A Million Minutes in Africa

These are pictures from a boat tour of a “guano island.” These are islands that in the past were valued for the fertilizer the colonies of birds produced. According to the guide, up to a meter per year. Some of the islands were so valued that countries actually took up arms to protect their claims.

Carless, we took the bus to Pisco, home of the Pisco Sour.

Traveling by bus is an entirely different thing. There are obvious differences like the higher cost and associated convenience of having your own wheels, but there are also the little things. What is it worth not to have the person sitting in front of you fling her seat all the way back, and then move it vertical so she can get more momentum on the next backswing?

Probably the most frustrating thing about bus travel is the touts. When they see your bus pull into the station they begin their high-pressure pitches. The words “sitting duck”and “fresh meat”come to my mind.

We haven’t seen a single one yet.

Lack of lima beans proves unhealthy.

We visited the library of the Monastery of San Francisco. No digitization here, just dusty shelves and unprotected, crackly books.

More details to come, but we believe we have successfully put our vehicle on a ship headed to Peru. Can´t be too sure about these things as we did not actually see our ride being put on the ship. We are trying to ship ourselves on a plane to Lima.

Shipping the vehicle is not recommended for those with blood pressure issues. Imagine going to the DMV and not speaking a common language while drooling profusely and uncontrollably. We even paid someone to help us with the whole thing. They are called something like “tramitores” and their job is dealing with the details of paperwork and where to go to get paperwork. After we selected a shipping company we showed up at our facilitators office at 8 am. We were escorted to the police for a vehicle inspection, taken around to visit another office in the police station for some important paper. Next we went to customs for another paper. We paid the shipping company which was surprisingly and excruciatingly difficult and then we were on our way to the port. At the port we given a few false leads until we finally found the right clerk. Long story short, 14 hours later we were back in our hotel, hungry, exhausted and whooped.

Side note: if you ever have the chance to visit Colon, Panama, don´t. This was the town associated with the port. We had to go through there because this was the place to catch the bus back to Panama City. It was by far the closest thing to Hollywood´s idea of a post-apocalyptic city we have ever seen. It was sort of like a very low-tech BladeRunner. The buildings in the dark looked like they were covered with soot, there were piles of garbage between the buildings, and the buildings themselves looked like they were about to crumble without warning. There were people in every nook, some of them just hanging out, others looking like they were waiting for the warden to fall asleep so they could slit his throat. We got on the bus and were grateful even more for the lives we have been fortunate to lead.

Stay tuned and happy new year.

We made it to that place with the canal. Giselle notes that it is a little known historical fact that before Ronald Reagan implored Gorbachev to “tear down this wall,” he asked the French president to “tear down this tower,”as well as asking the Panamanian president to “tear down this jungle” that separates Panama from Colombia. Alas, Reagan’s vision of the world has not been completely fulfilled. The road south does not continue through the Darien Reserve, a jungle reportedly full of narco-traffickers, guerrillas, paramilitary, and other creepy crawly things. Ok, we’ll take a plane.

Boquete is a mountain town in western Panama with pretty trails and crummy roads.

The moths here wear toupees.

The road from the Panamerican Highway leads onto the Osa Peninsula, home of Corcovado National Park, one of Costa Rica´s many highly-touted reserves. Costa Rica is rightly famous for its policy of setting aside wilderness areas and doing something to protect them. In the past we have visited several of them, so we were excited to be heading to one that was regarded as one of the highlights.

Ironically, the Panamerican Highway in Costa Rica is in the worst condition we have seen out of all the Central American countries. It is ironic because Costa Rica is considered to be among the wealthiest of countries in the region. Nicaragua, Costa Rica´s neighbor next door, is second in poverty only to Haiti. However, their roads are in fine condition. A few interesting things we learned may help explain this; that assumes of course you find these things interesting. First, Costa Rica offers health care to its citizens at no additional cost to them. Sure, you probably have to wait a while for treatment, but have you been to an ER in the US recently? Did they give a bill? So, they have set aside money to patch up their citizens, but the roads remain unpatched.

Another factor is Costa Rica´s lack of military. They have a national police force, but from what I understand, no military force. No military means they do not have to move troops around the country. In the US, our interstate highway system, our Eisenhower interstate highway system was spurred on by the military´s desire to move troops and materiel around quickly and efficiently. At least I think that´s right. So, less money goes to the maintenance of a highway/troop transportation system.

Finally, the political situation in the country, according to our Costa Rican friend Rafael, has ground to a halt in terms of promises. No one really wants to take on new projects because there is so much bickering between and among parties.

The result is that you have cars and trucks on the highway driving in completely unpredictable ways. You can be driving along, completely minding your own business enjoying the scenery and from the other direction, oops, an 80,000 pound tractor-trailer is dodging a pothole and it is doing it in your lane and the closing speed is over 100 mph. Very exciting.

It was a bit of a relief to get off the Panamerican at this point and head into the wilds of nature and onto one of Costa Rica´s many unpaved roads. If the so-called paved road sounds exciting, you should get a load of the unpaved ones. From the small town of Rincon which is towards the middle of the peninsula to the coastal town of Drake (say Drah-kay) there are 25 miles of road that are passable mostly in the dry season and with a four-wheel-drive vehicle. Yippee, I finally get to kick in the ol´4WD. The road starts casually enough; dirt, gravel, some mud, no problems. After 30 minutes of loosening our dental fillings on the jarring surface we come to the first life-altering decision- do we cross the rickety-ass, crumbling bridge with a 20 foot drop, or do we go through the stream, possibly to be swept away downstream, screaming uselessly in air-conditioned comfort as scraggly horses stare? I got out of the truck to check the depth of the stream. Yep, it is pretty deep and pretty fast. However, it was not deep nor fast enough to convince me that the world´s most pathetic bridge would hold us up. We crossed the stream.

More rough road, more streams, only 24 more miles to go!

After about an hour we passed a sign that said, “Tourists! Don´t cross the stream! Come inside for information!” Yeah, I am going to fall for that. That is the oldest trick in the book. Come in for information and we leave with a time-share next to McDonalds in Duluth. No way. We continued. Around the next bend was a river, yes, sir. There it was, a river.

We are holed up in San Jose, Costa Rica. When I say holed up, that would be in a hotel with not only hot water (whoowee), a tv (hmmm, Law and Order is on down here about 4 times a day just like home), light fixtures (livin’ large), and all of the things you find in a nice hotel that we have more or less managed to do without. It has been almost a Thoreau-ian exercise in simplicity. It is a little bit of a culture shock to stay in a place where we do not get the willies as our heads hit the pillows.

What are we doing in this oh-so-fine place? Cue the Talking Heads- This is not my musty room- this is not my sweaty blanket- this is not my bare lightbulb hanging from its fraying wire.

We have a friend (Bert of Texas- if you are reading this and need a coffee importer, he is your man), who is friends with an exporter based in Costa Rica (his name is Rafael- if you need large quantities of coffee, he is your man. Think tons, not pounds) who has a friend with a hotel. Thus, we are hanging out in the Hotel San Gildar of Escazu, Costa Rica. For reservations go to www.hotelsangildar.com. We highly endorse staying there next time you are in San Jose. I am sure we are not supposed to advertise on this blog, so think of it more as a friendly recommendation. Tell them Dan sent you. They will say, “Sorry, no rooms available.”

Actually, we are enjoying Costa Rican hospitality. Rafael says a friend of his friend is a friend. He is truly treating us like friends and is making our stay here so relaxing. We were treated to a tour of a coffee farm today. We learned that you do not just pick the beans and then squeeze them to make the coffee. We had come across coffee plants before, but we never took a tour. A whole lot of work, and a whole lot of labor is involved. According to our guide, a good coffee picker can haul in about $15 for a solid day of work. After the beans are picked, they need to be somethinged or other in a large machine (we asked our guide to speak in Spanish so we could practice). The gist is that it is a lot of work.

Now we are prepared to head back into the wilds of Costa Rican nature and all of its insects.

We made it out of Nicaragua, no thanks to the border officials. It’s a highly confusing process for which we actually paid a guide. You get the feeling you need the guide here more than in the jungle. At least in the wild, the animals only want to eat you. If you need to cross the border, ask for Javier. He’s good.

Last night we camped in Parque Nacional Santa Rosa and saw iguanas, parakeets, frogs, howler monkeys, butterflies, and the biggest darned insects you’d ever want to see. They were these semi-cockroach-looking bugs that were as big as my palm. They were friendly, though, unlike the women who worked in the park snack bar. Menu: rice and beans. Want something else? Too bad.

First of all, it is important for me to point out that most of the vehicles plying the roads here are fully functional, new or almost new, completely at home on the streets of any country.

However, there are some exceptional rides that are worth noting. Cars rolling along with major body parts missing or held on with chewing gum, trucks spewing out baseball-sized chunks of diesel (not really, but it sure smells like it), vehicles propelled mostly by animals, etc.

I would like to share some of these special rides here.

Up first is a ride very close to my heart. It combines my love of things that roll with my love of hammocks. I once had a friend in DC who hung a hammock in his efficiency apartment. I am still trying to figure out how to do that in our apartment. In the meantime, the guy in the back of this tractor-trailer is my kind of people. Amigo, that is one sweet ride.

Commentary on the following pictures coming up soon.

This is a bus in Guatemala. If you ask someone where the “cheekin boos” is, they will point you to one of these. They appear to be imported from the US. School systems often replace their buses every few years. They have to go somewhere. So the buses head south and become a popular form of local, and sometimes cross-country transport. If you haven’t guessed, they get their name because people actually carry chickens on the bus. Chickens, little piggies, goats, horses, elephants, anything you can squeeze through the door. The drivers don’t realize the buses are limited by pesky laws of physics, so they push these machines to their limits. Each time I saw one in the rearview mirror I would try and outrun it and keep it from passing. Their diesel exhaust is often nasty. Each time, they would pass us leaving us in a cloud of black spew. Sometimes they don’t wait for the nicety of a safe passing area, choosing instead to risk the lives of all aboard and scream around a blind curve, not knowing if a tractor trailer was coming from the other direction.

My Spanish teacher in Guatemala asked me if I knew the name of this little three-wheeled scooter. I guessed it was the same as in Thai, which is “tuk tuk”. He was very impressed with my extensive Spanish vocabulary. Strange, but the only Latin American places we saw these scooter/trikes was in Guatemala.

This family shows that you don’t really need a Hummer for a family of 4.

Maybe there is a connection between the killer chicken buses and super-fast motorcycles freely roaming the streets of Guatemala.

This appears to be the remains of an early 70s Dodge Duster we saw still in active service in Mexico. As far as we can tell, Costa Rica is the only Central American country with motor vehicle safety and emissions inspections. We passed an inspection station that was surrounded with a high fence topped with barbed-wire. Perhaps some people are not happy about keeping their vehicles in working order.

Our Ford as we crossed the border from Mexico to Guatemala.

A police truck in Lima, Peru.