A Norte Boy: Palmar layovers

Forested mountains overlook the quiet but pleasant town of Palmar Norte

It’s a long way from San Jose to Corcovado. It can be done in one
day if you want to six & a half hours on a bus, followed by bouncing over the waves of Bahia Drake in the hope you reach your accommodation before nightfall. We twice elected to stop off on the way and - almost by accident - ended up staying three days in Palmar Norte, or “North Palm” as the simple translation has it (though that makes it sound a little more exotic than it is).

What Palmar Norte has in its favour wouldn’t fill a particularly large notebook, but it does have some lovely views to add to its advantage as a convenient stopping place. We decided to hop off there on the way to Corcovado, not trusting ourselves to survive an 8 hour journey with sanity intact, and found a roasting hot but pleasant little town, bereft of many other tourists but blessed with scarlet macaws hanging about and making the place look pretty.

The rarity of tourists explains the enthusiasm with which one of the town’s taxi drivers attempted to strike up a relationship with us. We’d already worked out how to get from the bus stop to our hotel (or so we thought) and it appeared to be only a few minutes walk, so we politely declined even the bargainacious $2 fare. By the time we’d wandered aimlessly around for ten minutes, and I’d shed my bags in order to run up and down the Interamericana in desperate hope of finding our lodgings, the driver had to control his mirth as he drove past and gave us a free lift the 50 metres back to where our hotel was ’hiding.’ He was well rewarded when we agreed that we were done with finding our way around, and that he should drive us to Sierpe in the morning.

The mysterious hidden hotel wasn’t quite Shangri-La, but it was the agreeable and friendly El Teca lodge on the main road. Alas, the exquisitely helpful owner has a sign which, if approaching from the south, is entirely invisible, but we soon forgave him. By the time he had had welcomed us profusely, offering all kinds of help and assistance with our trip, we felt rather guilty that we were only staying one night, something compounded when we found a charming little room with the most deliciously ice-cold aircon you could wish for. Like everywhere in Costa Rica it had more beds that were strictly necessary (never was the accommodation of a country so geared towards couples falling out), and the curtains fell down while Michelle was trying to close them, but it was cute, clean and comfortable and had the best WiFi we were to experience in the whole region. It was rather annoying that El Teca was completely booked when we passed back through a few days later.

Suitably freshened by blasts of cold air, we ventured out for the sunset and then promptly ran out of ideas. There may be entertainment somewhere in Palmar, but we had no idea where to start, so we plumped for the most inviting dining option, the rather bizarre Heladeria Diquis, an ice cream parlour that is also probably the best restaurant in town (we didn't do extensive research). It’s particularly strange because it doesn’t serve alcohol in the usual sense, but if you search the menu you can find an ice cream shake with a generous serving of Bailey’s, so that you can get drunk and fat at the same time. On my first visit I over ordered and struggled to get through some veggie nachos, but we kept coming back like alcoholic flies around a Bailey’s ice-cream and had plenty of opportunities to find out that Diquis does the business.

We stocked up on dollars at one of the numerous cash machines, having been warned that Corcovado lack such facilities. The one opposite Diquis, however, always seemed to have as queue of about 20 people, like an old school Post Office on giro day. I was sorely tempted to ask what was going on, and then remembered I don’t speak Spanish.
Palmar’s resident taxi driver collected us as arranged and then proceeded to drive like The Stig down the dusty road between Palmar and Sierpe, rows of neatly planted palm trees flashing by as he sped.

We decided to get the bus when we returned, just to be on the safe side.

Our second stint was a touch longer. Unable to get into El Teca, we were lucky to get what seemed to be the last cabin in Brunka Lodge, a pleasant assortment of wooden huts built around a small but pretty swimming pool. Michelle had some work to do, and was looking forward to some El Teca quality WiFi. Unfortunately - possibly because we were the furthest from Brunch’s reception - the WiFi signal was shocking. Our ongoing quest to download the Sherlock Christmas special was also thwarted as the connection dropped out every few minutes.

I went searching for more macaws, but on the return trip they weren’t to be seen. In the end I ended up exploring up a long and rocky trail that led round the back of El Teca and towards the mountains we had seen from our old “Mountain View” room. Camera in hand I walked further and further, occasionally passing dog walkers as I hopped over streams and passed old wooden houses with children playing in the dust. At one point some very large Alsatians took a noisy interest in me as I wandered near the fence of some sort of estate. I was reassured that they were behind a high metal fence, until I wandered further down the road and saw the fence ended in a wide open gate. I hurried on, less reassured. 

Far enough up the trail it suddenly turned into bird paradise, as colourful twitterers flew hither and thither across the path. I dawdled, bewitched by so many feathered friends, and walked slowly up the trail as the light began to turn golden. I never found out what was at the end of the trail, though a local family came back down it, carrying towels and picnic gear, so I assume some sort of river or pool awaits the truly intrepid. Eventually I began to get a little nervous about the light and turned tail for home, though I did see a flock of groove-billed anis (snacking on lizards) and - way up in the trees - a very noisy toucan as I did so.

Groove-Billed Anis. Groovy.

My adventurousness backfired the following morning, when I had an inexplicable impulse to go for a dawn run. Heading out into the quiet town, and appreciating the mist clinging to the mountainside, I ran a big circuit, keeping to the dusty roadside. As I got into the main drag of the town, though, a man decided to pull his vehicle into the road as I approached. I darted to my right to avoid him, only to find that - right there and nowhere else - the side of the road sloped at a 45 degree angle. My foot slipped and I hit the road knee first.

I looked up. It was dawn, and I’d hardly seen a soul on the road. However, it seemed I had chosen to have my calamity right in front of what passed as the town’s bus station. A small gathering of travellers were looking at me with various forms of “ouch” on their lips. Reluctant to still be there when their sympathy turned to laughter, I sprang to my feet, ignoring the pain shooting through my leg, and kept running until I’d made it back to Brunka.

Blood was streaming down my leg and my dignity was long gone, but the sun was getting hot - we'd need to leave early or next journey would be unbearable. Shortly afterwards I was back at the bus station, ready to head to Manuel Antonio.   

Un-Fortuna and the case of missing volcano

Tree bark: the most colourful thing in Arenal

La Fortuna (lit "the luck) is a faintly dull little town blessed with one, powerful natural resource: a sodding great volcano. Between the 60s and about four years ago, this local attraction was a big, attention seeking beast, spewing fiery lava down one side (conveniently away from the town) and providing something of a spectacle for those interested in glowing soil.

Having packed it in, grown up, and settled down, Volcan Arenal, the local rocky triangle, has become a little more shy and, lacking fire, has been known to sulk beneath a foggy duvet during the day.

So it was that, in arriving in "The Luck," we had no luck at all. Fortuna may have a big, triangular mountain, but as far as first hand experience can confirm it may well be a hoax. We think the town has been keeping photoshop artists in business for several years.

Our journey to the town had its own eruptions. Travelling from Monteverde via "jeep-boat-jeep" (a recent innovation that makes use of the artificial Lake Arenal to dodge the worst of the mountain roads and saves about five hours of driving), we clambered aboard Jeep A (yer honour) to find a raucous atmosphere as a posh English voice demanded to know if we were Swedish. Disappointed to discover we shared a nation with it, The English Voice proceeded to ignore us and ask every new passenger the same question - it was eventually sated when an elderly American confirmed that her grandmother was Swedish and that she a) qualified and b) took the wind out of The Voice's sails, not being quite what it had been hoping for.

The English Voice's key vice was in believing that, by making frequent references to its desire for beer, it was somehow being the very soul of Wildean wit and repartee. After hilariously demanding that we stop for beer every hundred yards, The English Voice was challenged by a German about English national characteristics. "We like beer!" Cheered The Voice. "No," I said. "The main thing about the English is not that they like to drink, just that they can't handle it."

I fear this response may have been lost to the sound of the jeep engine.

Refusing to look at the face of The Voice's owner, I looked out of the window instead. It might have been noisy, but Jeep A was taking a spectacular route over the mountains. Costa Rica may be famous for beaches, sloths and cloud forests, but its agricultural highlands are stunning - and, presumably, almost tourist free.

We drove down to the banks of Lake Arenal, famous for its beautiful surroundings*, and managed to lose The English Voice to another boat (such as shame). Sadly that was our only luck, as low cloud and persistent drizzle limited the famous view to only a few moody looking hills and the forbidding wall of the dam.

It's just about possible to imagine that - on a different day - the views from Lake Arenal would live up to the hype

The biggest challenge of staying at Fortuna’s bizarre-looking but perfectly comfortable Regina Hotel was working out how to pronounce it. We started with the English pronunciation to blank stares, before one driver caught on. “Oh, Re-high-na!” he said, delighted with this eureka moment. Later on we tried that, but got more blank stares before they said, “oh, Regina!” We gave up.

The hotel is not exactly charming, looking as it does like a holiday cottage for a communist dictator, but the staff were very helpful (without being overly so) and - something of a miracle in mid-range Costa Rican accommodation - the aircon worked, though given the weather it was seldom employed. It also had a very nice little balcony where you could go to judge just how hard the rain was coming down and, occasionally, enjoy a view of the town mercifully shorn of being able to see The Regina itself. And, for us, shorn of Volcan Arenal.

It never did show up. We entertained ourselves with delicious pizza at Anch’io, over the road from Regina (watching with interest as a party of 17 turned up on spec, hoping for a table, and had to wait patiently as - very slowly - the customers began to file out and table by table the staff created a giant eating space, like continental drift forging a culinary Pangea), planning to head up into the national park the next day. Arenal, though, was still under its duvet when we woke, so we went for a slightly overpriced heuvos rancheros at The Lava Lounge, which at least had videos of the volcano going pop. Seeking to avoid yet another tour bus, we asked about scooter rental at the travel desk attached to Soda La Cuchura Tica (where we later ate a perfectly acceptable, and cheap, casado), but the man on the desk warned strongly against the idea of driving one of his scooters up there, as the road to the national park wasn’t paved.

Was there a bus? No - you can hire a car. Can we? Great! It’s a minimum two day hire. But we’re leaving tomorrow.  You can take a tour. 

If your ambition extends mostly to getting wet, Fortuna is the place to be

Bugger. As it turned out, the tour was about as good as it could have been given the unrelenting rain and cloud. Buying yet another poncho (my Monteverde poncho having been split up the middle like a guard in Game of Thrones) we plodded around in the duckling chain being shown turkey birds and rainbow gums, though there was an interesting and rain-free interlude where the guide explained Arenal’s volcanos and their various explosions by building little replicas out of volcanic sand, though he lost points for rushing us through the forest in search of red-eyed frogs so quickly he lost two members of the party. Presumably they’re still out there somewhere, slowly starving and asking “isn’t there supposed to be a volcano here somewhere?”

Too soggy to get the zoom out

Finally, and we really weren’t in the mood for it by then, they drove us to one of the hot springs, so we walked through a bit of forest in our swimming costumes before taking a warm bath in the dark. We sat in a fast moving stream of hot water, being gently rained on, and somehow it was wonderful, though that could be the generously supplied cocktails talking. A few people got swept away into the darkness, but we could tell by their distant cries that they were still alive, so we tried not to worry too much.

The next morning there was still no volcano, so - avoiding The Lava Lounge to have an expensive but definitely worth it coffee at Down to Earth Coffee - we decided to get the hell out of dodge and on to San Jose, where Michelle had to do some work and I had an urgent appointment with blue skies and a swimming pool. As we left, I pressed my face to the window, thinking that maybe Arenal would reward us with a goodbye glimpse as we left.

Did it bollocks.

* "pretty, but just a lake" might just be my favourite Tripadvisor review of all time - of a lake, anyway.

Animal Magic in Monteverde: now you don't see 'em, now you still don't see 'em.

The most frustrating thing about Costa Rica if you don't have a car is that you don't have a car. That might seem terribly obvious, but it seems that more than half the beautiful things to look at can only be seen if you have the power to stop and gawp. If you're being shuttled, no matter how comfortably, all you get is a tantalising glimpse through the window at what, sadly, you know you'll never have a chance to properly see.

Tantalising: Bus window beauty

Nowhere is this more acute than the winding road up to Monteverde. Our little minibus swung this way and that, negotiating its meandering route, and regulary teased us with a landscape of absorbing comeliness which it then snatched away. As we were taking this road just before sunset, the frustration was heightened as the golden light picked out the contours of row after row of picture perfect hills trouping off towards the horizon. You ache to stop and admire it, but you know you can't.

By the time we arrived at our digs in Monteverde, El Sueno in Santa Elena, the sun had long gone and been replaced by (hey, ho) the wind and the rain. El Sueno is an odd establishment. It's essentially a restaurant, backed by a carpark above which is a row of the oddest rooms. Not because there's anything particularly strange about their layout, but because they can't quite work out if they're inside or outside. Certainly, you reach them by a corridor and open spaces that are roofed (a wise precaution in Monteverde), the open spaces having comfy sofas and coffee tables, with polished wood flooring and enormous external windows providing unrivalled views of dying local moths. So far, so inside. But the rooms also have big windows facing out on the sofa zone, with curtains which the cleaning staff insist on tying back every day to show everyone else just how untidy your room gets when you unload a monotrematic backpack.

Also in the outside camp, there's no external door, meaning the local dogs come and run around on the wooden floors all night before settling down on the comfy sofas around dawn, looking ever so slightly guilty as you sidle past them on your way to (a very good) breakfast.

That aside, El Sueno is a welcoming, spacious and comfortable hotel, with helpful, friendly staff and a decent location. Just bring earplugs, an atmospherically coloured cloth to throw over the world's starkest bedside lamp, and a sense of humour.

(Autocorrect insists that I said "an atmospherically coloured sloth" which, in Monteverde, is at least a possibility).

Sunset in Monteverde is worth a walk

Certainly we were happy enough to stay an extra night when we realised that there was just too much to do in Monteverde for two nights, and we still didn't do many of the available activities. My photography obsession tends to rule out anything that requires me to put the camera down (so no zip-lining) but there were seemingly endless canopy walks to be had, reserves to visit, forests to stumble about in the dark, coffee to drink (apparently), sunsets to watch, sloths to miss, tarantulas to ignore and ponchos to buy. We packed in as much as possible.

Reading that Santa Elena is a little quieter, and just as teeming with wildlife, as Monteverde reserve itself, we took the $2 bus up into the clouds. Once inside we were presented with our little map of paths and bundled off into the woods, where we preceded to see absolutely nothing.

Costa has a reputation of being so Rica in wildlife that you have to be careful brushing your teeth in case you've foolishly squeezed your toothpaste onto a tapir by accident, but you'll be pleased to know that if you put in the requiste effort, you can be rewarded by seeing almost nothing for hours at a time. Tramping round the path marked as "good for animals" afforded us a centipede and a number of small birds resembling jungle sparrows. It wasn't until we bumped into a guided tour near the exit, excitedly pointing at what looked like a hairy, green coconut, that we got close to seeing anything. My zoom lens uncovered the greenish, furry back of a two-toed sloth, sitting perfectly still in the mist. It might still have been a green, hairy coconut.

Animals 1, Humans 0.

The motto, I suppose, is don't be a tight-arse and hire a guide, but even that seems a little weird. Costa Rica works on the telescope principle - all of the guides carry very impressive Swarovski 'scopes with awesome magnification - so you may as well be at home watching Chris Packham presenting "Costa Rica Watch" live on the Beeb for all the naked eye animal action you're going to get, but for all that having a helpful Tica point out an agouti through the lens that you know is only a hundred metres away is pretty cool, or it would be if there were any agoutis. We later heard that the Hulk Sloth was the only mammal the tour group saw on the trail.

We saw the Dark Lord of Santa Elena, but little else

We messed up our first attempt at a canopy tour after the guy on the desk at El Sueno mysteriously vanished, so that when we reported back clutching cash to pay him for the tour, there was no one to pay. So the next day we decided to walk over to the Santuario Ecologica, a well regarded private reserve down some winding lanes that is said to have a good supply of furry and feathered creatures. The first furry friend we encountered was a confident Canadian by the name of Patrick who, as we exited El Sueno, stood upon the patio demanding to know where to find the best cup of coffee in Monteverde. Michelle, who prides herself on all matters coffee, recommended Don Juan Coffee (sociopathic promiscuity in coffee not being a problem) which, by coincidence, was on our way.

Now, Patrick had hired a car, and in our brief time together we learned why we had been both wise and stupid not to do the same. It seems Patrick, a photographer building his portfolio, had managed to get himself into every possible kind of automotive scrape short of, well, scraping his automobile. How he not only emerged with his life but his insurance deposit intact, only an all-knowing ethereal spirit could say. Fortunately for us, the short trip to the coffee house in the back of his 4WD didn't add any anecdotes to his stories and we not only popped in for a coffee, but then he kindly dropped us at the Santuario, which was a lot further away than it looks on the maps and making us pine for a car, no matter how dangerous. 

The hike started well, with a welcoming party of a very furry coati hopping around before I'd even got my camera out (regrettably, as we never saw it again). We therefore trudged round the dry forest with a good deal of optimism, all of which was slowly crushed. The views in the reserve are truly spectacular, but all of them involved landscapes or trees, and none creatures. We visited two pretty little waterfalls (a lot of climbing for maybe not that much beauty, but if you're feeling strong of thigh then definitely worthwhile) and eventually made it back to the start having only seen lizards. Once there, we saw an elderly couple sitting transfixed as a troop of white-faced monkeys messed around on top of some fence posts.

"There were more earlier,"said the older man. "Also, there was a Yuk Yuk."

He may not have said that, but since I have no idea what he was talking about it's hard to remember the correct words.

I looked at him questioningly. "A what?"

Agouti Cutie - Santuaria Ecologica

All kindness vanished from him face as he marked me down as an idiot."A Yuk-Yuk. Surely you've heard of them. Very rare. There was one right here." He shook his head and didn't say another word.

Inspired by his luck, we pottered around the entrance to the park and spotted more monkeys, plentiful agoutis, various birds and a squirrel. We'd been walking for three hours and seen nothing; now the animals were practically queueing up to be admired.

Similar ease applied to the night tour that we took later that day with Kinkajou Tours. Finding our tickets turned out to be much harder than finding toucans, scorpions, olingos, two-toed sloths with actual faces, red-eyed frogs, vipers and, thrillingly and fleetingly, the rare kinkajou itself as we ran round like a Vietnam war reenactment society armed only with torches and supreme optimism. Our guide, Bernie, was ever informative and managed to keep everyone from straying too far from the path and falling down a cliff.

The kinkajou - so rare it's hard to see in its own photo

It turned out to be the high point of the Monteverde trip when it comes to biodiversity. The canopy tour the next day was blighted by torrential rain with the animals, most sensibly, staying firmly undercover. We completed the circuit, clocking another centipede, before retreating to the amazing hummingbird gardens where the buzzing of tiny birds filled the damp air. They may be essentially tame (they even landed on our hands) but there was no escaping the fact that these precious little creatures are amongst the most delightful things on the planet, so that soon cheered us up.

As soon as we left, the sun came out. We dried out on El Sueno's little patio and waited for the 'jeep' to La Fortuna. It was the last time we'd see a blue sky for a few days.
   

What's not to like? 

   

Samara, Samara, we love you, Samara

Samara's sweeping bay is jaw-droppingly beautiful, at least if your expectations were more along the lines of Southend seafront but with palm trees that were still alive. The huge cove, curled in at the edges by forested promontories, seems to be the very best a 'commercial beach' (donkeys rather than horses trot up and down, but it's essentially Blackpool in spirit) can offer. Compared to other former beauty spots (see Unawatuna in Sri Lanka) Samara beach has been saved by the tendency (either through inclination or legislation, I don't know which) of the bars to hide in the shrubbery like a kinkajou. You need a guide just to find some fries. 

Playa Samara is about halfway down Costa Rica's Peninsula Nicoya, a land of beaches, waterfalls and iguanas, named after a dull, dusty and businesslike town somewhere vaguely near its inland edge, a bit like renaming the New Forest "Basingstokeland". We had selected it as a suitable place for NYE and - having narrowly escaped trying to find some fun in Liberia - immediately decided this had been a good decision. The town (not much more than a road) buzzed with a good natured excitement. 

A great trick Samara pulls off is hiding its huge transient population when they're not on the beach. It's really not obvious where all these people go. Perhaps they turn into parrots and fly off somewhere to roost. Dusk comes, and the humans pack their cooler boxes and slowly disappear. Except, of course, when it is New Year's Eve. 

We had arrived from Liberia, via the exciting hub of Nicoya, on a public bus at about mid afternoon the day before NYE. The heat was intense, and we were relieved that the bus had dropped us reasonably close to our lodgings. We'd booked rooms at Casa Amarillo, the extremely well-named Yellow House, at the top of Samara's uphill Main Street. This charming (if - in direct sunshine - a little intensely coloured) little oasis of calm, with its lemon walls and flowery garden around a plunge pool, was a real find. The room was clean and spacious, the fan strong and the smell of cabbage completely absent. It wasn't hard to impress us after Liberia, but it was certainly a good choice. It was run by an Austrian expat and his Tico wife, ably assisted by their two dogs, Teddy and Oso (bear). Oso was the most timorous beastie I'd ever seen: I let Michelle do the petting, as she has a way with dogs. I think Oso would have burst into tiny canine tears if I'd gone anywhere near him. Teddy, who I took to be a miniture schnauzer, was a bit more robust, with sturdy legs like a footstool. Neither of them could do anything about the other animal residents of the Casa - the hot tiles of the roof were a perfect environment for some very large iguanas who spent most of the day scrabbling around noisily or sunbathing above us. 

We wandered down to the beach at the first opportunity, as it is  - despite the town's laidback charms - the most interesting thing by far. About 50% of the shops on Via Arriba,  the main road, cater for beach goers - hats, towels, bikinis, plastic surboards, rubber sharks (possibly), sunglasses and, oddly, the word's greatest slection of Chinese-made rucksacks festooned store after store. The remaining portion of commercial premises were a motly mix of restaurants (a strong showing for vegetarianism, I was relieved to note), antique stores, tour operators, yoga centres and two ATM machines each with a permanent knot of hot people around them, a bit like an entourage but with actual heat. As far as we know, the towel sellers continue to stay towel sellers all day, but we did manage to fall foul of some peculiar local customs. Some establishments, such as Coffee Haus on Arriba, change their MO at an appointed hour - you might want pancakes, but you're getting guacamole (if you're lucky) - while one of the beach restaurants appeared to offer a different menu depending on which side of a fallen tree you'd decided to sit. Always check the menu before getting too comfy - it might not be what you were expecting.

Avocados were off the menu. This gecko was optional. 

Something else to check in advance is whether the meal you've spotted on the menu, and really, really want, is actually on offer. Somehow, we arrived in during the Great Nicoya Avocado Drought of 2015/16. In each establishment we were told how the town had run dry of alligator pears and there was no word on when they'd next be joining us for lunch. This meant our trip to the highly esteemed vegan outlet Luv Burger went from "yay, avocado on toast!" to "oh, vegan wholemeal pancakes" with alarming speed (tag: middle class problems). The pancakes were overpriced and underwhelming. One restaurant's waitress felt the need to inform me of the lack of avocado when I'd ordered a Greek salad. I said, "that's OK, it's not supposed to have any," and she looked at me as if I'd just asked for extra snakes with it. She might have been on autopilot, or maybe the economic problems in Greece have changed their salads. The salad arrived as nature intended, but I now couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed by the lack of avocado I had never expected.
New Year's Eve came. Being recently arrived, we hadn't made any special arrangements and most beach establishments had filled up with reservations. We snuck a drink in a bar, promising to vacate a table before its booked owners arrived (in three hours) to celebrate UK New Year, then slunk further up the hill for a decent Mexican at Coco's. As the hour crept closer we crept closer to the beach again, finding it thronged with people from the treeline all the way into the sea, where some adventurous souls were setting fireworks on exposed sandbanks. Samara's fireworks - stunning and exciting as they were - managed only a tenuous link to the celebrations. At about 11:30, for instance, the most sustained period of multi-coloured explosions rocked the beach, lighting up the crowd like flares (and giving people a chance to look for lost change in the sand) and shattering eardrums along the whole stretch of sand. This crescendo was matched at midnight itself by a small roman candle going 'pop' and a frightened bat making a well timed bid for freedom. We had to check the time - 12 had come and gone in near silence. Samaran firework launchers have a sad case of premature ignition, though they did keep up a sporadic volley of shots out to sea for some time afterwards, as if shelling an imaginary invasion fleet. It must have cost a fortune.

The half-hour before the New Year was marked in style. 

Samara beach is an ideal party spot, as the same venue for the party then turns into the best place to recover. Indeed, some people the following morning appeared to have combined these two functions without a break, though Michelle and I gave ourselves the luxury of a few hours sleep back at the Casa. About the only think I can't recommened, amongst the lush jungle backdrop, the swimming dogs and the body temperature water, is the iced drinks from the little carts that ply their trade along the sandy stretch. If the 20 minute preparation time (there's a lot of ice shaving) doesn't put you off, perhaps the strange flavour, the dollup of bicarbonate of soda that never quite gets properly mixed in, and the insistence of balancing a winegum, a marshmallow and a wafer on top of a melting heap of ice (which, of course, immediately fall off) might. It's an experience, I suppose, but if you're genuinely thirsty you might want to just ask for the ice on its own. 

After a few days baking in Samara's toasty climate, it was time to head for the hills. Michelle had been in roasting heat for five weeks, and it was time for some cool mountain air. We snagged some Interbus tickets for $50 (everything tourist related in Samara appears to be $50) each, and zoomed off into the clouds. 

Costa Rica: Give me Liberia... or give me life

There are some airports in the world where disembarking is a well organised process that glides on the thermals of good organisation. Probably about three of them. For all the others, escaping from Colditz would probably be quicker. 

Sadly for me, San Jose falls into that category. Having waited at least half an hour in the queue for immigration, I had to wait a further 40 minutes for my bag to arrive on the luggage belt. How does it take a bag an hour and ten minutes to disembark? Did they make it walk by itself? It had time to evolve into a sentient being and tapdance to the conveyor. 

My mission was to head to Liberia asap to meet Michelle, who in turn was Tica-bussing her way south from Léon in Nicaragua, something that turned out to be considerably better organised. A taxi ride and a 4.5 hour bus ride took me to a deserted, dusty, dead-end part of Liberia, with no idea which direction to go in, no taxis, and a slightly threatening cast of desperate characters lurking about. I chose the devil I had yet to be introduced to, and ploughed off into Liberia's quiet streets to to try to find my rendez-vous with Michelle at Hotel Liberia. 

The lack of taxis was explained by the fact that pretty much all of them were parked around the edge of Liberia's Parque Central, despite the fact that said park and its various bars and restaurants appeared to be almost deserted. At least they were able to help with finesse my sense of direction and find my anonymous looking residence. 

Hotel Liberia is an enigma. Well, I say enigma - that makes it all sound a bit too glamorous. Despite looking smart and chic on the outside, possessing an extremely attractive communal area, our experience of the place was a succession of disappointments. The room, well ventilated with ceilings 15 feet high, nonetheless bore a perpetual smell of rotting cabbage - the drains were on the blink. Of course, our ability to contribute to the drains problem was limited by the fact the flush on our toilet didn't work, though this could be ameliorated by using the plastic bathroom bin to pour water down the toilet - always fun. That's assuming that you could fill the bin with water - if too many people were showering, you had to wait a while for running aqua. 

To make matters worse, we had been allocated the room next to reception, meaning that the area outside our door became a waiting area of people checking in, checking out and checking something out. All of which could have been drowned out by the whir of the ceiling fan if it had actually whirred rather, than drifted lazily in vague circles, like plastic smoke. 

I´d complain more about the Hotel, but when it came to checking out (a process lengthened by them forgetting to book a taxi for us) we did discover that it was also shockingly cheap.  Of course, given how badly organised everything else was, they probably forgot to charge us for something, but - for once - I´m not complaining. 

Liberia itself is a pleasant non-event; the most exciting thing in town was a motorcyclist being knocked down by a 4WD while we shopped for local SIM cards. Fortunately, despite the fact that his helmet rolled a full 30 metres down the road, we were delighted to see that the 4WD came off considerably worse than the motorcyclist, who was standing up and chatting while waiting for his ambulance. I think he may have been The Terminator. 

The city´s Parque Central was pretty and bustling, as all Costa Rica´s Parques Central appear to be. The huge space of the modern Catholic cathedral was a handy refuge from the roasting heat, and a chance to enjoy my first plastic nativity scene of the trip, but there didn´t seem to be much else to do there apart from recover from jetlag. We did manage to manage to enjoy the charms of Pizza Pronto, a restaurant fronted by a huge and hugely enthusiastic manager who insisted on overcoming our indecision by providing pizzas of two different halves (allowing, in effect, four pizzas between the two of us).  The gremlins of Googlemaps were also overcome to finally find Palermo, a much recommended bar that was 200 metres away and on a different street to where it should be, though by the time you read this it might have grown legs and moved back where it should be, like an item of luggage at San Jose airport.  The chic atmosphere was a little compromised by the the multiple screens showing cowboys trying not to fall off bulls, punctuated by the weird sight of cowgirls performing Latin dancing while ankle deep in bullshit, but hey, we´ve all been there.

We weren´t particularly misty-eyed to wend our way to the bus station the next day, hoping to find a suitable beachy paradise to celebrate New Year, leaving the smell of cabbage far behind us. 

Misadventure on the High Seas

(Nicaragua, 2014)

Bluefields sneaks up on you. The centuries old pirate town lacks any apparent evidence of its antiquity, having been blown away rather unkindly by an hurricane in 1988; old Victorian wooden houses were replaced with safer but less characterful concrete structures. Approaching on a bouncing panga, excitedly leaving the surface of the water and attempting to shatter one's spine as its reconnects with it, the city seems to go from distant smudge to an obscuring shoreline in a matter of moment. Once you dock at Bluefield's jetties, you can't see the concrete for the blocks.

Nor is there a particularly obvious route from the jetty to the main part of town; perhaps we just didn't find it. Instead we found ourselves wandering down ramshackle alleys with huge pot holes and strange leaning bits of corrugated ironlike a cheap backdrop for a play set in Ankh-Morpork. Eventually we emerged, blinking, onto the sunlit main street, and finally saw Bluefields properly. Unlike the gentility of Granada, or the workaday bustle of Juigalpa, Bluefields is a generic backdrop for one of those period movies where someone arrives at an exotic port. Somehow, the three crates of humorously chirping chicks had beaten us to the main road and were providing a comedy aural backdrop to the swirl of people, the flash of tuk-tuks and the gleam of sunshine on rainy pavements.  Bluefields is where Spanish Nicaragua and the English Miskito Coast blend together, with reggae music playing from shops with Spanish advertising on them. The same red-shirted Claro salespeople stand on every corner, just like everywhere else, but here they are watched by elderly Caribbean people sitting in rocking chairs on balconies, and passed by tiny ladies in giant hats. 

It also, it must be said, has a definite edge that we hadn't picked up in the other towns and cities.  Staring is a popular Nicaraguan pastime that takes a little while to get used to, but in most cases you soon realise that there is no menace or insolence intended, merely passive curiosity. Bluefields is mostly the same, but every now and again I got a strange feeling of being noticed with a bit more active interest. I was quite glad to get to the excellent, cheap and clean Hostal Doña Vero near the town square and drop my ludicrously enormous backpack and hide my camera bag.

Away from the docks, Bluefields is more like other Nicaraguan towns, built on a grid around a pleasant central square, where the locals resolutely refuse to play chess at the special tables with chess boards painted on them. The 1988 storm had leached the town of its architectural character, however and, having been stared at a little bit more and invested too much time trying to find Bluefields' only Mexican restaurant, we gave in to the rhythm of our recent travels and had an early night, ready to resume our quest in the morning.

In the morning I got some much needed exercise with a high-speed search for a cajeros automatico, running from street to street all over the town until I finally found an ATM.  Misleadingly, the town is covered is signs reading "Banco" that turn out merely to belong to a convenience store, and to suggest that the shop takes Visa or Mastercard. By the time I managed to get some precious dollars to last us through our ATMless time further north, we'd missed our intended boat. Instead, we decided to have a daytime investigation of Bluefield's busy coastal strip and to plot our next move.

In Juigalpa we were obviously the only gringos in town, and given its far remove from the tourist trail that made sense. It was increasingly obvious in Bluefields that we were almost as much of a novelty, which made a great deal less sense given the town's central position as a gateway to the attractions of the Caribbean coast. There must have been other tourists, tucked away out of sight, but clearly not many. That meant that wherever we walked we got a certain amount of attention. As we wondered onto the jetty, a local gentleman attached himself to us, desperate to help us so much he started translating our English into English for the local English speakers, which was awfully nice of him. He did show us where to go to book our tickets for a panga to Pearl Lagoon, but all his efforts couldn't persuade anyone to make any kind of guess at an ETD. Being wise to the ways of local transport by now, Michelle and I looked at the half empty boat and made a wild guess that it would be almost an hour before it finally found enough passengers to depart.

As we picked a recommended bakery from the guidebook, our next helpful friend decided to guide us to the place we had already located on a map. Still, he deserved some credit for actually taking us there, rather than trying to guide us to a) a rival bakery or b) an armed robbery. And it was very nice to know that I could get coke. In the absence of Irn Bru I do like a bit of coke. Fortunately Michelle pointed out that it probably wasn't that sort of coke, and we hurried on.

When we arrived back the port with my bag hanging off me as if I was giving a really fat green man a piggy back, our first friend announced that we had taken too long. Our panga had departed, and we would have to wait until tomorrow! Surely there are other ways to get there, we countered - I understand that we can go to Kukra Hill and get a bus, no? First Friend paused, then nodded and agreed, but looked as though he was very unhappy to do so.

We never discovered what his game was, because when we returned to the jetty the rather languid woman on the booking desk was most perplexed at our assumption of having missed our boat, and ushered us quickly on to the panga, which was in fact plainly still there and not even full.  Here the locals were just as irritated by the customs of Nicaraguan transport as we were, and we listened for a while to a melody of Caribbean accents each bemoaning the fact that they were stuck on a boat waiting for one more person to fill it. In the end, no one could find a 13th passenger who wanted to go to Pearl Lagoon, so rather than wait until the 12 other passengers rose up in arms and killed the driver,  a man wanting to go halfway to Kukra was added, satisfying both the angry mob and the driver's honour (and possibly his kidneys).

(Kukra Hill, incidentally, was a delightful looking pace with a beautifully painted multi-coloured bridge and two wooden carts with reggae playing and seemingly nothing else. I rather wished I was getting off there)

Pearl Lagoon has a slightly less prepossessing jetty, but as you head north from it, its gentle collection of waterside houses have plenty of charm. We were booked to stay at Casa Ulrich, recommended to Michelle via some ex-pat Canadians she'd found on t'internet (she does things like that). Casa Ulrich turned out to be a charming double building, with rooms set a little back from the water in one block, and a restaurant overlooking the lagoon itself in another. The place is run by Fred Ulrich, a well-travelled Pearl Lagoonian chef with experience in the US and Europe, and who runs a tight ship - not something that can be said of all his relatives.

Before we'd even arrived, a local man appeared at our side and started chatting to Michelle. It turned out that the man, Johnny, was Fred's cousin, and he politely accompanied us on our way through the quiet, beporched northern street of Pearl Lagoon until we reached the Casa. After we had checked into to our very satisfactory rooms and had a quick cool down under the aircon, Johnny proceeded to introduce us to various members of his family. Charmed by his general helpfulness, I decided to share our plan with him, to see whether he thought I was crazy or not.

Well, you can see why we wanted to go there.

So, I asked him. If I was to charter a boat to the Pearl Cays, and then straight onto the Corn Islands, would that be possible? And where would we find someone to take us?

We had underestimated Johnny's helpfulness. Not only did he assure us that it was possible, he gave us a short lecture on the size of engine and how it would relate to the price we would be charged. We didn't need a 75, apparently, and a 40 would be more than sufficient to get us to our destination, and - amazing! - he knew someone with such a boat and he would dash off there and then to procure a quote! I had an immediate, nasty feeling that everything had suddenly got away from me, but - I reasoned - surely it was worth seeing what kind of offer Johnny could rustle up? We retreated to Fred's restaurant and enjoyed a bottle of Toña, Nicaragua's surprisingly pleasant local beer.

When Johnny returned, he was the bearer of good news! Yes, he could find a boat. With the smaller engine size, the trip would cost $400.  From the research we'd done, this was the very low end of the price range for a trip like this, and from that point of view a very good deal. Johnny, though a little socially awkward, was clearly genuinely connected to the very well run family business of the Ulriches, and none of them seemed particularly skeptical of or concerned by him offering their guests impromptu tours.

Perhaps they had never seen his friend's boat.

So it was, dear reader, that we said yes. 

The plan was that we would arise early - again - with a view to setting off around 7am. We awoke to a beautiful morning, with a gentle dawn zephyr barely stirring the surface of the silty lagoon.  Perfect weather, we reasoned, stuffing our luggage dutifully into enormous orange rubbish sacks to protect out precious luggage from the evils of salt water (a vain hope, as it transpired). We paid Johnny most of his money, as it needed to be spent almost entirely on petrol, keeping back 15% just in case.

An hour and a half later, after breakfast, worry and Fred Jnr having to get on his bike to hunt down his missing cousin, Johnny and his driver appeared in a rather unglamorous, peeling panga that once may have been a fetching shade of baby blue but now had the general distressed air of a pair of decorator's jeans. It wasn't a small boat, exactly, but it seemed a touch more diminutive than the pangas that we had seen on our travels. On the other hand, those boats were mass transit vehicles: perhaps their size was entirely about passenger capacity and not about stability.

By the time we set off, sadly, the zephyr had upgraded to a stiff breeze.  It didn't take long for the calm waters of the sheltered lagoon to turn wavy as we ventured out into the Caribbean. The grey waves beat relentlessly onto the boat, but our hosts - Johnny, the driver and a friend of theirs who had tagged along for a free ride to the Corns - assured us further from the coast the seas would be calmer.

The good thing about pangas, as opposed to other small boats, is that their speed makes most of the action of the boat up and down, rather than side to side. The spine-jarring smackdown as the boat leaves the water is the threat to the passenger, with sea-sickness possible but mitigated by the lack of sway, though I'd developed a headache by the time the boat entered the calmer waters around the Cays.

Road to Nowhere: Lime Cays jetty

Having set off the best part of two hours late, our actual tour of the Cays was a little perfunctory. Our first stop was Lime Cay, one of the larger islands and one where a permanent resident is installed to keep an eye on things. He was clearly very happy to see Johnny and co, and they retreated to a small pink house to catch up while leaving us to poke around our introductory Cay, which seemed to have more coconut shells than sand, though you can apparently stay in a very nice house there for a measly $6,000 a week (excluding alcohol).

Eventually Johnny & Co rescued us from photographing coconuts and chickens and we finally got a boat ride to a paradise island.

If the first part of the journey had been frustrating and underwhelming, this middle part was where the goodies were. Immediately, the hyperbole in the guide books was justified. These smaller Cays are the sort of place that has you using words like "quintessential" - you'd need a graphic designer to tell you all the shades of blue and green in the utterly gorgeous waters (fortunately, I had one), white sand that you want to sprinkle on your Weetabix, and even orange-coloured palm trees (just to get really silly). Lurking through those ostentatiously coloured trees was always the occasional mild annoyance - in the first island's case a private island getaway that you could never completely ignore and made you feel like you were visiting someone's (very nice) garden. We were told that all the Cays had private owners, and that many were being built on, much to the annoyance of the locals. Access, however, was still possible, and the only reason we couldn't linger longer was entirely our own fault. Corn Islands were a long way away and we needed to get there before dark. As it turned out, our hosts' haste was fortuitous.

We had time for one more stop, a Cay with a classic, curved beach with a wall of bright green palms and a tiny, shell-strewn fishing hut at one end. I was feeling so chipper at this point that I tucked into some cereal bars I'd brought and thought that this boat business wasn't all that bad after all.

Just when the idyllic setting was beginning to pall (solely due to the early afternoon sun which, on this particular island, was a bit hard to escape), Johnny & Co rounded us up for the Big Trip.

The Final Cay

The sea seemed calm, but the Cays often have their own natural defences, submerged reefs (probably once Cays themselves - Pearl is vulnerable to rising sea levels, and J&C showed us a few that were mere shadows under water with a single, desperate tree clinging to life on a tiny, upthrust mound) that break the waves and keep the Cayshore clear of currents. So it was with a misplaced sense of confidence that Michelle and I embarked on the final leg of our panga voyage.

 By time we reached the final Cay, I was already reaching the limits of my endurance. As we skimmed past close to the string of fishermen's huts that are pretty much all there is of Skull Island (officially Isla Seal, but check out the spooky satellite image) I was desperate for J&C to stop the panga and let me lie down. Eventually, I realised this wasn't going to happen. I groaned and tried to focus on not being sick.

Skull Island

I should probably have spent a little more time perusing the map before we set off. Skull Island might be the furthest out of the Cays, but the open ocean between it and Little Corn is more than the distance we had already island hopped from Pearl Lagoon. It soon became apparent that the rough panga ride we'd got on the way to Cays was nothing compared to what the Caribbean was prepared to throw at us. What made that worse is that nothing really looked that bad. The sky was mostly clear and blue, the sea a rich sapphire, the wind gentle. Our panga, however, was made for millponds, and any wave bigger than a couple of feet tended to induce the aforementioned smackdown. It didn't take long before we were falling out of our seats as the boat plummeted into wave valleys, reconnecting painfully with the benches as we hit bottom.

Now dreadfully seasick, I closed my eyes and wished for it all to stop. I may well have overdone it.

Going up and down might have pushed me to the edge, but stopping was even worse. This may have been for two reasons: firstly, as soon as a panga loses speed, it becomes horribly vulnerable to the swell and sway of the water, tossed about like half a coconut shell, but secondly simply because it's not supposed to come to a halt on the open sea, and if it does then something has gone rather awry. The sound of a spluttering engine when there's no land in sight on any horizon is a terrifying one.

At first that terror was tempered by moments of hope as the engine coughed back into life and the boat limped arthritically in the direction one hoped was Little Corn. As the ratio between stops and goes grew more imbalanced, though, a slow feeling of dread developed. In my case, it was battling for attention with what was now a quite overpowering seasickness. Needless to say, I was regretting the cereal bars, the boat ride, getting up that morning and, frankly, being born.

We might have been more reassured if J&C had been a bit calmer, but they were just as worried as us. Their knowledge of how the engine worked was sufficient for them to declare that the sparkplugs needed replacing, but sadly hadn't led them to the precaution of packing spare parts. We were, basically, stranded.

And so we bobbed, bobbed and bobbed again, the boat wobbling about on the wave tops like a spinning plate in need of a push. The sun steadily sauntered towards the horizon, which remained resolutely empty of smudgy promises of land. Michelle was drawing on remarkable reservoirs of strength and was keeping it completely together, though she later confessed to have been scanning the waters for shark fins. She looked after me sweetly, as my seasickness grew to such a level that I was barely conscious of what was going on around me.

The one encouraging factor, as the engine died completely and ruled out even a tiny burst of progress, was that we were clearly drifting somewhere. After a long while, with the sky beginning to change colour as the sun dipped ever further towards its edge, a dark smudge appeared: Little Corn Island.

Our future seemed a secure as this Cay's

Now, the horizon is generally about 3 miles away. I wouldn't fancy swimming that but it would be theoretically possible. Sadly, both Corn Islands are topped with hills, which meant there was no guarantee that we were any closer than 30 miles, ruling out a bit of self-propelled splashing saving us. We sat tight (well, I hung over the edge of the boat with my eyes tightly shut trying not to heave my internal organs overboard), hoping the drift would speed up. The light began to dim.

As the sun turned orange, and the horizon behind us grew shadowy, we heard a sound that might have annoyed us in the quiet coach on a British train, but here was certainly the most delightful sound I had ever heard. It took a moment for my delirious brain to process its significance, but once it did, the bleeping of Johnny's mobile phone might as well have been a celestial choir of angels. We had drifted into range of Little Corn's mobile network!

From then on it was a race against the clock. Although Johnny could now work out our coordinates and pass them onto his friends on Corn, it would be so much safer to conduct the rescue in daylight. Some haggling was necessary to even get his friend to come out on the sea at that time of night - fortunately, whatever was promised (I couldn't quite follow the rapid-fire creole) eventually proved sufficient, and we were told to relax and wait for the cavalry.

The cavalry, when it came, was in the form of a second panga and a spark plug. We spotted the boat some time before it got to us, emerging out of the gloom after the sound of its engine has reached us. Eventually it drew alongside, its pilot throwing a bag with the sparkplugs to Johnny and collecting one of our company who had decided that he'd had enough of Johnny's half-arsed captaincy. This minor mutiny concluded, the friend took off ahead of us, while Johnny scrabbled away at the engine to get the new plug in place. Finally, as night jostled with dusk, we drew up on the sands of Little Corn Island, at which point I miraculously recovered. Seasickness is odd.

I momentarily considered withholding Johnny's final payment, but in the end confined my revenge to patronising him with my land-lubber's advice to pack some spare engine parts next time. A gaggle of locals emerged, all keen to guide us to accommodation and, we hoped, safety at last.

Night fell before we'd even left the beach, but it no longer mattered. I defiantly muttered that I'd never step foot in a boat again, until Michelle reminded me that there was no other way off Little Corn. Still, I could worry about that later. For the moment, we were safe and sound.








   

A Not So Shitty City

It's not an enormous claim to fame, but having spent a bit of time in Guatemala City and Managua, Panama is, if not diamond in the rough, then at least a smooth bit.

I would have been astonished by Panama logic but for one experience. When I arrived at Panama City airport, I intended to be parsimonious and take the bus to the city, thereby saving myself precious balboas. Unfortunately, the Panamanians have recently invested in an 'Oyster'-style scheme of pre-pay cards. “You can't take a bus without a MetroBus card”, insisted the tourist information woman, a pov reinforced by the guy that sold me a Panama simcard for my phone.

“Where do I get one?” I ask?

Seductively sallow stamen with sweet scent of sewage

Downtown, was the answer.

“Hang on,” I ask. “They don't sell them here but you can't take a bus without one?”

That is so.

“I must say, that's quite the silliest thing I've ever heard”.

The only way to get downtown to buy the bus card that would get you cheaply from the airport is to take a taxi for $30.

But not to be too hard on the Panamanians, I do recall arriving in the US to find that their airport buses only took exact change, and that no-one in the airport would give you any. Someone, somewhere, has made it their life's work to make things difficult for new arrivals. Possibly someone from the Guild of Taxi Drivers.

Aesthetically, the Panama City that my overpriced conveyance revealed to me was a cross between Kuala Lumpur and Torremolinos. If Boris Johnson needs a warning about the visual impact of too many skyscrapers with too little design imperative he need only take a city break here. It's all very shiny and looks moderately impressive with the tall reflections plumbing the depths of the bay, but it has all the character of a Tom Cruise leading role. There's no danger of a crook in the neck – I stopped bothering to look up very quickly.

WALL-E interrupts the view across the bay to Casco Viejo

Casco Viejo, on the other hand, was unexpectedly delightful. Built in the 17^th Century as a more secure location to defend against (mostly English & Welsh) pirates, the Old Compound has pots of old world charm to rival somewhere like Granada, if a little more down at heel. Although the Panamanians have only recently cottoned on the tourist-trap potential of this little slice of colonial Spanish America, by some luck they didn't use that ignorance to demolish it and build hideous tower blocks on it. So instead it sits like pleasant foothills at the base of the mountains of the rest of the city, as it slowly gets reinforced and repainted to make sure it doesn't fall down on any passing Germans.

Casco is small enough to wander round easily, though not so small that it doesn't contain about 15 Panama Hat shops. Apart from a sticky moment trying to explain that I wanted to buy deodorant at the local store there weren't any great challenges to overcome.

Those challenges only really started with my determination to buy myself an elusive MetroBus card. I asked for directions to where I could buy one – apparently at the nearest bus station and not at local shops (given their scarcity, a bit like only being able to get an Oyster at mainline train stations). And, of course, en-route to the first station I manage to get lost, and by the time I realised this was so far off my original path that I just continued for a pleasant walk along the bay front, which looks very pretty with its curving shoreline, palm trees and multicoloured shrubs but occasionally smells like a backed up toilet. Eventually I restarted my quest, learned the Spanish for “Where can I buy a card for buses?”, practiced saying it properly a few times, and then deployed my killer Spanish skills on the locals. 

Dawn over the delightful shabbiness of Casco Viejo

Unfortunately, as is always my problem, I could ask the question but struggled to understand the reply. I was pointed generally in the same direction by each helpful person, but when trying to follow their instructions I ended up in an auto repair shop in the middle of a busy road intersection with not a bus in sight. Finally, a taxi driver I spoke to offered to drive me directly to the bus station for $2. Since I had just walked for several hours in a pair of sandals made of string this proved to be too good to resist. Minutes later I finally held my orange MetroBus card (after researching the words for “I would like to buy a new card”, and then failing to understand the follow up question which may have had something to do with how much money I wanted to put on it).

As it turned out, it was the most pointless of quests. The next day I decided to go and visit the Miraflores Lock of the Panama Canal. I tried to beep through to the bus with my lovely orange card, only to be told I actually needed a different kind of card, and only got on the bus because of the kindness of a German woman, who beeped me through with her card in return for half a Balboa.

So, Panama City. Not that bad, but a bit like the Crystal Maze. With that Tudor-Pole bloke and not Richard O'Brien, of course.