Boquete, Panama: Christ, It's Rainy

By the time we got to Panama I had precious little time left before my flight back to the States.  We decided that we'd had enough beaches for a while and headed for a town in the mountains: Boquete.  Quite frankly, we got too much of what we were looking for.  Rather than too hot and sunny, Boquete was too cool and rainy.  Every day.  Starting at noon.  Oh well.

We managed to squeeze in a tour of a local coffee plantation before the rain set in.  Coffee likes mountains, so nice views were unavoidable.

Coffee plants are surprisingly scrawny things.  More like bushes or tall saplings.

Coffee beans en vivo.

Remove the green outer covering and you find a red layer.  Remove the red layer to expose the bean itself.

It's quite a process from coffee plant to coffee cup.  First the outer layers are removed.  This plantation was famous for using jerry-rigged automobile parts but still producing world class coffee.  There might be a Jeep transmission in there, somewhere.

After removing the covers, the beans dry outside for several weeks.

Oh, yeah, show off those drying coffee beans.  After drying outside they are packed in canvas sacks and cured for another couple of weeks indoors.

Finally, it's time to roast 'em.  This is a miniature unit, fit only for tourist sized quantities.

It gets hot inside and goes 'round and 'round.  As I recall, it's about 3 minutes for a light roast, 5 for medium and 7 for dark.

Ach! Hot!

They smelled soo good.

Cheers!

 While in Boquete we also went for a bit of a hike.  There's a waterfall and maybe a glimpse of the famous Quetzal (bird).  Okay then.

 It is riotously green and vibrant jungle inhabited by a few locals eking out a living growing maize.  I always feel terribly awkward crossing their land: I am so rich in comparison, both materially and in terms of my choices in life.  I am free to go for hike for no better reason than to enjoy the countryside while they are all but tied to the land they need to feed their families.

 And what's this?  Why, it's a cute little child staring forlornly, uncomprehendingly at the strangers traipsing through her world.  What does she have to look forward to in life?  How long will it be before she is pregnant and married and just as trapped as her mother before her?  I know I'm projecting a whole helluva lot, here, and that "white guilt" has been done many times over by many others.  But.. fuck.  Sometimes it's hard not to feel like a royal asshole.

It's a rain forest.  It's quite wet.

After a couple hour hike the valley suddenly closes in around you.

And there's a waterfall.  I'm sorry, but I really am jaded on the subject of waterfalls.  Meh, I say.  Meh.

Far more interesting to me were the bizarre and beautiful flowers alongside the path.

I mean, look at these things.

Have you ever seen their like?

I have not, except perhaps in other jungles in the course of my recent travels.

The colors and shapes and sizes are just completely different than the flowers of North America.

Close up!

This was growing right outside our hotel.  As though such a thing were perfectly normal!

Leaving Boquete was tough because I left Michal there as well.  I had a plane ticket back to the States (purchased mere days before we met.  This!  This is what happens when you make plans that can't be changed!) and she had to get up to Mexico, from where she would return to Israel.  We'd had a good run: a month or so, and three different countries.  And we both had commitments: I a wedding and a funeral and she university.  This is life, right?  Nothing gold can stay.

Sigh.

Costa Rica: Still That Beautiful

After leaving (escaping?) San Juan del Sur, I still had a few days to kill before meeting up with Michal, so I returned to Playa Tamarindo.  I spent five weeks in Playa Tamarindo between my junior and senior years in college: surfing, studying Spanish and partying (in approximately that order).  It was then that the seeds for this trip were planted.  I was curious to see what had become of the place in the intervening years.

Short answer: more of the same.

Sure, there is a big tall (empty) building that wasn't there before, and a couple of gated communities I don't remember from before, but the soul of the place remains the same.  It's all about surfing, partying and property development.  They call it Tama-gringo for a reason.  I checked into a relatively fancy hostel (A/C! a pool!) and spent the next two days drinking and lounging in the pool.  I didn't even make it to the beach.  And the second day was completely an accident: I was hungover from karaoke the night before (don't ask.  For the love of God, don't ask) and only meant to spend an hour or two in the pool recovering.  Yeah, right.

I eventually made it out, though, and met up with Michal.  We headed for Montezuma, a place I'd visited on my previous trip to Costa Rica and liked well enough to return.  There is a particular waterfall..

Oh, fuuuu..

Waahoooooooo!!!

I'd done the same 5 years ago, but as they say on the interwebz: "pix or it didn't happen."  Well here ya go, folks.  Using the first shot, where I'm standing above the falls, I estimate it to be about 8 times my height, or 40-45 feet.  Even having done it before and knowing it to be (relatively) safe, the first jump was pretty damn exciting.

 And that's not all: you have to climb back up afterwards.

It's hardly vertical, but it is pretty wet.  And towards the top you're a good 30+ feet above the rocks below.  Not a good place to slip.

So manly!

Christ, I was tan.

The view from the jump off point.  Note that there is another waterfall right there, but not one you want to jump off.  Oh, no. No.  It is imperative that you surface and swim to the left right away.

Wait, so masterful motor scooter handling is impressive but not jumping off tall waterfalls?  I don't get it.

The pool and smaller waterfalls above the big one.  Preeetty nice.

Montezuma's also got a pretty nice beach, but those are practically a dime-a-dozen in that part of the world.  And let's be honest: the waterfall was all I cared about.

From Montezuma a day's travel took us the length and breadth of the country to Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, another place I'd visited before and desired to see again.  Puerto Viejo is on the Caribbean coast and has a completely different vibe from the rest of Costa Rica.  It's practically Rastafarian.  All I cared about, though, was seeing if my little mark remained.

It did!

When I was first in Puerto Viejo I stayed at a place called Rockin' J's Hostel.  The entire place is decorated: mosaics, murals, sculptures, you name it, and all by guests.  They have art supplies on hand for anyone that cares to add to the (already extensive) decorations.  When I was there in 2005 I spent two days decorating the locker I was using to store my backpack (I was renting a tent for something like $4/day; it's tough to lock a tent).

So cool.

 Also in Puerto Viejo: very nice beaches (yawn)..

..with some surprisingly good surf.

 And a sloth?!  Yes, indeed, a sloth.  Just chillin', ya know, changing trees, mon.  No worries, here.  None a'tall.

Seriously, though, how stoned does it look, with that dopey smile?  And it was completely unfazed by us taking pictures from only a couple feet away.  It just went about its business, spending a good 5 minutes getting from ground level to 6 feet up the trunk.  No need ta hurry, mon, ya know?

So that's it?  Only three stops in Costa Rica?  Isn't it supposed to be, like, paradise?  Yes, well, the thing is: paradise is wonderful right up until the property developers arrive.  Then it's locked behind tall walls and costs an arm and a leg to get into.  Don't get me wrong: Costa Rica is that great.  Go.  Right now.  You'll have an incredible time, I guarantee.

The main problem, from a backpacker perspective, is the cost.  In Nicaragua a bed in a dormitory cost $5-7.  In Costa Rica it's at least double that.  So too for food, booze and tours.  On a budget that is supposed to last for 3 or 6 or 12 months you simply can't afford to spend much time in Costa Rica.  Also, it just feels different.  I remember walking around Playa Tamarindo seeing American families, Mom, Dad, 2.2 kids and the dog, driving by in rented SUVs.  On the ferry to Montezuma, there were numerous life preservers, life rafts and a safety announcement.  That was repeated in English.  What country am I in again?

But seriously, don't listen to the jaded backpacker.  Go to Costa Rica.  You'll love it.

San Juan del Sur: Surfing Finally!

Michal needed to get to Costa Rica (more on that in a bit), so from the Corn Islands we went to San Juan del Sur, a surf town on the Pacific coast just this side of the border.  In all honesty, San Juan del Sur is pretty gringo-fied.  It's the development pressure growing up the coast from Costa Rica.  There's sand, sun and beautiful waves and you can't throw a hat without hitting a gated community.  What's not to love?

Well..

This is hardly the forum to tackle such a complicated set of issues, but this piece does a pretty good job of capturing the inevitable conflict that arises amid such breakneck development.  It's long, but I highly recommend it.

Anyway.  If you can manage to wake up in San Juan del Sur without a hangover (harder than it sounds, trust me), a popular day trip is the 45 minute 4x4 ride out to Playa Maderas (the beach in town isn't all that nice).

There's a very nice beach, when the tide is out.  And a lovely little restaurant/board rental.  What more could you ask for? (click to view full sized goodness)

We surfers really are useless.  Stick us in front of an ocean and all we do is stare at it.  Good luck trying to maintain a conversation at that point.  We just go "mhmm, mhmm, mhmm" and you realize we haven't heard a word you've said since the set started.

I borrowed a board from another fellow and had a fun little time.  Nothing incredible, but it was good to be back in the water after so long.  Packing up that afternoon for the ride back into town, though, Michal pointed out something that had completely escaped my notice: "You realize that this isn't just a restaurant, right?  It's a hostel too."

Now this is what I call fortuitous timing, cuz, ya see, I needed something to do for about a week.  Michal was going to be meeting her parents in Costa Rica (by prior arrangement).  We both thought it much simpler for me to make myself scarce while they were doing their own thing.  What better way to spend that time than living right on the beach and surfing my brains out?   

I don't know.

 So that's pretty much it.

For the next five or six days I went surfing two or three times per day.  The rest of the time I pretty much just sat on the balcony staring at the ocean.

It was really right there.  The waves would come all the way up to the terrace at high tide.  That's my hammock on the second floor, there, right in front of my window, alongside my balcony.

One of my more artistic brethren had decorated the interior of my room.

Every now and again I'd get ambitious and take some photos.  I don't remember what I was going for here, but I like how it turned out.

But mostly it was just surfing and watching other people surf.  We really are a useless lot, we surfers.

No kidding: I prefer the ocean to television.

The waves weren't incredible, but they were pretty consistent.  Even good, at times.

There wasn't a whole lot to do after dark as I was usually the only guest and the restaurant staff cleared out around 5pm, so I got to waking up at dawn.  It was usually the sound of the waves that woke me up:

"Hmm, those sound like good waves."
*walks to window, surveys ocean*
"Those are good waves."
*goes surfing*

Outrageous.

The sunsets weren't half bad either.

So why aren't I still there?  Well, first of all, I needed to meet Michal again in Costa Rica once her parents had left.  But more to the point, I kinda broke the surfboard I'd rented.  In my defense...

In my defense, I say, the board had already been repaired once: there were cracks on both rails.  Furthermore, it being an epoxy board, it should have been stronger than normal boards.  If the surf wasn't big enough to be breaking normal boards (it wasn't), there is no way in hell an epoxy board should break.  Unless, of course, it was already weakened from prior trauma.  Finally, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I draw your attention to the fact that the board broke precisely between the points on the rails that had been previously repaired!

Ah ha!

Strangely, the proprietor didn't see things my way.  This lead to an interesting negotiation, of sorts:

Him: "Rompiste la tabla.  Me debes $350."
Me: "Ya fue roto.  No voy a pagarte nada."
Him: "Bueno, bueno.  Dame $200."
Me: "Creo que no me entiendes: la tabla fue débil porque ya fue roto y no voy a pagarte nada."
Him: "Entonces, aceptaré $100."
Me: "Me voy."

And so I got the hell outta Nicaragua.