HALF THE COUNTRIES

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Trip Start Jan 10, 2008 Previous
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Entry

  Cartagena, Colombia
Tuesday, March 4, 2008

February 22 - 25

Leaving the northwestern peninsula, we headed for the central highlands and Lake Arenal, created by damming the river that fed a smaller body of water. The lake provides electricity and water for surrounding communities and has created a body of water surrounded by mountains that is strangely reminiscent of Switzerland and Lake Constance. There are even towns and buildings that look Swiss. We had lunch at a Swiss restaurant serving bratwurst and found a chalet-style hotel with a miniature railroad up into the mountains. We climbed aboard, the hotel owner/manager put on his engineer's hat and up we went 2 miles through forests and under tunnels to a peak with a commanding view of the entire lake - some ??? acres of water - in a restaurant/bar that revolved, all built by the same Swiss owner, and all included in the price of the hotel room.

The next morning, we headed for the active volcano on the southeast side of the lake, taking the dirt road that led to the national park. At the entrance, we met a young volunteer from Grayslake IL, who advised us to remove our windshield wipers while we hiked to the volcano. The birds love them, and drivers come back from hiking to find them gone. We couldn't get ours off, so we covered them up with my ubiquitous National Geographic blanket that's gone everywhere with us and took off for the volcano. It was a relatively easy hike to the observation point. Since this volcano is still active and much higher, hikers aren't allowed to get close, but just watching the steam rise and the clouds form was impressive.

Again

The most volcanic activity is at night and on the south side, so the pricier hotels are located there. We're told it gets a little hot in some of the rooms at night. From the observation point, we climbed down to hike into the rain forest that skirts the south side and were surprised at how few people followed that trail. Returning to the parking, we explored the north side of the lake further and drove into an entire development up in the hills that included its own rain forest with hanging bridges through the jungle canopy. The path climbed hills, lead us over mountain streams through the jungle until we reached the top bridge with stunning views of the lake and volcanoes. Then back down again to the jungle floor, out to the Jeep and on our way to Quesada, perched in the mountains, a central Costa Rican town on a Saturday night. The local excitement was walking in the central park and playing the slot machines in our travelers' hotel. It didn't look like much, but we had a nice room with a large balcony overlooking the small houses climbing up the hill on the other side, topped with the local cemetery. When the sun went down and the lights on the hillside twinkled in the distance, we were quite content.

We had breakfast on Sunday morning at Charley's Burgers in the main square - it was the only place open in town - and set off through the central mountains to find the PanAm Highway again. Fog and mist had crept in through the night, so we found ourselves driving sometimes above it, sometimes in it, sometimes under its cover as we wound our way.

Again

Back on the PanAm, the road twisted and turned its way up to 2200 feet or so, leaving us driving in fog and mist again. We finally broke out of it near Pelnor Norte and found our hotel goal for the night. Bruska Lodge had sweet little log cabins around two swimming pools, complete with Jacuzzi, and an open-air restaurant with excellent food. We saw a group of two families speaking French - with French Canadian accents and a local guide - who seemed to be headed for the coast the explore wetlands. In spite of the heat, they were completely covered from head to feet with long-sleeved shirts, long trousers and long socks tucked into hiking boots, which we surmised were protection against the mosquitoes and the risk of both malaria and yellow fever. We stayed away from the wetlands, used our Deet and left the next morning for the Panamanian border. It was our easiest crossing to date, not the hoards of runners who clamor to lead travelers through the maze of offices, stamped documents and payments. We had one polite helper and made it through with ease.

On the Panamanian side, we had the requisite, cursory fumigation of the car and the first outright demand for a bribe from a customs official. He told us he could inspect all the emergency equipment on the top of the car or we could pay him something. We settled on five dollars and headed off on the best highway of our Central American adventure, made even better when it turned into a four-lane divided highway that took us within striking distance of Panama City.

Our private Pool

Here we settled into a strangely deserted mid-range hotel that has since filled up and drove back to the nearest town for Chinese food. This small highway town of Anton had few possibilities.



February 26 - 29

Leaving early from Anton, we arrived in Panama City mid-morning by driving across the Canal Zone. From the stature of Balboa in the harbor, we easily found the hotel we had picked out of the Lonely Planet and checked in. Then we headed off for the center of this modern, high-rise city to find the shipper company recommended by our friends Claudio and Cecilia, who had gone this way before. We got a full briefing on the process, checked all the details of size, height and registration, identified the shipping container we needed and paid the freight. It all sounded fairly straightforward, but reality is always different from description. The next morning, we set off on the odyssey of customs offices and vehicular control. This is where we discovered the clerk who did the paper work on our entering Panama had missed a digit in our Vin number - a major catastrophe. We needed to have John's passport released from the jeep - it was suppose to cross the border with him, but we have to ship the jeep by boat and fly to Cartagena, Columbia. The Darien Gap - a sixty mile stretch of jungle between Panama and Columbia - does not have roads for tourist - only heavily armed drug runners. Thankfully, all the officials we dealt with took us under their wings and walked us from office to office or gave us a note to offices we had to drive to - to find the right people to stamp papers and fill our forms.

Swinging

This was especially helpful and we completed the process in record time - only four hours.

The next day was relatively quiet from an official point of view - only had to visit the shipping office to give them money and paper work. They assured us when we arrived in Colon the next day to put the jeep in the shipping container it would only take an hour or so. We had the name of a woman from the company who knew we were coming and she would help us through the process.

We set out Friday morning bright and early - we had been told it was a two hour drive across the isthmus and we wanted to be there by eight or nine. The forty mile drive took 2/12 hours - they have a little construction process under way - building the highway. We found the port by looking for the big derricks - one way is as good as another - and ended up doing a little off road driving in the end to get to where we needed to be - the port security guards enjoyed our efforts and actually helped us get it done - to the point of letting us into the secure area without the proper documentation. After the agent who was to help us stamped our documents and signed them, we went to the next station - customs - who promptly told us the doc's were wrong - the ones prepared by the shipping agent and not the ones from the police - thank God. A truck driver took pity on us and found an English and Spanish speaking Slovakian who was making the same drive for the last eights - Yerko - who helped us out and got the papers straight.

Pool lounge

We then proceeded to the area for loading the jeep into our 20 foot container. After a little waiting and some more paper work, we were told to drive the jeep into the container. When we arrived at the container, John and I looked at each other and said no way - we were too tall. This had been a big point of discussion with our shipping agent and we had the printed measurements of the container - which of course did not match the container we were attempting to stuff the jeep into. After much discussion, hand wringing, and phone calls - and another 5 hours - the jeep was loaded into a 40 foot high cube container by its little own self. The lady who originally helped us gave us a 20 foot high cubed container which did not exist. They paid for the 40 footer. All the while this was going on, the people we were dealing with were concerned and helpful. At the end of the day, the gentleman who sealed the container walked us to the bus station, located the bus, told us to pay only $2.50 per person, and sent us on our way. What nice people we have been blessed with.

The unfortunate part of this episode is we missed our tour of the canal. Yes we did see a lot of it driving across the isthmus - container ships in the jungle - but we only saw some of the locks - next time.

We have now driven through and visited seven Central American countries in approximately 2 months and 5400 miles. We will be heading to Cartagena, Columbia - the first of the seven South American countries which we will visit. We estimate by the time we return to Chicago, we will have driven close to 20,000 miles - give or take a few thousand either way.

More Pictures

Lake Arenal	Los Heros	The little train that could	Lake Arenal
A little dirt	Arenal	Arenal2	Jungle
Lake Arenal	Again	Volcano Arenal	2
3	4	5	6
7	Jungle girl	jungle boy	8
9	10	another	Jungle
Waterfall	again	swinging	11
Jungle bridge	last but not least - awesome	packing	not trusting
NT 2	NT 3	NT 4	Panama City
again	Panama sunset	Old City of Cartagena

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