Rob and Anna's travel adventure

My View - Puerto Viejo (Costa Rica) to Corcovado (CR), via Panama [Rob´s entry (#7)]

Standard disclaimer: Anna does an excellent job covering the positive aspects of our trip, and I try to fill the 'other side'.

A NOTE ON THE POSTED PHOTOS- To my surprise, the photos Anna has been recently selecting didn´t seem to be anywhere near the best. She tells me that she plans to submit some of the better ones for publication, and doesn´t want to post them (for now at least). So unfortunately, her posted photos will be OK, but far from the ones I liked best.

Also, sorry for the long lapse in travel reporting....


PUERTO VIEJO (Costa Rica)
In an effort not to delay this posting more, I´ll complete this section with my next submission.


PANAMA CITY (Panama)
I think it is appropriate to add to Anna´s synopsis of the city. The modern cosmopolitan region referred to seemed to be the financial district where we were staying, and presumably the modern skyscrapers also fall into this category. There were many other areas that were typical Central America, and others that were huge slums. Some of these slums were a bit of a shock to me, they looked pretty bombed out. Panama City (PC) was great for really cheap food, cheap telephone calling, and a variety of services. Our trip to Isla Tobaga was a bit of a ream-out however, our returned was hastened by boat scheduling and our hiking and other activities were cut short.
There was one minor slightly interesting experience in PC. Many of the city buses are very elaborately decorated with all sorts of murals painted on all sides, chrome accessories, musical/novelty horns, "dual" exhaust pipe extensions, neon/argon/krypton/etc. lighting, BIG sound systems, strobes, shark fins, spoilers, etc., etc. You get the idea. Also keep in mind that these were originally old US school buses (remember the dull, yellow/orange beasts?). The drivers of these privately owned buses seem to take great pride in them, and also seem to like to ´race´ them on occasion (either that or they are hustling ahead of the other buses to collect paying passengers). Such was the experience one evening returning back to our hostel. It was an unusual experience, dark interior (except for the neon and strobe lighting), music blaring, horn blasting, as we sped past, weaving around/behind other big buses, passenger vehicles, pedestrians, etc. It was quite fun, and a nice way to end the day (for $0.25 each). There was also the occasional drag race when a straight open stretch of road was available. In short, absolutely nothing like a Seattle Metro bus ride.

DRIVING
This brings me to a comment on the drivers observed here in CA. As far a obeying normal traffic laws such as staying in your own lane (when lanes are even marked), stopping for stop signs, remaining stopped during a red light, turning from ANY lane, speeding, weaving, passing on hills, curves, and yes, even oncoming traffic (they are experts at making three lanes out of two), the drivers are absolutely horrible. ON THE OTHER HAND, the fact that they do all this with seemingly minimal mishaps leads me to the conclusion that they are very good drivers. In other words, as far as laws and good judgment is concerned, they are horrible drivers. As for skill, they seem to be talented experts. Whatever works for them, just think twice about driving here yourself!! They seem to have a method to the madness beyond my comprehension.

EL VALLEY (Pan)
Or next stop was El Valley. All I´ll say beyond Anna´s entry is that we did some serious hiking up to the top of the volcano rim, and we met the friendliness people of the trip. Many people greeted us (first), and no one tried to hustle us. A very welcome departure to much of the trip.
One additional note on Panama- I think I can confidently state that I do not like salsa music (and especially not LOUD salsa music), based on the many hours of captive listening on Panama buses.

PERCEPTIONS OF RURAL CENTRAL AMERICAN ATTITUDES
Anna covered the rest of the Panama activities (hot springs, etc.), then it was back to Costa Rica. Again, covering some of the negative aspects of the trip, we found ourselves in a couple of smaller towns near the (spectacular) Park Corcovado. Speaking with another traveler and describing some of our less pleasant moments with the locals, he used the term ´coolness´. That was exactly the term I´ve been looking for on this trip. Without question, we have definitely met some honest/sincere, friendly, helpful locals on this trip, but overall, many of the interactions are what I´d describe as ´cool´. They answer a question, but it often isn´t too helpful (of course our limited Spanish may have something to do with that conclusion). They exchange a greeting, but it seems to lack pleasure, etc. It is difficult to explain exactly, other than ´cool´.
Anna and I have tried to make some sense of this situation, note trends, etc. We have come to the conclusion that most of the problems/clashes tends to be in more rural areas and involve older women. We had a couple of such incidents in the two villages near the park. Both involved a reluctance to give us any water with our meals, though water freely flowed to others. Possibly giving the benefit of the doubt, I speculated that they may have the assumption that foreigners won´t drink the local water, and therefore wouldn´t provide any. We were assured by the French lady we stayed with that the water was OK, and that the restaurant lady would be happy to give us cold water if we ate dinner there. However, Anna had to ask (fight) repeatedly and forcefully to get water from her. Another place to eat served everyone water but us, but at this point, we were tired of the hassle and let it go. All very strange, and as mentioned in an earlier entry, tends to wear us down and has a demoralizing effect. So interesting, we found parts of rural Costa Rica to have some of the same unpleasant issues as other parts of CA.

posted by Rob and Anna @ 5:41 PM