water were nice though. The next night we transferred to Belle Fleur and i didn´t have to kill any roaches

The next day (Tuesday, May 15th), we went to Cahuita National Park where i read there are a lot of monkeys. We were walking along the trail beside the beach and out of nowhere appeared a white-faced capuchin monkey. It was walking on the trail behind us and got within 2 feet of Dave and stood on its hind legs. I love monkeys, but this thing was freaking me out because wild monkeys aren´t supposed to get that close. I was afraid of it especially because when i was on Isla ometepe in nicaragua i was told that the white faced ones can be aggressive. Once it realized that we didn´t have any food it went back up into the trees, thankfully. As we walked on we saw two normal acting howler monkeys up in the tree and one was a baby. Further on we heard kind of like yelling and strange noises. As we got closer to Punta Cahuita (where there´s a big protected reef off of the shore) we saw about 10 of these white-face monkeys playing on the trail. We stayed back and watched them for a while and them some other people came from the opposite direction. The people were carrying on and making a lot of noise and the monkeys started to got nuts! One tugged on a woman´s skirt and they got really close to us, eye level in the trees and one stood on its hind legs and held its hand out like a person begging on the street. it was wild! When that group of people left, another one arrived from the same direction and one of the monkeys jumped on top of a girls backpack, unzipped a pocket and stole her chapstick of the the bag. The girl was screaming and a guy had to scare it off of her. It ran up in the trees, ripped the plastic bag away from the chapstick and tried to get it open. Another girl was just walking along and one ran up and tapped her leg. I couldn´t believe how close they were gettting to the people!

One girl had some sort of a business card and handed it to one of the monkeys, it took a bite and threw it on the ground. She then was handing it a scarf and it would keep taking it and dropping it. I was starting to work up courage and wanted to get close to one so I handed it my hat and it just took it from me and then dropped it. We stayed there watching them for a long time. After the other people left, we stayed nearby, at the beach, and they started to act like normal monkeys-chasing each other around in the trees and eating fruits from the trees and from the ground. They stopped harassing us for food. It seemed like the more people carried on, the more aggressive they got. They definitely know the sound of a zipper because i was going to get something out of the backpack and as soon as they heard the sound they all stopped what they were doing and looked over. I decided that i didn´t need whatever i was going to get out afterall. I didn´t want any monkey to jump on my back.

After all of the monkey excitement we started to head back toward the entrance and Dave went for a swim. While he was in the water he motioned something to me, but i didn´t understand. He was pointing up in the tree and then i realized that he had spotted a sloth with a baby. Wow are those things weird looking! They have these big claws they use to hang upside down in the trees and pick their food from the trees and they also have long dirty blonde hair. The faces were really cute. After eating for a while the mom climbed farther up into the tree and went to sleep. That was a real day of wildlife excitement!

The next day, on Wednesday, we headed out of Costa Rica and into Panama. When we got off of the bus at the border in Costa Rica this guy came up to us and was instantly in our faces, which i was really tired of by that point, and was talking about his bus that goes to the boat, blah, blah, blah… I told him that we were okay and we didn´t need his services. He went on to some other tourists and then when he was going to leave with the other tourists he came back to us and said that he would wait for us. well i told him that i didn´t know what he was waiting for us and he got all nasty to me, but then left. He was another scammer and i had had enough of them! I just let him talk his talk and ignored his nasty remark. We got our exit stamps and walked across the old railroad bridge into Panama.

Once we got to the other side there were more people in our faces about the transportation. I get annoyed when i first get off a bus or first cross a border and instantly have all of these people in my face. I wish that they´d let me get my pack off of the bus or get my darn entry stamp and then start doing business. Until my stuff is taken care of I don´t want to deal with anything else. We had to hurry to get our tourist cards and stamps because the office was going to be closing for lunch and we´d have to wait at least an hour and a half there. Luckily we got through just in time. I asked a police officer there about the transportation and was told that we could take public transport to get to the boat to go to Bocas (actually the island of Colón). After telling several guys that we didn´t need their transportation services we got on a chicken bus, then switched to another bus and made it to the dock. Unfortunately we didn´t make it in time and had to wait about an hour and a half for the next boat to leave. This worked out okay though because we needed to eat something and there was a woman there selling some of the best rice and beans I had eaten during the whole trip. It was delicious! Eventually we boarded the boat and had an excellent trip to the island on a fast motor boat that crashed hard against the waves like we used to do on my dad´s boat when i was younger.

When we arrived we didn´t know where we were going to stay and ended up following this guy around who showed us 2 places. when we were entering the first place, Hotel Zapatilla, which looked nice with tile floors, I jokingly asked the guy if the place had roaches and he looked at me like i was nuts, but said ¨no¨. We ended up staying at the first place for $15 a night. Ironically, at 5am the next morning who was spraying 2 cockroaches trying to scurry under the bed, yep, me. Where was Dave might you ask? Standing in the hallway peeping into the doorway to see if I had killed them yet. The next day we switched to another hotel on another island.

Bocas is your typical island vacation place with lots of souvenir shops and restaurants on the water and tour operators. We had some rubbery fish for dinner the first night that I thankfully couldn´t see while we were eating due to bad lighting.

The next day we decided to do a full day snorkel/beach tour to dolphin bay, coral cay, red frog beach and hospital point. At 9:30 we set off for Dolphin bay where we spotted some dolphins quickly. There are about 200 living there and apparently Sea World, or maybe a place like Sea World, wants to catch a bunch for there business. the people in the area have been protesting. hopefully they won´t allow it to happen, especially because there really aren´t that many of them. After that we got dropped of at some restaurant on stilts where we could snorkel, but there really weren´t very many fish in the water there, but there was a small amount of coral. it was a nice place to relax for a few hours. From there we went to Red Frog beach, but apparently they frogs have pretty much disappeared due to some development that was started and then abandoned nearby. When we arrived there were 2 boys holding a jar and the guide was like, ¨Look, here´s one¨, but really they didn´t live there, the boys had just let them out of the jar. someone else i talked to said that they also saw those boys with the jar when they were there. well, at least i got to see two of them. hopefully they aren´t the last 2 in existence. The beach was pretty nice there. We went swimming for a long time. The surf was kind of rough which made it fun. We were there for about an hour and a half. After that, they took us to Hospital point where we could snorkel some more. We didn´t stay there long though because a storm was rolling in. The tour was $19 each, which isn´t bad for a whole day. They also allowed us to take our packs with us and then they dropped us off on the island of Bastimentos after the tours which saved us $5 for the trip.

The island of Colón, known as ´Bocas´ is a regular tourist town as i mentioned. Bastimentos has more of a local feel to it. The houses are in much worse condition and the people go about their business without paying much attention to the tourists. The area in general is populated with people whose older generations originated from Caribbean islands and speak English patois, but there are more Spanish speaking hispanics on the island of Colón by far. I liked both places. Colón is more convenient for tours and going to the bank and has a better selection of restaruants. Bastimentos doesn´t have cars or very many restaurants, i didnt´see any tour operators and definitely no banks. it´s a very small community-it´s very relaxing. The area is really beautiful-turquoise blue water with lots of palm trees. We stayed at Hotel Bastimentos for $15 i think. It´s a very nice place that I´d recommend-very clean, and no roaches.

Well, my mom flies in today in a couple of hours. Going to get my stuff together so i can go and meet her at the airport (back in San José, Costa Rica). More updates as soon as i can. we´re going to search out more monkeys in manuel antonio tomorrow. later.

Tags: Bocas, Central America 2007, costa rica, Panama, tortuguero

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 at 11:19 am and is filed under Central America 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.