Today, we played Indiana Jones again, but we are not claiming it this time, it’s the title of the game !
First, like in the old times in the jungles, here’s a bug collection.
Our hostel organizes games, like treasure hunts, in the little jungle patch around. There are two, the firsts explores the forest around, and the second takes place on the hostel property. We started yesterday morning, going on the trails. The clues took us on the regular path, where we stopped at panoramic points, swimmable spots, a majestic hollow tree and so on… It is really nice to have this little riddle waiting for you when you arrive somewhere cool, even if you would have gotten there anyway, it is a nice touch and it makes us follow a funny map with absurd names (which are all potential answers to the riddles).
After finding all the clues, taking a bath, jumping in a deep pool from a big rock and water-sliding in rapids (for Ben), we crossed at a ford that was more flooded than usual because of the recent rains. If you followed, we changed into bathing suits for swimming, got dressed again, got to the crossing, undressed again, got across, got dressed again (at least to have shoes on for the remaining walk)). After the clues, we doubled back, undressed again to cross, and got dressed again. And that’s when it started pouring (it had been drizzling on and off for a while). We still needed one and a half hour to get back and we witnessed numerous rivers being born under our feet in that time, on the paths, at the bottom of trees… We got skull massages when the drops got bigger and were really happy that we had our Hogwarts sexy rain gear (see old articles about that).
We arrived at the hostel around 4, and it was a big relief to put everything to dry. Our shoes are now 3 times heavier and aren’t even close to being dry soon seeing the ambient humidity. The rain went on all night (which didn’t prevent us to win 3rd place in the Foosball tournament, by an incomprehensible phenomenon). The last clues will have to be found around the hostel tomorrow, if the rain stops !
Kisses to you all, may the wisdom of the majestic tree guide you !
Today was our first day in the Panamanian jungle, and it was a pretty lazy day.
The hostel is pretty nice, with several buildings in the middle of the jungle linked by small paths and stone stairs. The only drawback is that its far from any shop. But it does sell some ingredients for cooking, and also has set meals, with a great “jungle bowl” for breakfast (mainly yogurt, cereal and fruits). At breakfast we even saw 2 monkeys climbing up a tree less than 10m away from the hostel’s terrace!
We were thinking about doing one of the treasure hunts around the hostel today, but it kind of poured all day, so now we’re up to date on the blog and in our accounting. We also took the opportunity to talk with other travelers. The hostel is big and spacious enough to accommodate a lot of travelers (even though the dorm does get crowded). So it’s really nice in the common area, where you can talk to people from everywhere in the word.
At lunch we showed them the extent of our cooking talent (so spaghetti and tomato sauce). And for dinner we amazed them with our great soup and omelette combo. But in our defense, even though we can by some stuff here, the ingredients are quite limited (and it’s been a while since we’ve seen a decent olive oil or even thyme!).
In the evening it’s party time in the hostel’s bar, which is really cool (and has a happy hour from 8 to 9). The available games range from the usual Foosball to the more rare giant Jenga tower. It’s also at night that Rocky, the local kinkajou living here, comes alive (and so you can pet him 🙂 ).
So, yes, not much to say today. But tomorrow we’re definitely doing a treasure hunt and we’ll tell you all about our adventures!
P.S : Cultural info point. The last dictator of Panama, Noriega, was ousted by a U.S invasion in 1989 (which left 2000 civilians dead and tens of thousands homeless… so much for soft power!). During the invasion, Noriega took refuge in the Vatican embassy. As the U.S army didn’t want to invade the embassy (you know, just in case it gets you to hell…). So to get Noriega out, they just blasted loud rock music (including “Welcome to the Jungle”, not very God-approved) non stop for several days towards the embassy. Eventually the diplomatic personal threw Noriega out !
Today, we mostly moved around. We left our hostel and the capital for a cabin in the woods in the Chiriqui Province. We were in total around 9 hours long in the bus under the rain and weren’t disappointed to be inside !
It allowed us to test Panamanian buses, which are similar to Colombian buses with a few small differences. For example, at the beginning of the journey, a traveling vendor came in with his articles, but instead of just shouting what he was selling (mandarines, one dollar !) he kept us busy for a while with little games which allowed us to win samples, or jokes and general culture questions. It was new and kind of nice. After a few hours, we also stopped at a restaurant where we could eat for really cheap if we were traveling on the company buses. I was a small self-service place with simple but probably home-made food, and we ate really well, in a big hall that wasn’t very charming but so much better than this neon-fast-food-expensive atmosphere that we have in highway restaurants in Europe. In the first bus, the longest one, we also had the best seats (is it because we are tourists ? sheer luck ? anyway we didn’t ask but it was nice). We were on the second floor first row, just above the driver, with a huge (cracked) windshield and panoramic view.
We arrived at night on the side of a road, in front of the sign of our hostel. At least, this time, we had a reservation and a map, so we got out our flashlights and left. The forest was dark and damp, the rain had stopped but a thick fog had come since the end of the trip. It took us several tries to figure out the right path and do the mini-hike to get there. When we heard rock music we understood we had arrived, and when we entered the bar, everyone stopped gaping at the two lunatics hiking at night and arriving all sweating at the time when normal people have a beer and listen to Red Hot Chili Peppers. So we spoke english all night, which was a nice break from Spanish, and met travelers like us, very friendly, and we enjoyed it a lot !
Since it took us some time to eat, drink and talk, we didn’t prepare anything before bed and this article is sent from the day after !
Today, the weather wasn’t very nice (what! you don’t talk about the weather when you got nothing else to say?)
Most of the morning was necessary to plan our next stops in Panama. Because going along the Panamericana is swift and easy, but if we want to get somewhere more remote, it’s quickly a lot more transportation time. So if we go somewhere remote, we want it to be cool 🙂 .
We were thinking about spending a day or two in the peninsula on the pacific side (oh yeah, we forgot to mention that we saw the pacific for the first time in Panama City!). But even if there would be really cool beaches, it would means taking several buses and the accommodation there don’t seem so cool. And it’s more for surfers, and for us, surfing is mostly done on the web 😉
So we’re going directly to the west of the country, a bit north of Chiriqui, to dive a bit into nature, and then we’ll go to Bocas del Toro, were we’ll still get those nice beaches 🙂 . We should have internet connection everywhere so we’ll be able to update the blog, even though it probably won’t be lightning fast :p.
This afternoon we took a walk near our new hostel, which is in the more recent city center, in the middle of tall buildings. As we’ve already said a couple days ago, it’s quite weird to see all these different towers next to each other with no apparent harmony between them.
We also tried to get our hands on the Lonely Planet Central America on a Shoestring, a guide for travelers with a small budget like us, but couldn’t find it even though we went to most places in town that should have had it. We did manage to do our other task of the day : get more cash. And so we discovered that Panama is a bargain if you’re rich and trying to hide your billions, but for the poor travelers trying to get a couple bucks from the ATM it’s 5.25 dollars bank fee (just on the panama side) each time ! Ah, we do love capitalism…
At night, some buildings look as if in a science fiction movie!
Another discovery of the day was realizing how much we miss stuff like pedestrians crossings or bus stops ! For the former, they are mostly inexistent and if you find one, you probably won’t have a street light for pedestrians, even on the biggest avenues. For the latter, despite some noteworthy efforts to improve public transportation (one subway, new buses with electronic badge system…), the bus stops are sometimes hard to find and very far apart. We also noticed that most streets don’t have a proper sidewalk. It really feels like a town for cars and not pedestrians.
That’s all for today. Tomorrow we’ll spend most of the day in the bus (we do have to cross the country), so we might not have a lot to tell you guys (well that’s simply not true, we do always find a way to fill the articles even when there’s nothing to say, just look at today’s article! :p )
P.S : it’s game time (it’s been a while) : 2 cats are hidden in the middle of Panama City’s architecture. Can you find them?
We started (after the unlimited pancakes at our hostel) by going to the jungle, because it had been too long ! Panama City caters to a big park, relatively accessible from the public transportation network (there is a great subway here, made by Alstom, it’s written on it !). We saw there a few joggers, but also other tourists like us, coming to spot a sloth, because a lot of them live there. Unfortunately, we are in the middle of migrating season for birds of prey from North America, and since these tend to eat the sloths, they hide during this time of year, so we didn’t see any of them. However, we saw a porcupine, tons of colorful birds, birds of prey (at least !), a rabbit, turtles, basiliscs, lizards like the ones at home but much bigger, huge colonies of ants and agoutis. They aren’t all very exotic, but still enough for us !
The path also lead to a mirador (the place where you can see far away, not the watchtower) with some nice windows on the city. Then, we got back in the shade of the canopy.
The walk was very nice, but after a while the moist heat got suffocating, so we headed to some more open spaces. We returned to the terminus of the subway and, after a mall-detour to grab a bite to eat (which was enormous and hectic), we went to this unavoidable and almost mandatory tour : the canal.
But first, a pic with the mall’s dino !
Even if we don’t perceive it at all from the city center, it is almost impossible to say “tourist” and “Panama” in the same sentence without “canal” crashing the party, a bit like with “pyramid” and “Egypt”. So we went, but we took the stingy option : instead of paying 30$, which is the price of a night, to visit the museum and see the canal from the 5th floor terrace, we paid 7,50$ for a lemonade and a strawberry juice (this is very expensive, but still less) and we sat at the 3rd floor terrace. We advise every tourist to take the stingy option, since you can also hear the explanations given to the tourists who took the more costly option, you see the locks just as well, and you get fresh beverages.
A big container ship passes in the other branch of the canal, behind the building
Altogether, we didn’t find the canal to be as incredible as we heard (sorry, untranslatable french pun there). I’ll admit it’s a little bit broader than the Canal du Midi. It is also sort of impressive to see this huge boat perfectly and tightly framed between the walls, but the maneuvers are so slow that it gets boring to wait for some action, and when it gets interesting, you are over the heat and it’s time to close the terrace. So we watched for some time and left for our next discovery…
… Panama City’s rush hour in a bus ! Turns out, it’s as lame as it sounds ! Traffic is more hectic and people less polite, and these make the journey even longer if compared to basic french traffic jams. When we finally got out of there, we took the subway, picked up our backpacks at our hostel, which didn’t have any more rooms for us tonight, so we took a bus into the city center, explored a few streets at the bottom of towers and found our new hostel ! We are now in the banking district in a place that looks nice !
Most of today was dedicated to updating this blog, since we finally got an internet connection that is worthy of this title. We added pictures for Capurgana and Sapzurro and posted everything between then and now.
The other interesting things of the day were meals :
Breakfast was all-you-can-eat pancakes : the hostel leaves us a huge pot of pancake batter and hotplates, and each make their own (with a lot of maple syrup 🙂 ).
For noon, we ate the Coca Cola Café, oldest in town that still serves with a strong workers’ canteen vibe. It was delicious and very nice. According to them, Che Guevara and Fidel Castro ate there when staying in Panama City !
That’s all for today ! This is probably the shortest post since the beginning of this blog, but you already had a lot to read with all the previous ones ! Pinky promise, tomorrow, we’ll take a ton of pretty pictures of Panama City for you 🙂
After getting up at dawn to admire the Guna village as sun rose, we headed further to Carti in our great boat. How happy we were to be sitting in it again! So were our backs ! And our buttocks !
At least, what was left of the crossing was short and we were less shaken than the day before. Evidently, we couldn’t be dropped-off directly on a more touristic island, so we arrived at the impressing harbor of Carti : a wharf, a café, an institutional building, a car-port and a few jeeps.
Since it was still very early, we decided to have breakfast there and were asking ourselves about wether persevering to San Blas despite our disastrous first impression or going to Panama City, and too bad for the islands (we plan on going to beautiful beaches in Bocas del Toro soon in any case). At breakfast time, we didn’t have much energy and weren’t helped at all by the locals, pretending to not notice that we wanted to eat, not explaining to us what was available to eat, and altogether not caring what happened to us. So, we washed down our corn cakes (named tortilla for whatever bad reason) and hard-boiled eggs with orange soda, and we left.
Of course, we paid a harbor-tax again. It was funny this time, because it was to get in a car, but we couldn’t avoid the guy charging it and didn’t have the energy to resist him. We got in a jeep without being able to get the price down (25$ for us, 15$ for the locals, white privileges around here…) and were on the road again. Luckily, Colombia taught us a lot about mountain roads, or we would probably have been sick there. Everywhere you read Darien is a wild region, they’re right ! The land is very rugged, the forest wild, the landscapes beautiful and a bit scary, too. We weren’t very relaxed in the 20% downhill slopes, where we were sped up for momentum to go up… the 20% uphill slopes…
Once we got back on the pan-american highway, things got back to normal and we arrived in the suburb of Panama Ciudad. It is crazy how diverse things are there : slums, colorful and well-tended to residential areas, regular dirty suburbs… Then we started to see taller buildings, mostly uninteresting housing, and finally the city center, with very diverse skyscrapers. There is one for every taste : glass-paneled banks dressed in complex geometry next to cheap and tall dwelling covered in AC-machines, and everything in-between.
We don’t really like to travel in cars (for ecological reasons, of course, but also because it gives us a rich-tourist-image and doesn’t allow to chat with the local people next seat) but it really did the trick for entering Panama City. The towers are better seen from the many highways, elevated and sometimes above the Pacific Ocean, and besides, pedestrian transport is dangerous when even possible.
We arrived at the hostel we had spotted in a travel guide, and since we were so tired, we accepted 2 dorm beds, they were all that was left. Turns out it’s the best dorm we’ve seen so far, with the high beds very high, so you can comfortably sit in the low beds, curtains and power outlets for everyone, and a very efficient (a bit too efficient at night) AC.
Once well installed, we napped for a bit and prepared the blog, before going… to the movies ! Well yes, we miss it, so when we are in a big city we seize the chance (and it’s half price on Wednesdays here!). Thus we saw Bladerunner, but this blog is absolutely not a movie-critic. After that, we returned in our neighborhood to eat.
We are in Casco Viejo, which is the old spanish town, and it is pretty. For the cultural moment of the day, the old town of Panama was burned to the ground by welsh pirate Henry Morgan a long time ago, and the city was re-founded later here. This means we aren’t in old-old Panama, but in old Panama nevertheless, which is today the trendy area, where the buildings are being renovated to open hipsters restaurants and cafés. As a consequence, when dining on a nice square at night, we got very nice music.
For now, Panama City seems pretty cool, Casco Viejo reminds us a lot of Palermo, with renovated buildings and constructions sites everywhere, and we eat fish here too ! However, it is hot as hell, as well as wet, Colombia seems like light and refreshing in contrast. We’ll get over it. See you soon ! X
Today was by far the harder day of travel we’ve done, both physically and mentally.
The goal was simple : take the “boat” from Puerto Obaldia in the morning to reach Carti about 5 hours later, and try to get dropped off at one of the San Blas Islands.
Yesterday we were told the boat wouldn’t leave before 8am, probably 9, because one of the Colombian passager’s was still awaiting the administrations approval to enter the country (which, as we said in the last post, is much harder for Colombians). Immigration office opens at 8, and we knew from a couple blogs that we might wait a couple hours.
So we went for breakfast early, at 7:30, just to be sure, and met the captain around 8. We gave him the necessary papers (3 copies of our passport, but we knew that so we had made some in advance), and we waited. And waited. And waited. Around noon, we finally got moving. After getting searched again by the military (like we could have bought something illegal is this small military town since yesterday…), we went to the boat. We were ready to go, or at least we thought so. We were just waiting for the captain who had just disappeared somewhere.
It’s already noon, and we’re still waiting…
But the captain had decided to earn more money, and so to wait to get more passengers. So we had to wait until the paperwork for these new passengers came through. We finally left around 2pm. Some blogs said the boat crossing took between 6 to 8 hours, so we weren’t very confident about going so late (even if the captain kept saying it should only take 3 to 4 hours).
So of course, after a 6 hour wait, we weren’t in the best state of mind to start the trip. But it got worse. In the boat, where you can cram around 12 people with luggage, there was no roof (so no shade, and no protection against rain). The only engine is always running at maximum power, propelling the tiny vessel at a huge speed across water, speedboat style. So for the driver, at the back of the ship, everything’s fine. But for the passengers out front, each time the front of the ship comes crashing down onto the next wave, it’s a breathtaking (literally) brutal shock. And there are a lot of waves in a fucking ocean !
It seems calm, but really isn’t!
After 15 min of hell, you start to get use to it. The trick is to behave as if on a horse at full speed : always on suspension with the legs. And you better not get it wrong unless you don’t want to sit again in your life ! The shocks are many and impressive, the luggage to the front of the ship rise by 20 to 30cm each time before crashing back into it. After a while you make a game out of it : just think you’re in a theme park attraction. It keeps your mind from the pain, at least for a couple minutes.
But 4 hours is long, very long, et very painful for your legs, butt and back. We don’t recommend this trip if you have any back problems, and if you don’t have any back problems, you’ll probably have some afterwards ! Even if sometimes the boat is sheltered from the big waves by the some big islands, the majority of the trip is an infernal gallop and seems endless. The only upside is that you’re so shaken you don’t have time to be seasick.
We have to stop several times because of engine failure, even thought the motor is supposed too be new (well, probably wasn’t designed to be used so recklessly…). So, even if we’re racing across the water, the sun is rapidly declining, and the rare opportunity we have to check the smartphone’s GPS (which we have to do very carefully if we don’t want it to end up below water), we see that we will probably reach Carti a bit after nightfall.
But slightly before nightfall, we stop at an inhabited island on we’re told we have to overnight here, and that we’ll only reach Carti tomorrow morning. Well, thanks for the heads up (and the extra budget to spend the night!), it was well worth it to wait 6 hours to leave too late to reach Carti ! So we seek out the only hostel (the mattresses won’t really help our newfound back problems) and the only restaurant on the island, and go to bed very furious about all this.
Ok, we know this seems all very negative, but is was very difficult for us, not only because the trip is stressful, but also for a couple reasons :
Cost : We’ve done shitty trips in shitty vehicles, we know it exists and that in Latin America, you often don’t have a choice. But at least generally it’s cheap. Here, between the boat ride and the taxes, we’re paying over 260 dollars (not counting the unexpected overnight stop, as we’re still not in Carti). That’s more than the total combined budget for transportation we’ve spent for all of Colombia, and we stayed there a month ! So of course, we’re not really happy about it, and you don’t really have a choice, this is supposedly the cheapest way to cross the border!
The Guna Yala rip-off tax : 40 dollars for a small piece of paper !
The people : Harsh trips with other people are often bonding moments. Waiting a couple hours, why not (we know out here everything takes time, a a lot of time). But being told every half hour we’re leaving soon is making us think we’re really taken for fools. And at noon, when everyone was waiting for the captain in front of the boat, the other passengers (all Colombians) suddenly disappeared without a word. We found them in town a while later, just finishing their lunch. Apparently, we were the only one that didn’t know we had to wait for new passengers, and of course now it was too late to eat, as we were leaving “soon” ! No one thought to tell us, even though we had talked a bit with them during the wait. For us it’s a bit of a shock to meet mainly shitty people out here after all the great people we met in Colombia.
The ecology lie : The San Blas islands are shown as this heavenly place with coconuts and clear blue waters that is threatened by the rising waters due to global warming, and thus the Guna Yala inhabitants are supposedly becoming concerned by the environment. For what we’ve seen, yes, global warming is probably going to flood the islands in the next decades, but no, ecology isn’t really their thing. One of the advantages organizing our own trip instead of taking the all inclusive tour is that we get to see the non touristic islands, the real home of the Gunas (the ones that weren’t cleaned for the vacation pictures). So all the way through the islands we saw garbage floating everywhere around the islands, and the Guna carelessly throwing about everything in the sea : soda cans, oil, hygienic pads, … We know a big part of the Caribbean inhabitants don’t really have any knowledge about waste management and mostly live in the middle of it, but at least they’re not doing their sales pitch based on ecology. Here we see the kids doing the same as their parents, which seems to indicate that the cash income from tourism doesn’t really go into an ecological education for them (to the contrary of what the advertisements say…).
So yeah, all this didn’t really help us to enjoy the trip. But it wasn’t all so horrible 😉 . So as we don’t want to only write what was bad, let’s take about the good parts.
First, there are a lot of pelicans out here. So in France, when you’re bored on the beach, you just watch the seagulls flying above. Here it’s a bit more fun, you can see the pelicans dive through air and water to catch their meal. And as a pelican is much slower than a kingfisher, we made you a small video :
And the trip, even though it’s very stressful, allowed us to see beautiful islands that look like postcards. Most of the islands are uninhabited (so less garbage !), with 3 coconut trees, white sand and a beautiful azure see surrounding them. Some of them even just have a small wooden cabin with a roof made out of leaves, it looks very Robinson Crusoe like!
On the continental side, the jungle grows over a very vast hilly region all along the coast, so from the boat it creates various horizon lines. It looks very much like a watercolor painting.
Yes, there’s a finger on there. But it was firmly holding the phone, so I didn’t drop it !
And all this under a beautiful blue sky with a couple of white clouds. The end-of-afternoon light over this paradise is really beautiful (so there was an upside to this very late start :p)
Tonight we’re still about 45min ride from Carti. So in total the trip takes a bit less than 5 hours (if you’re going at the backbreaking speed we’re going), and not the 3 to 4 hours we were told in Puerto Obaldia. Today we had our breath taken away both by the boat (literally, so we’re exhausted right now), and the paradisiac views (well, as long as you stay away from the floating garbage).
If you’re far enough from the garbage, it really looks beautiful!
More news on how we reach Carti in the next post !
P.S : for those interested about more info on how to cross the Colombia-Panama border, we’re thinking about writing (if we manage to find some time) an article summing up our experience and our research. We’ll also try to estimate if this way is really the cheapest one!
