Wet lands: manatees near Costa Rica border

Trip Start Jul 27, 2008
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Trip End Mar 05, 2009


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Where I stayed
Saramis
(Changuinola hotels)

Flag of Panama  , Bocas del Toro,
Sunday, August 31, 2008

Left Bocas for  the mainland. This place is about 45 mins by fast boat and up the estuary of a river. It is the banana growing region and that was plain to see as we went up river. The other passenges were on their way to Costa Rica which is only about 10 kms from this place.Its nice to be in an air con room. I have three beds to choose and no one to share! At 17 pounds it not bad.

This is a one stree town and there are no other tourists as far as I can see. The reason for coming here was to visit some of the very nice wet lands that are here and to see sea turtles if I am lucky. I took a boat from the local gov. run organisation and was taken in a motorised canoe by one of the foresters. He pointed out a lot of things including birds but unforunately my grasp of Spanish is still very poor. On both sides was dense jungle and I saw a sloth in one of the trees. We stopped for lunch in a small clearing and I was given fish  rice and beans with coffee for no cost. I did not know it was included in the price. Another surprise was that a 50 or so yards behind this place was the ocean where turtles come to nest. Only saw one of the hatchlings. It was a calm day so I did not hear the sea. Not a soul to be seen in either direction.

Obviously the river runs parallel to the sea and we went to a hide further along where the guide dangled some bunches of bananas and leaves into the water. After quite a long while some manatees came to feed. He said that I was very lucky to see three of them together. We continued on round the various inlets seeing lots of birds until it was time to head back Well worth the trip. Its possibe to stay in the forest lodge which is fairly basic but I would imagine the mosquitos would be quite bad.

It is sad that several turtles die by swallowing plastic bags thinking they are jelly fish but i donīt see any real drive to get the people here to less of them.

I also went to another town nearby as I had some time on my hands but it was a complete dead loss with nothing whatsoever going on.It took about 1/2 hour by bus each way and the only good thing about the journey was that the road climbed through hills which clearly showed how much forest there is in this part of the country. People just hailed the bus as and when needed, and the fare was about 75p each way although they would pay far less.   

Couple days here is enough and its time to move on.  
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