This weekend I went back to the Volcano Rincon de la Vieja. This time I went with some friends who were designing the web site for a lodge near the volcano. In return for this they got a horseback tour of the outskirts of the volcano and a canopy tour was included. I was invited to come as well.

The horseback ride was interesting and we climbed up the slope of the volcano. Parts of the trip was up a steep road with a great view across Guanacaste and other part involved a muddy trail through the forest. We stopped when we reached the start of the canopy tour. It was a smaller canopy tour than the others, but it was plenty fast. I think they need a better braking system at the end of each zipline because some people ended up smacking into the tree at the end, but other than that it was fun.

We got back on the horses and continued down the trail until we reached a smaller path. Here we had to get off the horses and the steep path led to a pretty waterfall. We returned to the lodge which had a bunch of orange lemon trees that had nice and sour fruit.

Family Trip II: Panama

My family and I left San Jose on New Year's Eve. The bus left early in the morning to avoid arriving at the border at night because it was to be closed for New Year's. This schedule change meant that the bus was almost empty. There was only about 5-10 other people on the bus. The 7-8 hour trip through the mountains and southern Costa Rica during the day was very beautiful. At the border it was very hectic and I was forced to run around translating for different members of my family as we rounded up all the stamps, tickets and forms that we needed to cross the border. The last 7 hours to Panama City was very tiring but we made it to the city at around 10 pm. It was late, but we managed to find a rather scummy but cheap hotel. There were fireworks going off all over the city, especially over the water. Panama is in the same time zone as Toronto and New York so the dropping of the Times Square ball also signified the new year in Panama.

The next day we took a bus to the Miraflores Lock on the Panama Canal and saw some huge ships going through the locks. On the way back we stopped at the airport and arranged a flight for the next day to the nearby Pearl Islands in the Pacific Ocean. The flight was in a small propeller plane that held about 15-20 passengers. The plane flew directly over the city giving a great view of the skyline. The flight was a relatively short 20 minutes and the landing was fun with the wind adding a lot of turbulence. The island we landed on was quite small with the runway going from one end to the other. There lots of little beaches around the island and the water was a brilliant blue. These islands were popular with the TV show Survivor because they have already filmed here three times. The most popular form of transportation on the island was golf carts and one side of the island was dominated by a resort hotel. We spent a day relaxing on the island but we had to get back to Panama City because my family was leaving the next day.

My family returned to Canada the following day, but in the morning we took a tour of the city. Panama City has three cities. The oldest section is called Old Panama, which is full of stone ruins from the 15th century. This settlement was established to help send Incan gold from the Peruvian coast across Panama to the Atlantic. Pirates came and burned the city and it was abandoned. The second city was established farther south and is still full of beautiful colonial style cathedrals and building. The Presidential Palace and City Hall are still in this section and it is still and important part of the city. The third city is the New City. Due to the Canal, Panama is a very cosmopolitan city and there is lots of money. This has resulted in many skyscrapers and condominium along the ocean front and the city looks far more modern than the larger San Jose in Costa Rica.

My family left on Thursday afternoon but I didn't have to be back for work until Monday so I decided to spend a couple more days in Panama. I returned to the hotel where my family stayed the night before and got one more night, however I wanted to find a cheaper hotel for the next night and I wanted to see more of the city so I walked through the city to the colonial section where I found a really cheap hostel in a beautiful yellow colonial building. I also wandered through the market section of Panama where I picked up some extra clothes because mine were in a serious need of washing. I ate at a neat Cafe that had been around for more than a hundred years and was full of local Panamanians discussing the news.

The next day I took a taxi to the end of the Panama Canal causeway where there was a boat to Taboga Island. The boat kept filling up and when I finally got to the start of the line they suddenly stopped me and said 'no more'. Luckily they had another smaller boat and I just had to wait about 15 minutes for them to bring it over. The boat ride was interesting because the boat made its way out into the ocean between all the huge cargo ships waiting to use the Panama Canal. There was also a really good view of the city skyline. The island itself had a pretty little town and lots of nice beaches. The second oldest church in the Americas was located in the town, which had only sidewalks for streets. The entire interior of the island was preserved as a natural refuge and there was a nice trail through the jungle that led to a lookout post on top of an old US army bunker. The jungle was full of butterflies. There was many types of the brilliant blue morpho butterflies as well as butterflies of many other colors. I also saw some little green and black poison dart frogs. I ran out of water on the way down and when I got back to town I went directly to the nearest restaurant and drank a large pitcher of water. After lunch I went to the beach and found a nice shady spot to relax. Luckily I found a spot quite far from the water because when I woke up the tide had risen right up to where I was sleeping with all my stuff. I caught the boat back to Panama City and returned to my cheap hostel. The hostel was a lot uglier inside than outside, but I didn't mind because it was only $6.

The next day I walked around the colonial section of the city and enjoyed the sites. I went into the Panama Canal Museum which was full of extremely interesting information about the history of Panama City and the canal. The exhibits were all in Spanish, however I was able to more or less understand most it and enjoyed looking at the historical artifacts from the Canal's history. In the afternoon I took a bus to Colon on the Atlantic side where I took another bus to the Gatun locks on the Panama Canal. These locks had far less tourists than the other because it was so far from the City. It also had a lot more boats passing through and the viewing platform was very close to the boats, giving a good unobstructed view of the boats. It was also possible to cross the Panama Canal at these locks. It was very impressive walking over the tiny drawbridge and seeing the huge lock doors looming above you. On the other side of the Canal it was possible to walk along the Canal until it reached the dam that created Gatun Lake, which was the largest artificial lake in the world until the 30's. The lake was very peaceful and it was strange to see the large ships sailing through it. I returned to Panama City and got back in time to catch my bus which left for San Jose at 10pm.

The bus back to San Jose was completely full. In fact there were so many people travelling that they had to hire a second full bus to accomodate everyone. I sat beside an interesting girl from France. She was living in Costa Rica as well and worked as a tour guide for a French company. She spent all her time leading tour after tour and they visited some really nice places. A couple, such as Curu beach and Poas I had already been to, but others, such as Corcovado National Park, I haven't. We arrived at the border at about 6 am and it took about 3 hours to cross. I don't know why it took so long, but most of the time we just were waiting around for people to check the luggage. Back in San Jose I caught the bus back to Bagaces and by the time I got back I had been in a bus for almost 24 hours straight. But it was a good trip and I saw much more of Costa Rica and Panama in those 2 weeks.

Family Trip I: Costa Rica

The two weeks during my Christmas break my family came down to visit for the holiday season. They arrived on Christmas eve and we had a rental car for the first five days. It was nice to see my family but I was kept busy translating because none of them could speak any Spanish.

With the car we were able to visit places that I couldn't visit before. We went to the nearby Volcano Tenorio, which luckily we had a 4x4 for because the road was steep and windy and very poor. By the time we got there it was almost too late to enter the park and we had to rush to see a very impressive waterfall.

The next day we went to the beach at Playa Grande. We intended to watch the turtles come in to lay the eggs but there wasn't enough space for that night so we spent the day on the beach. The following day we headed to the nature reserve of Monteverde which is high up in the cloud forest and is one of the most popular places for tourists to visit. The drive up had spectacular views and bad roads. It was extremely cold (for Costa Rica) in Monteverde and we spent most of the time there in sweaters and jackets. We took a canopy tour which had many ziplines including one that was more than a half mile long. We went on two nightwalks which was a different perspective on the Costa Rican jungle. We had a guide who led us with a flashlight through the trails looking for different night animals. We saw lots of sleeping birds, and different types of insects and frogs. We also came across a bunch of tarantulas living in their nests waiting for insects to walk by. There were also some night animals. We saw a porcupine, a two-toed sloth, and an olingo, which looked like a brown lemur.

After leaving Monteverde we had to return the car to the capital of San Jose. On the way we stopped at the "Crocodile Bridge" where there were dozens of crocodiles lying about in the river including some giant ones. In San Jose we arranged a 15 hour bus ride to Panama City. We were originally intending to leave the next day but there were no seats available. Luckily, the other bus company had a special trip on New Year's Eve that was practically empty. This gave us time to check out the old building in downtown San Jose and take a trip to the nearby Volcano Irazu. I had been to this volcano before but it was very cloudy. This time the view was excellent and we got a great view of the craters and the slopes of the volcano. It wasn't quite clear enough to see the Pacific and Atlantic oceans but it was impressive nonetheless.

In the weeks before Christmas, Bagaces had plenty of events. The central park was decorated and there was a special ceremony where the Christmas tree was lit with a parade.

It is strange having such warm weather at Christmas time but it doesn't bother me very much. I went with a busload of local Bagaces residents to the beach. It was a specially hired bus that dropped us off at a nearby beach in Papagayo that is used only for that purpose(ie. no cars). Most of the tickets were supplied by local soccers teams so there were plenty of soccer games on the beach. Playing soccer in the sand is fun, but too much results in your feet being rubbed raw by sand.

The week before Christmas Bagaces had the main tope, or rodeo of the year. There was a bunch of events in the town and Bagaces filled up fast. There was bull riding every night and I went on Saturday to watch the excitement. The big day of bull riding was the Sunday and it was even on the local TV. Around the bull ring there were a couple of fair rides brought in and they constructed two temporary bars, including one with two stories. On Saturday there was the main event, the tope. Anybody who had a horse paraded through the streets of Bagaces and there was competitions determining the best horses. Me and some friends borrowed horses for the tope and I was glad that my horse didn't freak out and take off in all the excitement. I'm pretty sure I didn't win any prizes, partly because my horse didn't know how to dance and partly because I had a baseball cap rather than a sombrero but it was a fun experience.