itsy-bitsy spider... NOT!

Welcome back to our periodic entries on the flora and fauna here in Monteverde. This has been one of the better weeks for disovering new critters, as Niall saw a Fer-de-Lance (one of the most venemous snakes in the Americas) on the road walking home from school, and Scott not only saw, but captured a large Orange-kneed Tarantula, who is presented to you here in living color. Yes, that is MY hand. The tarantula was wandering around right in our driveway when we pulled up a couple days agao, and we kept him in a tupperware box the last several days just to see if he would eat some of the insects we put in with him. Unfortunately, he never seemed to want to eat when we were watching, so it is debatable whether he ever did eat or not... so we decided it was best to let him continue on with life in the wild and set him free this afternoon.

Back from Panama

Sunday – 24 September

Our way back to Costa Rica focused on seeing a bit of Panama that most tourists don’t see. We wandered back along the pacific coast, spending one night on the beach just a few hours west of Panama City, and then spending two nights on the Azuero Peninsula, Panama’s oldest settled region. Our first night out from Panama City, we spent at a great little hotel right on the beach. The hotel had an open air restaurant that faced out onto the Pacific, where the tide brought the water right up to breaking against the sea wall at the edge of the
restaurant. We spent dinner watching surfers riding the sharp right hand break right along the sea wall! Niall was dying to go out on his inflatable boogie board, but we settled for watching the surfers and letting Niall swim around in the pool.

The next day, we headed farther north and west toward the Azuero. Along the way, we spent the afternoon wandering through mudflats near a place called Aguadulce. Aguadulce is home to Panama’s cultivated shrimp industry (which are grown in ponds on the tidal mudflats, and we visited mostly to see the thousands of waterbirds that congregate to feed in the rich tidal flats. We timed our visit perfectly for low tide, and saw a whole bunch of new birds we had never seen before, including (just for you Jeff!): Black Necked Stilts, Whimbrels, American Oystercatchers, Short-billed Dowitchers, Common Snipe, Black-bellied Whistling Ducks, Little Blue Herons, Chestnut-bellied Herons, Black Skimmers, and Magnificent Frigatebirds. There we quite a few others too, but we just couldn’t get a clear ID. Panama was a great place to bird, and Aguadulce was far from the only interesting place to birdwatch.

Eventually, after Niall reached his threshold of having his parents starring through binoculars at birds on the mudflats, we arrived at our hotel in Chitre. The next day, we spent driving down the peninsula to the small town of Pedasi, where we found a boat to take us out to Isla Iguana, a small national park noted for it’s great variety of marine life. We spent about 4 hours on the island snorkeling and exploring the tidal pools, where we had a great time discovering all kinds of things that you usually only seem to see on National Geographic or Animal Planet. The reefs around the island had a great variety of coral, which unfortunately was mostly dead (due to the bad el niño in 1982), but seemed to be slowly recovering none-the-less. The fish and other critters certainly didn’t seem to be affected at all thoughr, as there were zillions of brightly colored fish of all shapes and sizes, including yellow puffer-fish, iridescent blue parrotfish, and angelfish in black and yellow stripes. In the tidal pools there were filled bright orange crabs, little mud-skipper type fish, and brittle starfish up to the size of your hand. Just above the tide line were low shrubby mangroves that held an entire rookery of nesting frigate birds. We also saw sea-slugs and sea urchins, and the largest number of hermits crabs we’ve ever seen. In places it was almost creepy—there were so many the ground just seemed to be moving with thousands of hermit crabs scurrying along in the shells, ranging in size from about that of a dime up to big ones as big as your thumb or more.

After leaving Isla Iguana, we promised Niall we would take him to Playa Venado, home of big-time surfing in Panama. First however, we had to at least peak at some local real-estate, so on the way to Venado, a very nice real estate agent showed us some amazing properties with gorgeous ocean views that we could afford, but unfortunately just seem too far from anywhere! Cést la vie… Eventually, just before sunset, we arrived at Playa Venado, where Niall decided maybe the surf was just a little too big for him. Located on the tip of the Azuero Peninsula, this beach got huge waves off the Pacific that looked just fantastic, but were more than a bit large for us! After a long day, we were happy just to settle for a nice dinner on the drive back to our hotel, and look forward to a bit tamer ‘surfing’ back in Costa Rica.

The other reason we spent time in the Azuero Penin sula was for the areas cultural uniqueness. We had read that this area was little changed for much of the past 200 years, and our guidebooks regularly characterized the place as "looking much like rural Spain." I'll grant the guidebooks this, there are some great examples of Spanish colonial architecture, and the countryside was unquestionably picturesque, but I can't say it really looked much like Spain to me. I had to actually wonder if the folks who wrote that into the guidebooks had ever really been to Spain! It was sort of like saying New England looks like England-- you can see the influence, but it is a family resemblance, not at all the same thing. So if you go to the Azuero (and we would definitely reccomend it!)-- don't expect Spain-- expect Panama, with a strong Spanish influence and it's own unique twists. And don't miss the great tamales and roadside pipa (chilled coconut milk straight out of the coconut-- it's great!).

Before crossing back over the border to Costa Rica, however, we decided to spend one more night in Panama, in the community of Boquete on the southern slopes of Volcan Barú. This town is a very interesting mix of Panamanian and expatriate communities, with large numbers of European and North American retirees mixed in with the local farmers. Like Volcan and Guadalupe where we stayed on the northern slopes of the same volcano, Boquete is noted for it’s gardens and rich plant life, and we were not disappointed. In addition, the day we spent there was Norma’s birthday, so was appropriate that we managed to find one of the nicest restaurants of our trip for dinner. They had great food at very reasonable prices, and we had a wonderful window seat looking out over a garden with a fast running mountain stream just a few feet away.

Our border crossing back into Costa Rica was our most uneventful to date. Even though our car was stuffed to the gills with stuff we bought in Panama (boogie boards, a toaster oven, gifts & souvenirs, clothes, etc., the customs officers merely stamped our passports and sent us on our way. We were through in less than 10 minutes! While we the Costa Rican officer was filling in our paperwork, we discovered that the other person crossing the border was a Norwegian woman traveling alone and heading home to the same town we were planning on spending the night, Playa Dominical. Lynn asked if she might hitch a ride, and we decided why not—we could squeeze another backpack and a surf board in! so we gave her a lift for the 2.5 hour drive to Domincal. As it happens, it was nice we did—she was a wealth of local knowledge, and she actually worked (as a massage therapist) at the hotel we were planning to stay at. We stopped about a half an hour along and she called ahead and made reservations for us to make sure we would get a good room! She also brought us up to date on the state of some of the roads we were unsure about. We had avoided a section of road along the coast on our way down to Panama because on our map it was rated as “seasonal only.” As it happens, this section has been recently upgraded and paved, to the point where it is commonly referred to as the best road in Costa Rica by those that know it exists! If we hadn’t picked up Lynn, we never would have known and we would have missed some of the nicest ocean front in all of Coast Rica.

We spent the next two nights in Playa Dominical enjoying some relaxing time doing family beach stuff. Just south of Dominical was a great beach called Playa Hermosa that we all got to really try out our new boogie boards on, and we also snorkeled along the reefs at Punta Uvita. Other than the swimming and snorkeling, we hung around the hotel where we could walk the beach and Niall was constantly in and out of the pool. Along the beach we saw turtle tracks up to where they had laid their eggs the night before, and each time we walked, a very cute little dog kept wandering along for the walk. Well, you know where that was going. This time, it wasn’t me, however, who got hooked on the dog. After our last neurotic dog Lidi, Norma swore that she would never have another dog and I was never to bring one home. Wouldn’t you know, that by the time we were ready to check out of our hotel, she was asking all around town about the little black stray dog, etc. Welcome to the Shannon family, “Chispita!” As you’ve seen from the earlier photos, she is small (about 16 lbs), and short haired, and clearly mostly terrier, sort of like a dark colored Jack Russell. Unlike Jack Russell’s, however, this is the most mellow, mild mannered, amiable dog you’ve ever seen. Like many street dogs in Costa Rica (and there are a lot), she is very traffic savvy, and remarkably smart (after one week, she knows her name, comes when called, is house trained, and even sits on command most of the time…). But the real kicker for Norma is the typical little terrier beard and the ears that flop—she just cant resist that I’ve decided. So… we are now the owners of a dog in addition to our growing menagerie of lizards and other wilder critters.

Seeing as we had the dog with us now, we decided to cut our trip short by one day and drive straight back to Monteverde instead of spending another night in Manuel Antonio on the way home. As it happens, this was a fateful decision. We stopped for lunch at a place called the Pelican on a nice beach just outside Jaco, and in hurry, we parked a little ways farther from the restaurant than we usually would, and in the shade where we couldn’t see the car. While we were eating, someone used a ‘slim-jim’ to break into our car and stole my camera and Norma’s wallet. When we returned to the car, just the drivers’ side passenger door was unlocked, and we immediately noticed the missing stuff. After a hurried couple of phone calls to cancel Norma’s credit cards, we then headed out to Jaco to visit the local police and report the theft, on the slight chance that we might be able to make an insurance claim (alas, that failed, but I’m told at least we can claim the loss on our taxes…) On the way there, we noticed one of our tires going flat, and were lucky enough that it really started to go right in front of a gas station. As it turned out, the thief had not only stolen our stuff, but slashed one of our tires with a knife! Fortunately, the gas station managed to fix everything veryt quickly, and nothing else went wrong… We were later told this is a common ploy used by thieves in Costa Rica as a potential diversion should you get back to your car when they are inside—they explain that they we just trying to find something to write a note pointing out the flat tire! The police, though not terribly helpful, were very understanding and much more efficient than we expected. After getting a \ copy of the police report, we were on our way in about a half hour. Two ours after that, we finished the long climb up the windy dirt road to Monteverde and home, just as the sun set over the Gulf of Nicoya. While we did have a hiccup or two, it was still a great trip! Next week- back to work…

Panama & Panama City

Thrusday – 21 September

We began our sojourn in Panama with a night in Guadalupe, about a two hours south east of the border, high in a valley on the flanks of Volcan Barú, Panama’s only semi-active volcano. Even Volcan Barú isn’t terribly active, at least not by central American standards, as it just has a few steam vents in the crater at the top. Guadalupe is a very small town on the northwest slope, with a patchwork of cloud forest mixed with coffee fields and intensely cultivated small fields of vegetables. This region produces most of the vegetables eaten in Panama, and everything grows like crazy in the rich volcanic soils. Gardening, not just agriculture, is also very big here. Every little house had a flower garden in the front and often their entire lot was covered in every imaginable flowering herb, shrub, or tree.

We stayed at a nice hotel called Los Quetzales, after the spectacular bird which is quite common here during the spring nesting season. Following our night in Guadalupe, we headed south and east to Chitre on the Azuero Peninsula. We were pleasantly surprised again by the continued fine quality of the roads, as we rejoined the Inter-American Highway for much of this leg, and it was not just well paved, but sported four divided lanes for much of it’s length! The countryside in Panama is very picturesque, with rolling farmland of pasture, sugarcane, and rice interspersed with patches of remaining rainforest throughout much of this region. We traveled through a variety of interesting towns and small cities, each with different local handicrafts sold on the roadsides, including baskets, straw hats (yes, Panamanians actually do wear “Panama” hats!), colorful dresses, and typical souvenirs.

Ultimately, we headed out to arrive in Panama City by Thursday, Sept. 8. We drove the Inter-American Highway straight into the city, and managed to find our hotel without trouble, even with the crazy traffic. Panama City really has no peer in Central America when it comes to traffic. Buses called “diablos rojos” (red devils) are everywhere jockeying for space, taxis are darting in and out like you are in Manahattan, and there are plenty of private cars too, all moving along at surprizing speed. The streets are wide and well maintained, and there is a hustle and bustle that is remarkable. The city has miles of waterfront promenade along the Pacific, and the skyline easily rivals San Francisco or Sydney—it is really a striking city.

Our hotel was in the financial district, tucked in among high rise office towers and with lots of places to walk to for shopping or restaurants close by. We spent our first day in Panama City visiting “Casco Viejo,” the old city. Most of Casco Viejo dates to the late 19^th century or early twentieth, though some structures, particularly the churches go back to the early 18^th century or older. Casco Viejo is architecturally quite similar to Granada, but in terms of physical condition, it looks much more like Prague when we first visited in 1993. Much of the area is very run down, with crumbling plaster on the classical facades and pealing or long absent paint on all the wood surfaces. There is a lot of restoration work going on, and the government has a great historic preservation plan for the area, so in about 10 years, the place should be pretty remarkable. Our time in Casco Viejo was made even more remarkable by the attention we got from one of the local bicycle cops. Due to it’s poor physical condition, and proximity to other run-down neighborhoods, the area has a somewhat dicey reputation in terms of safety (lots of minor street crime like pick-pockets, etc.). When we arrived in the area by taxi, we began walking around and within 5 minutes, we were greeted by a very friendly policeman named Daniel on his mountain bike. He then spent the next three hours personally guiding us around the neighborhood, including a variety of buildings (and their interiors) that we never would have gotten into without his help! We wandered through several churches (each with grand gilded alters), the old fort on the waterfront, the national theater, the foreign ministry, and were introduced to the President of Panama’s personal guards outside his residence. We visited a great museum that focused on the history of Panama City and the construction of the canal, as well as another that highlighted nearby emerald mining activities in Columbia. Norma particularly enjoyed the emerald museum, as I got her birthday present there—a beautiful emerald ring, set in silver.

Prices for almost everything in Panama were less, ranging from food, to appliances, to electronics, not to mention the emeralds (which are reputed to be 30-50% less than in the US). Knowing the prices are good, we spent the balance of the afternoon walking along Avenida Central near our hotel shopping for all kinds of goodies. Needless to say, Norma has all the Christmas shopping done now… hopefully we can fit the stuff in our luggage come December ;-)

Our second day in Panama city was the day that Norma in particular was waiting for… a half “transit” of the Panama Canal in a small tour boat. For those of you that really know Norma, you’ll be familiar with her unusual interest in all things industrial (she loves factory tours, etc.), and you wont be surprised by her fascination with the engineering and construction of the canal, as well as it’s current operation. We spent about 4 hours covering approximately 20 km of canal, including the three Pacific side locks. Niall really liked the trip as well, but after about an hour of cruising along the canal, passing two or three HUGE container ships, and one lock-through, he was like any 8 year old—bored & ready to watch TV. So Norma almost lost it when she noticed he was missing on deck and found him in the crew cabin watching cartoons with a couple of stewards… Granted, he has no TV at home, so he is almost in withdrawl.. too funny!

We finished our cruise about mid afternoon, and Norma had one more shopping mission to take care of… The previous evening in the hotel lobby, we saw several ladies come in with bags and bags of stuff (they almost filled one elevator), all from one department store—Oca Loca (the crazy goose). Norma was soon putting her new Spanish skills to work finding out where this Oca Loca might be, and was it really worth a visit (as the volume of bags of purchases might suggest). As it happened, it wasn’t far… So off we went to Oca Loca. Fortunately, we clearly didn’t have room in the car to buy too much, so even though Norma loved the prices, we escaped with our Visa card well under its limit.

That night, we had our worst sleep of the trip. In all respects, our hotel and their staff were wonderful, but every now and then, you get someone in staying in a hotel that just doesn’t know how to behave in public. Unfortunately, one of those folks got the room next door to us that night. The hotel staff finally got them to quiet down at about 4am, but only they had filled the swimming pool 7 floors below their room with broken beer bottles, and I called and asked when the “fiesta” next door might end. On the up side, the hotel staff were so sorry for our trouble, they gave us that night for free!

On our last day in Panama City, Sunday, Sept. 10th, we traveled out of the city along the canal to Mira Flores locks to see a few more ships, and then on the Summit Zoological and Botanical Gardens. While the Summit Gardens are not the San Diego Zoo, they had a couple of great exhibits on local flora and fauna, particularly the Harpy Eagle, which while endangered in much of Central and South America, remains fairly common in the rainforests of Panama. The zoo had a huge aviary with two adult harpies, and they are indeed impressive creatures. Each can weigh as much as 20lbs or more, and they have wonderful crested plumage on their heads.Norma was also able to see a Tarya or Tolumuca, which turned out to be the strange creature she had gotten a previous glimpse of on one of our walks here in Monteverde. It looks like a cross between a black dog, and an otter, and is one of the larger members of the weasle family.

From the Summit Gardens we headed back to the west crossing the canal on the new Centennial Bridge and then rejoining the Inter-Americana highway for our long return trip to Costa Rica. We were in no real hurry, as we had to stay in Panama until the 14^th (because of our Visa timing), and Niall didn’t then need to get back to school until the 18^th. So we decided to leisurely explore the long stretches of Pacific coastline on the way home. More on those adventures tomorrow!

Back from Panama

Monday, 18 September

Hello again from Costa Rica!
The Shannons have once again returned to Monteverde and something resembling a normal routine after two weeks of traveling through much of the Pacific coast of Costa Rica and western Panama. We had an almost perfect trip, with only one blemish… On our last day, as we returned home-- our car was broken into and my camera and Norma’s wallet stolen. Fortunately, nothing irreplaceable was lost other than about 400 digital photos, so we apologize for the relative scarcity of photos to accompany the following descriptions of our Panama travels. After all the years that Norma and I have been traveling, it’s amazing that this is only the first real theft we’ve ever encountered, so we’re counting our blessings that we got off with only the couple things taken even this time. On the up side (I think ;-)), we've acquired an adorable little dog or more accurately, she's acquired us, who we can now leave in the car as a guard. More details on that later…

To begin, a little background on our trip and then we’ll break things into several entries over the next couple of days just to spread things out. We spent 14 days traveling, so there’s LOTS to tell! Like our trip to Nicaragua a month or so ago, this one was also inspired as a “visa-cation,” or an opportunity to extend our 90 day tourist visas to fit our travel plans back to the US in December. Niall had 6 days off from school as well, so we figured… why not? Time to see some of central America! So, on the 2^nd of September, we all headed out toward Panama along Costa Rica’s Pacific Coast. To start the trip, we spent two nights in Quepos at Manuel Antonio National Park. We’ve been to Manuel Antonio before, but this is the first time we’ve had time to actually wander the park itself, instead of just enjoying the beach setting. This park is one of Costa Rica’s real gems, and while small in area (only several hundred hectares), it remains a wonderful place—steep cliffs, covered in dense rainforest, ending at the edges of beautiful beaches. While again we spent most of our time swimming and body surfing on the beach outside our hotel, we really enjoyed a half day hike through the park. This park fits perfectly with Norma’s idea of adventure “light” -- hiking on trails that are not too steep or rough, well marked, reasonably dry and stable, and not more than a couple kilometers long. It also didn’t hurt that the trail provided some gorgeous views out over the ocean to some small islands, as well as abundant flora & fauna. We even came across a troop of white-faced monkeys that tried to beg for hand-outs. Norma really got them going by crinkling the plastic wrapper on some granola bars, and they practically tried to dig the contents out of another woman’s purse!

We also really enjoyed our hotel in Manuel Antonio. We stayed at a place called the Hotel Karahé (which we highly recommend), which has a restaurant right on the beach, a pool adjacent to the restaurant, and a variety of reasonably priced rooms in cabañas terracing up the hillside with spectacular ocean views. The grounds are beautifully planted in tropical trees and shrubs, and to Niall’s delight, filled with Iguanas and Basilisk lizards. He even had the opportunity to rescue about an 18” Iguana from a cat that tried to catch and eat it. The crazy lizard then refused to leave Niall’s arms for several hours!

On Monday Sept. 4^th, we packed up the car and headed farther south and east into parts of Costa Rica we’ve never visited before. We began by driving along the coast on a VERY rough road to Playa Dominical, before heading inland to San Isidro to continue on the Inter-American Highway. San Isidro is a thriving small city with perhaps the ugliest modernist cathedral on the central square in town we’ve ever seen. It looked like something out of Star Wars, complete with the “battle-scarred” look (it is only 30 or so years old, but it clearly isn’t aging well). The countryside around San Isidro is, however, absolutely beautiful! The city is located at the end of a long inland valley with very high mountains to the North (10-12,000ft) and a smaller but not less rugged coast range to the south. The valley is filled with rolling farmland, much of which is planted in pineapple. Apparently much of the pineapple industry that was once centered in Hawaii has now moved to Central America, where it has become one of Costa Rica’s most important exports. At any rate, it certainly makes for nice roadside scenery. It also didn’t hurt that this section of the Inter-Americana is perhaps the best in Costa Rica—nice and smooth, with wide shoulders, and no potholes.

We headed south and east to our ultimate destination for the day, San Vito, just shy of the Panama border. San Vito is a rather unremarkable community of primarily Italian immigrants who moved to Costa Rica following WWII. Italian is still spoken on the streets, however, that’s about all the European culture that seems to have come along. Not even a single good restaurant in town! In the morning, after spending the night in a nice but non-descript hotel, we visited San Vito’s one real claim to fame- the Wilson Botanical Gardens. The gardens are located on the top of the coast range of mountains at about 3500ft elevation, and this allows them to grow almost anything that lives in a relatively tropical climate. Designed by Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx in the 1960’s, it encompasses 40 acres of fantastic collections of palms, ferns, bromeliads, heliconias, bamboos, etc. Absolutely worth the visit! Even Niall admitted to being impressed by many plants (Like the 60-80' tall bamboo--it’s tough to get an 8 year-old into visiting gardens!).

We finished walking around the garden about 11:00am and then proceeded to the border with Panama, figuring we should have missed any morning rush, and hoping to get through before lunch break. The border is only about 5 miles from San Vito, but surprisingly there is little evidence of an international border anywhere. No signs, no traffic heading to or from, nada. We had been directed to use this crossing for just this reason by friends in Monteverde, who assured us it was just out of the way, and therefore very easy in terms of bureaucracy, waiting, etc. Our guidebooks, however, all warned against this crossing, without ever giving much reasoning. We decided to trust our friends, and while it certainly isn’t easy to find (we had to ask directions about four times in 5 miles), it certainly was small and simple.

On the Costa Rican side is small block building marked by a Costa Rican flag and with one very bored looking person manning the border controls. It is approached by a typical rutted and pot holey gravel road with no signs or directions whatsoever. We stopped at the building and the immigration officer gave our documents a cursory check, and in less than 5 minutes, sent us 100 meters down the road to the Panamanian frontier. The border is marked by a short chain-link fence running parallel to a small, rutted, dirt street in Costa Rican territory, and intersected by several streets emerging from Panamanian territory. In stark contrast, each street coming from Panama is nicely paved with curbs, gutters, and sidewalks. Just into Panama is another small building with a Panamanian flag, and three windows with very courteous immigration officials. We were quickly directed to the grocery store across the street in Costa Rica to purchase timbres (official stamps), which were placed in our passports, signed & sealed, and ultimately acted as our “visas” for the visit. Just around the corner was another small building with another official who prepared a “visa” for our car. Unfortunately, we ran into our only glitch here. She was eating lunch, and refused to deal with us until 1:00pm when she was back on duty. Unfortunately we weren’t aware that Panama is an hour ahead of Costa Rica (which does not use daylight savings time), so we arrived at the border at 12:30 instead or 11:30 like we had thought. Cést la vie. The car immigration person even then was nice and directed us to a great lunch spot that cost all of $4.00 for lunch for three. Panama was looking very good, right from the get-go! While we killed the rest of the lunch hour, we also shopped along the main street heading into Panama, and immediately started buying stuff that always seems expensive in Costa Rica. Norma was clearly in heaven. When we returned to the auto visa person, we got everything stamped and sealed in less than 5 minutes and we were on our way. Almost as easy as driving from the US to Canada or vice-versa! So anyone thinking of driving from Costa Rica to Panama, ignore the guidebooks-- cross at San Vito – Rio Sereno! As long as your documents are in order, everything should go smoothly, easily, and quickly.

More tomorrow on the wonders of Panama…