I will very well bear that in mind. How about a healthy combination of both?
Nothing disastrous about that is there.
In patting Central America’s pert bottom, we travel from the Pacific to Caribbean coast via bus and it takes us most of the day. For the second stint — San Jose to Cahuita — one woman barfed relentlessly at the back of the bus. We watched a couple of Black Mirror episodes and tried our utmost to not join her. How can one feel that nauseous for that long? Absolutely staggering to me. Those new episodes are really good though aren’t they, especially Loch Henry. Quite dark mind; are they even reflections on the nigh risks of technology anymore? Seem to have taken a torrid little turn down horror avenue.
Cahuita is a very small-town. In fact I reckon we can dangle it safely in the village category. Got that Caribbean zest at certain hours but otherwise a definitive sleepiness. We don’t do loads.
Hakuna Matata — our hostel in Cahuita
It’s a story of two beaches. Playa Negra is what you hit if you amble for twenty minutes out of the town and left. These are important directions so keep note. This is a dark sand beach, and it was a bit overcast when we went, but we swam in the raucous waves and had a couple beers at the Reggae Bar looking out at the dusky sky and all was right in the world. If you head through the town and right, you get to Cahuita National Park. We’ll brazen over the fact we saw multiple sloths, iguanas, monkeys, a raccoon, and potentially the bubbles from the back of a croc (tenuous, but a good clause in that sentence), and instead fast forward to the picture perfect postcard pretty pap pap beaches that front the jungle.
Puerto Vargas I think it was called. Silly scene really. Delicious sugary white sand and light blue waters and palms lurching out to get their fix from the hot sunshine. You can only snorkel with a tour guide though, because much of the reef is dying, and much of the reef is dying because we are a careless bunch that pollute and tarnish with apparent impunity. The disasters.
We’d made friends with a German dude called Nick back in Quepos so he was with us for this resplendent venture. Similar trajectories we’re on, though he’s only got three months. Have met some really great people already, of all ages and stages and professions.
If Cahuita is sleepy, Puerto Viejo is its livelier elder brother, awake and on the gameboy, waiting for its sibling to rouse and play ball or rough and tumble or something else. The bus south to this more vibrant spot is very swift, thank heavens, because we’ve got our big backpacks in with us and they’re a right ungainly nuisance. The woman next to me cracks peanut shells with one hand, scrans the golden brown interior, and launches the fragmented husk out the bus window. I’m just imagining them flying in like three windows back hitting some unsuspecting child on the swede.
When we arrive we mooch for a while. This is what we do best. Mooching. It’s been all well and good in Costa Rica — and Panama since — on account of their relative safety. Tranquillo, people say. We might have to declare our inclination to mooch at Colombian customs, but that’s for a later date. Puerto Viejo then. Proper bohemian Caribbean feel to it. Loads of seaside stalls selling shawls and bracelets and the likes. We have a couple tinnies on the beach like good ol’ fashioned British louts, except we’re not causing any trouble, we’re just gossiping and watching human beings exist — fundamental undertakings of us here sapiens. Dusk crawls in on the frothy waves. Crabs poke their heads out to see what’s up.
The next day we undertake the most stunning cycle to Punta Uva (another picture perfect beach) and further on still to Manzanillo, which is strangely ghostly and a little dirtier. The road is flat for the most part, and winds beautifully between dense jungle and palms on either side, giving way to occasional roadside eateries. There are cobwebs galore between the electrical wires, and these wires line the whole ride, around 25k there and back. Phenomenal day, topped by some sensational Caribbean food from a place called El Nena. That’s in the tiny little settlement of Cocles. Cool name right? Cocles. This is all too positive.
Georgie lets her guard down for just a hot minute right as we get back to the bike rental shop. Van coming round a blind bend. Panic stations. She reaches for the breaks which simply aren’t there — you’ve got to pedal backwards to slow the thing, you see. But in these fractions of seconds Georgie’s taken her feet off the pedals to try and slow herself and she’s lurching towards the front of the van but the van stops and G swerves and everyone has a nice uneasy chuckle about things. Gotta keep an eye on this one I tell ya.
There’s a proper nice sunset that evening. But no one wants to hear about us having a lovely time, so imagine the sky is ablaze and uncontrollable and all us touristy folk can do is point cameras at it and gawp.
Firmly believe G will be a Sprite ambassador by 2024.
So it goes. We enter Panama via the land border crossing at Sixaola. It’s a bit weird, but painless enough. You pay an ‘exit fee’ of $9 at a shop that sells phone cases and shite quality headphones, and then you pootle over a long, old railway bridge to Guabito. There, an immigration officer just asks us where we’re going and what we’re doing and why, and all our answers suffice, evidently, because now we’re in Panama. There are no bounds to the glorious pragmatism of my narrative.
Just like that, G is fastening her travel bands to wrist acupressure hotspots as we grab a boat from Almirante to Bocas del Toro. Homes on stilts yawn and ache as the water speeds past us, a strange graphite silk in the heat. Georgie proclaims that ‘this makes me want to quit my job and become a speedboat driver’. An understandable and noteworthy career shift.
Bocas Town is dusty and commercial and hot and pretty compact. Our double room is damp and the sink leaks and the fan just kicks the hot air around the room, but the hostel has a pretty cute cat so it’s swings, roundabouts, shitholes and felines if I may ever say so myself. We eat at an Indian restaurant that evening. Bit weird, you may think. But it’s delicious, and we discover that ‘fish don’t like naan’.
HISTORY INTERLUDE UNO: This here nation used to be a hot & heavy narco state run by dictator Manuel Noriega, known colloquially as Pineapple Face, which is actually quite cruel because it refers to acne scars, but also he was murderous and tyrannous and otherwise nefarious so maybe we can let the nickname slide, but also maybe he wouldn’t have done any of those things if he hadn’t been bullied because of his acne when he was younger. This is, of course, conjecture. Anyway, the US invaded Panama in 1989 to get the fella out. The invasion was overseen by Bush Snr, and was as far as I can tell considered a rather naughty violation of international law. From a Bush administration?! No?! Super straight edge stuff. They’re probably all fun at dinner parties. Anyway, since the 90’s, Panama has stabilised and become a pretty safe, pretty nice place to travel, I’d say, no doubt bolstered by the watchful support of the US. Still crippling poverty, crime etc. mostly out of the site of fortunate visitors.
Bocas del Toro was stumbled upon by the old boy Christopher Columbus on his fourth and final crossing to the American realm. Thereafter, the relatively calm waters of its archipelago served as a refuge for ships to replenish and repair. Fast forward a couple of years and it's starting to look a bit tasty as a commercial port, too, isn’t it? ISN’T IT?! Bananas especially — big game players in the area. This all comes to a swift and challenging halt in the early 20th century, which paved the way for its development as a tourist attraction. Here we are look.
One day we grab a water taxi (rather choppy affair) over to Isla Bastimentos. The jetty is at Old Bank, which is super colourful but very quiet. There was a big drain of brains and labour after the area lost its clout as a trade route. We walk over the island to Wizard beach and eventually find a loosely marked way round the bay and through the rainforest, past many little noisy red poison dart frogs, to the aptly named Red Frog Beach. We spend the day there chilling, and play some beach volleyball with patrons of the island’s only hostel.
Our water taxi back from Red Frog beach featured a right naughty palette.
The next day we take a tour to Zapatilla, which is a little pebble of an island a fair way away from Bocas Town. On its every fringe are the most picturesque of all the caribbean scenes we’ve seen. A complete joke, frankly. Some decent snorkelling throughout the day too, but the fascinating bright white brain-looking coral and the bursts of orange and yellow and flickering fish just below us are tinged by grey patches and the sense that we’re both enjoying and destroying.
Simply the most fantastic juxtaposition unfolds on Zapatilla: there’s a couple of young ladies repeating the same absurd idyllic island swim shot at least 15 times each, flicking their hair and sticking their bums out etc… and there’s Georgie — t-shirt on cos she’s got right burnt the day prior — waddling into the clear blue sea with two Cheetos to feed the fish.
Simply the most absurd decision of our time here so far unfolds on Zapatilla: I plead with a woman carrying sweaty meat empanadas to accept my $1.50 for a chicken one. Should be $2. She accepts. HA! God I’m a handy haggler. We were ill-prepared, you see, with merely some pineapple and this big bag of extra cheesy cheetos for company, so my famished soul didn’t pay heed to the fact that the empanada won’t have seen a fridge for very many hours.
In the night we both start shitting and vomiting. No one wants to read about us having a lovely time. The hostel has turned off the water as well, so the loo only flushes once and then we’re panicked. We navigate it well enough, never overlapping in our visitations.
Fortunately we’ve booked to head to Boquete for 4 or 5 hours so we have to rouse the energy to get about it, and after a nibble of Imodium we’re on our way. A very short amount of time elapses, then I am violently sick at the water taxi dock. There’s like an inch of dirty water on the toilet floor and the door doesn’t lock so I’m holding it with one hand as I squat and vomit and the sweat literally drips from my face into the grim basin. Are you enjoying this? Later, on the mainland, we stop at a stiflingly hot and smelly service station, where I think we’re past the worst of it, because greater periods of time are elapsing between our stomach cramps and neither of us have had an accident, so I buy and drink a delicious orange Gatorade. These are packed with electrolytes, no? Twenty minutes later the Gatorade is spooling out my nostrils and into a bag with holes in the bottom and it’s all good fun for everyone involved. Naturally, energy levels are low when we arrive in Boquete, but that kinda suits the place.
Not sharp. Not sharp at all.
We stay at this quite high-end hostel called Bambuda Castle, which boasts stunning views over the mountains and coffee plantations. The air is cooler. Once we’ve regained our faculties and eaten something the next day, we hike the ‘Lost Waterfalls’ trail — a beautiful undulating stretch of jungle with cascades every twenty-or-so minutes. Right shnippy water for a dip, but we brave it. It’s a gorgeous spot, is Boquete. Plenty to be said for its outdoorsy offering. Clouds roll in and streams run through the town and we find some decent bread which is especially special to me.
Boquete was bloody banging I wish we'd stayed longer.
Time does its thing and we’re headed for the capital, via David, and via an overnight bus. So that’s where we’re at, in Casco Viejo, which is super cool — got a European sensibility but also a carefree and rugged edge to it at turns.
This city is tucked nicely at the base of the Panamanian isthmus. This is a new word I just discovered. Means a thin slice of land with water on either side. So yeah, we’re right down here by the Pacific, with Colon serving as the gateway to the Atlantic.
HISTORY INTERLUDE DOS: In the late 1800s, after a failed French effort to develop a canal that runs through this isthmus (tropical diseases pillaged the workforce etc.), America quite naturally got its dirty little mitts involved. As they supported nascent nationalist movements and helped Panama achieve independence from Colombia, they also schmoozed the emergent Panamanian government into leasing them the canal’s territory. It was obviously far more nuanced than this, and some military dickswinging (gunboat negotiation tactics) helped things along, but basically it would result in the global superpower being able to print themselves more pretty benjamins. Class.
So they bought out the pre-existing French efforts, and where the oniony garlicky guys had failed the cheesesteaky, hot doggy guys succeeded. Here’s how. They kept a cap on tropical diseases (1); they realised that excavating loads of rugged mountainous terrain would be wild, so opted for locks instead (2); and they developed some artificial lakes to balance out the whole affair (3). This is both reductive and true; what a combo. Looooots of workers died during the US construction era n all though, so it’s not all roses. Anyway it worked and now it operates under the stewardship of Panama, after the US handed over the reins at the turn of the millennium.
77km long is the canal. Really rather good for trade and military transit and political alliances and the likes. Marvel of engineering but not the most tantalising of tourist attractions for a semi-young soul. We head to a few museums and read up on the sorts, as well as one paying homage to the culture, art, and beliefs of the indigenous Guna people.
Enough history. Now you know all about everything ever, I can rest easy and tell you that this place is entirely abuzz at rush hour. I can also tell you that mooching aimlessly in the thick heat from the old town to the new, high-rise cityscape via the pungent fish market is enough to fatigue a man and a woman. I can also tell you that we climbed Ancon Hill, saw a Toucan (!), met some more cool people, and basked in occasional A/C. I can also also tell you that we went to see Oppenheimer and Nolan is significantly superior to anyone you think is cool or talented.
Aaaaand now we’re off to Colombia bye.
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