Azuero Peninsula

After a week of rest from Carnavales Alex and I rented a car and returned to the Azuero peninsula, the location of Chitre and Las Tablas, for a tour of Panama’s beaches.

Day 1: Tuesday, Feb. 27
We got a nice early start from Panama City in our rental car, which I had to drive the entire time since Alex lost his license during the Carnaval revelry. We drove about three hours to Chitré, with a stop in La Arena, a town well-known for its ceramics. We also stopped at a dulceria there and bought cocadas- my new favorite candy consisting of coconut and sugar. And Dulceria La Arena has some secret ingredient that makes the cocadas slightly creamy tasting. It sounds weird but they are so good. Anyway, we continued just past Chitré to our first beach, El Aguillito. It was a little disappointing, because the tide was out so it was a giant mud flat with the ocean starting very far out. We did have a good fish lunch though.

In the afternoon we drove a little further and left the province of Herrera to go to the province of Los Santos, and the town of Villa de Los Santos. Here we visited Playas Monagre and Rompio, one of which we planned to camp out at for the night. After scoping them out and choosing a spot we decided we had to return to La Arena for more cocadas before putting up the tent. So we drove about half an hour back, and then half an hour again back to the beach just before dark. As we pulled up, we realized we had foolishly left the tent back in Panama City. Disaster! Our options were to either pay for hotels or sleep in the car for the rest of the week and keep going or drive back about 4 hours to the city. We chose to drive back so we would be able to stick to our original plan of not paying for hotels and camping out on beaches. We arrived back at the apartment around 11 and promptly fell asleep.

Day 2
We again packed up the car and got an even earlier start from the city, around 7am. We drove straight through Chitré and Los Santos to Las Tablas and then Pedasí further down the peninsula. We stopped for a cake break at Dulceria Yely, the bakery where the President of Panama orders his cakes. Very good, and cheap- $0.30 for a delicious slice.

Just before Pedasí we took a turn off for Playa La Garita, which the Lonely Planet claimed was a good beach for swimming. Unfortunately we disagreed, due to all the rocks. It was still nice, but we were hot and ready for a sandy beach.

A little ways past Pedasí we found ourselves at Playa Destiladeros, which would have been a deserted beach if not for the construction workers building nearby beach houses. It was still really beautiful though, and the water was cool and refreshing. After an hour or so there, we were ready to make our way to our final beach for the day, Playa Venao. Venao is a popular surfing beach in Panama, and often has many surfers camped out. We arrived just in time for the sunset.

Unfortunately we chose a party night to camp out at Venao, and we inadvertently set up our tent too near to the bonfire to get very much sleep.

Day 3
We woke early for breakfast and a swim, and then we packed up to check out another couple of beaches before returning to Venao to camp out again. We drove through some beautiful countryside that included spotting monkeys while crossing a bridge, and then we came to Playa Cambutal. It was rocky, but with large flat rocks that formed big tide pools that were great for swimming.

We returned back to Venao to get to sleep early to prepare for what would be our longest day of driving.

Day 4
On this day we drove back up the Azuero peninsula to Santiago (on the Interamerican highway) and then down again on the other side of the Golfo de Montijo to Playa Santa Catalina, a world-famous surfing beach and the site of many competitions.

We drove back through Tonosí to Macaracas, on a pot hole-filled road surrounded by tiny communities and greenery. In Macaracas we wanted to take a road to Ocú; unfortunately the roads out of town were not marked, and while we thought we chose correctly, after an hour we realized we were back in Chitré yet again. This added about an hour to our trip that day.

Finally we made it to Ocú, where we planned to visit an artesania half an hour outside of town. It was a little out of our way, but our Lonely Planet book said that they sold many traditional Panamanian crafts, such as polleras (dresses) and masks. We drove through the little town of San José once and didn’t see anything so we drove back through again. Finally we stopped and asked someone and found that it was at the far end of town from which we had just returned. So drove back again, down a dirt road and finally saw it- an abandoned building that had clearly not been entered for at least a year or two. So after this needless detour we were back on our way to Santa Catalina again, sans souvenirs.

We drove through Santiago and then south again, through Soná and finally on to Santa Catalina. This beach is filled with little cabañas for surfers so we checked out a few before finding a guy who let us camp out for only $5 for the night, which included letting us use his facilities. He turned out to be from New Mexico and is now living in Santa Catalina, renting out cabañas and building a library for the town as there are no books (including in the schools) until you reach Soná an hour away.

All in all, we (I) drove almost 9 hours that day, unfortunately due to the many needless detours. Still, we got to see a lot of Panama that even many of Alex’s family here has not visited so it wasn’t so bad.

Day 5
We spent most of this day hanging out on the beach in Santa Catalina. In the morning we snorkeled in some large rocky tide pools where we saw a blue and orange striped starfish, a little swordfish, and some large fish hidden in the rocks. Then we body surfed in the waves and swam around.

We departed from Santa Catalina early that evening and drove 6 hours back to Panama, arriving around midnight. Overall it was a great trip, lots of driving and lots of beaches, and now there are only a few areas of Panama that we have yet to see.

La Vida Gitana

After our time in Soloy Alex and I found ourselves back in David for a few brief hours- after enduring our last horrible Soloy bus ride! The “bus” between David and Soloy is really a converted Land Rover, with the back seats torn out and replaced by two benches along the sides. Each bench could comfortably seat 4 people, but instead there are usually six people crammed on each- six, not counting the children in laps or crouched in the center. Two more people are squeezed up front with the bus driver and then all the luggage and bags are piled high on top. It’s amazing to see all the people coming out, much like a clown car. Too much so when you are one of the clowns. Compounding the discomfort of the extreme crowding is the heat and humidity, dust flying in the windows, and the length of the ride. From David to the Soloy exit off the Interamerican highway is about 45 minutes, and not too bad since they can go relatively quickly and a breeze comes in. But for the remaining 2+ hours the road is VERY bad and the bus cannot breach 15mph, and is often doing far less than that. The road is up and down, dirt and rock. Not just small rocks, but decent-sized little boulders that the Land Rover somehow climbs over. So we were quite happy to debark from the bus in David in time for breakfast with Alex’s Tia Ivette and Tio Servio.

That breakfast was so amazing! After a month of oatmeal, rice and guandu, and chicken, having eggs and sausage seemed like the greatest thing ever. Unfortunately we had to depart after a short while to venture into Costa Rica for a few days so we could renew our Panama visas. At this point Tio Servio aptly called us gitanos- gypsies- for all of our moving around, and as we traveled to Costa Rica we realized how true it was…

COSTA RICA, part 2
After our second short (far shorter than the last time) stint in Costa Rica, Alex and I have determined that we hope never to return to this country. Its popularity is FAR overrated: it is too expensive, has poorer infrastructure than Panama, has crappy money that consists of a lot of large coins, and is filled with gringo backpackers that are catered to in even the smallest town. I didn’t feel like I was even in Central America, I could have been in Florida for all the white people and English-language signs, menus, everything everywhere.

Our first problem in Costa Rica was that we took money out of the ATM in Panama thinking we would just change some of it while crossing the border. But alas, it was Saturday and the banks were closed until Monday so there would be no changing of the money. So we had the equivalent of a dollar, just enough to take the bus to Rio Claro where we tried to go the ATM again only to find it would not work with our cards. Luckily we found a hotel that accepted credit cards, and had air conditioning (it is also much hotter in Costa Rica than Panama for some reason) and we relaxed and watched Sister Act in Spanish.

The next day we took the bus with our remaining coins to Golfito, where very luckily we found an ATM and finally had some money. We then boarded a ferry to cross the Golfo Dulce to Puerto Jimenez, the closest town to Parque Corcovado, a national park where we intended to hike and camp for two nights. As we got off the ferry in Jimenez an old man hippy approached us and told us he drove a bus to the entrance of the park. He seemed a little weird, so we got the information and then said we would think about it. He waited on the dock to tell other tourists and we continued into town. We talked to a tour operator who told us that to hike the park would take at least three days, more time than we wanted to spend there. So we thought maybe we would just camp near the entrance where there was a beach and we went to see about the bus. As we were walking, we saw the old man hippy with another young gringo couple who was on the boat, except the old man was stumbling as though high or drunk and suddenly he fell down, sprawled out on the sidewalk. We stared in shock as the other couple dragged him to his feet and sat him on a bench. After that spectacle it wasn’t too difficult to make the decision of NOT EVER getting in any vehicle this guy was driving. So we decided just to stay in Jimenez for the night and go to the beach in town. Horrible idea. The beach, on the Golfo Dulce, was anything but sweet. The water was as warm as bathwater and when we got out we were somehow stickier than when we were covered with sweat before swimming. And to top everything off, all restaurants in Costa Rica have a 13% tax and a mandatory 10% services charge, adding almost 25% more to the cost of every meal. We quickly ran out of our money and began eating peanut butter and jelly to save the rest for the bus ride home.

The trip home only confirmed my hatred of Costa Rica, but before I get to that, we did at least see a little wildlife while were in Jimenez. Giant red macaws fly through the marañon trees eating the seeds (cashews).

And as we waited at the dock for the ferry we also saw a huge iguana.

As we waited in the ferry for it to fill and leave there were yellow and blue striped fish swimming around us.

But before we even boarded that ferry, we waited 3.5 hours, because the lady at our hotel mistakenly told us there was a ferry at 9. We got to the dock at 8:30 and the ferry did not depart until just after noon. When we got to Golfito we were hungry but could only eat somewhere that would take a credit card. Alex said he saw some places when he went to the ATM the day before and that was where the buses started out so we would be able to get on first and get seats. I agreed, since we didn’t know when the bus to the border would come and I didn’t want to stand for the hour and a half ride. Two minutes into our bus ride away from the border toward the food, a bus to the border passed us. We get to the row of restaurants and they were all closed, which didn’t matter since none of them accepted credit cards anyway. So we got back on the bus we had ridden there since it was going to Ciudad Neily, 20 minutes from the border where we could just get a second bus the rest of the way. A minute after re-boarding that bus, another bus to the border passed us. I was in a horrible mood at this point, hot and sweaty and hungry, and just wanting to get back to Panama where everything was familiar and good. But my misery only increased. A lady came on the bus selling platanitos (plantain chips) and helados (ice cream). We decided we had just enough for an ice cream each, which turned out to be milk mixed with strawberry powder and frozen in a little baggie. I bit the corner of mine to open it and strawberry milk immediately sprayed me in the eye and went all over my face.

That fake ice cream was the last straw for Costa Rica.

So we returned to David a day earlier than planned and decided to try to salvage our time by going on a hike, the Sendero de los Quetzales, from Cerro Punta to Boquete through the mountains. It was about a 13km walk and very beautiful. As we went we could see the change in vegetation with the altitude, from mountain trees to jungle. By the end I thought I would collapse, but it was well worth it, and we are hoping to start doing more hiking soon.

A tropical flower in the rainforest.

CARNAVALES
We continued la vida gitana by coming back to Panama City for a night and then promptly leaving on Alex’s birthday for Chitré, in the Azuero Peninsula, about a three-hour drive. The Azuero supposedly has some of the best Carnaval celebrations, so we went with José and a few of his friends. We had a slight hitch, though, when José’s car broke down an hour into the drive. We waited at the side of the road for four hours before José and his friends went to one of their beach houses nearby for the night and Alex and I got picked up by Brandy, who was on her way to Chitré with another friend.

Carnaval is a four-day celebration, always starting on a Saturday, but there is a unofficial start on Friday night, called the Pechagon where everyone assembles in the streets to start the drinking and the culecos. Culecos are big street parties dominated by fire hoses soaking everyone in water. It’s great during the day when it’s super hot, but at night it cools down enough that it is freezing if you are all wet- unless you’re too drunk to care like most of the people there. Alex and I were not drunk enough, and luckily avoided the water.

We went home to bed and woke late the next morning when José and his friends finally made it. After a quick breakfast we headed back to the culecos, armed with a cooler to fill with cervezas. Before even arriving at the culecos, while buying the beer, I learned that it doesn’t matter where you are, Carnaval is everywhere during these days and it is open season for pouring water on people. The worst is the people with ice water, but it is always a little shocking regardless when a stranger runs up and pours a bucket of water down your back.

After an afternoon of too much water, too much sun, and too much booze, we returned to the house where we were staying to nap and eat. Then it’s back up to go out for the night- the whole night- to PH, Pub Herrerano, a huge outdoor nightclub sponsored by Seco Herrerano, a brand of the national alcohol, Seco, here. Each Latin American country seems to have its own alcohol: Seco in Panama, Aguardiente in Colombia, flor de caña in Nicaragua, tequila in Mexico, and that’s the end of my experience, but I have no doubt there are others.

Then, Sunday, it was time to repeat it all over again. Monday and Tuesday also, but we did not last that long. Sunday night we went to PH in Las Tablas, which is where the craziest Carnaval parties are, and I can believe it. The PH was much larger than in Chitré and it was filled to the brim with people. ¡Qué locura!

On Monday Alex and I returned to Panama City for a much-needed rest, and Tuesday we went to our last culecos on Transistmica. It was a fun couple of days, but I don`t know if I could survive a second time!