Rio Sereno border crossing
Trip Start
Dec 03, 2007
1
19
29
Trip End
Mar 29, 2008
Boquete,
Panama
Monday, January 28, 2008
almost 30 days, which is the maximum length of time that Canadians can
stay here, we needed to leave the country for 72 hours and re-enter,
hoping that immigration would give us an extension of 1 or 2 months.
Neighbours of ours told us that we could simply go to a lawyer who
would charge us $300 a person to do this, and with the proper documents
it would be done in 45 minutes. We decided that if would be a lot less
expensive and fun, to do the border crossing and have a nice trip to
Costa Rica instead.
There are only 3 border crossings from Panama into Costa Rica. We entered Costa Rica one month ago via
the Panamerican Highway through Paso Canoas, a busy and chaotic border
crossing. We did not want to do this again. Near Bocas del Toro, there
is another crossing at Guabito-Sixaola which is supposed to be hassle
free but a bit of an adventure. It is too far away for us and we have
already been in the area so we took the 3rd option. Actually it was a
no-brainer. We went to Rio Sereno, a little and pleasant border
crossing on the other side of Volcan Baru - about a 4 hour bus ride
away.
Before crossing the border, we spent a night in a little town called Volcan, as we wanted to see some pre-Columbian ruins called Los Barriles, The Barrels. National Geographic magazine wrote a article
about this site in the February 1950 edition and since then several
groups have come to this privately owned property to do further
excavations..
Beautiful and huge plants everywhere
Incredibly intricate petroglyphs had been carved involcanic rocks. Large quantities of clay and stone objects were found
here. Lifesized statues were dug up showing what the people looked
like. One in particular had an obviously African looking person
carrying an Oriental (Japanese) person on his shoulders. One huge
boulder had been carved in the shape of Volcan Baru, showing a 'map'
of the various paths and towns on its slopes. The lady who took
us on the tour was the granddaughter of the original farmer who
discovered many of the objects on his coffee farm. Several of the big
pieces are displayed in the Anthropology Museum in Panama City, but the
site is full of wonderful objects, including the barrel shaped stone
cylinders, that that may have been the 'wheels' used to transport
large stones to the site.
Crossing the border was easy. There was no one there except for us! The border guard enjoyed our
attempts to speak Spanish and told us to return to Panama in 2
days time, as he was working then, and in the meantime he would ask his
boss if we could have an extension on our Visa.
A 1/2 hour bus on an extremely rough road in Costa Rica brought us to our
destination of San Vito, a little Italian community in the mountains.
While looking for our hotel, we met an interesting family of four from
Vermont, who had already spent 1 month in a steamy, coastal jungle in
the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica and were shortly heading to Chile with
all sorts of camping gear, including long underwear.
Corn grinder almost self propelled
We ended upspending the next day with them, exploring the Wilson Botanical
Gardens, a biologist's or a gardener's Eden. It was especially
interesting being with the two boys, ages 10 and 12, who had eagle eyes
and a great curiousity about the wonderful place that we were in, full
of tropical butterflies, flowers, birds and even some capuchin monkeys!
Throughout Costa Rica and Panama, we have seen a very large and interesting parasitic tree called a matapalo, or strangler fig. It begins as an epiphyte, whose seeds are deposited high in a
tree's canopy by bats, birds, or monkeys. The young strangler then
sends long roots down to the earth which take hold
and quickly become the trunk of a new tree which
strangles the host tree. Now, there is a huge tree with a space in
the middle for animals and birds to take shelter. We have included
photos of 2 phases of this tree for you to look at.
Another interesting tree is the walking palm. By sending down new stalks which take root, the walking palm tree can shift position over time to find a new spot with more light. They can move up to18 inches a year. Neat!
In Wilson Gardens, research was being done on hummingbirds. The scientists from a
university in the U.S. were catching the birds with nets, putting
little homing devices on them and monitoring their movements using
a computer. It seemed to be an interesting project.
After 48 hours in Costa Rica, we crossed the borders again. We were recognized
by the same immigration officer who was happy to see us and informed us
that we could now get a 90 day visa into Panama. The rules had just
changed. After a nice conversation, as there weren´t any other people
around, the officer stamped our passports, we gave him some Kleenex and
a bottle of eye drops for his allergies, and then he offered to visit
us in Boquete with his wife and cook us a true Panamanian meal. We were
a little surprised by this but we exchanged phone numbers and went on
our way to the lovely little mountain village of Cerro Punto, Panama.
