Farewell then Costa Rica. Next on our now very random schedule, was Panama ... again. As per usual when crossing borders, we had to get up painfully early, catch a bus to some town in the middle of nowhere, change bus, fart around at the border for an hour or so, then change bus again before getting to our destination. It took all day, but at least we made in to Davíd, Panama before nightfall. We had had a fairly late night the night before, so were in pretty bad spirits by the time we got there. Fortunately Davíd boasts a large branch of the best supermarket we've encountered whilst travelling - the 24 hour Romero - last seen in Boquete. Cue tuna sandwiches made with freshly baked baguettes, Lurpack butter and Hellman's mayonnaise ...
We had returned to Panama for 2 reasons. Firstly we were flying out of Panama City to Venezuela, so it kind of helped being in the correct country for that. Secondly, when we were here last we failed to see one of Panama's highlights - the Golfo De Chiquiri - so we thought we'd remedy that and get there asap. As we had limited time before our flight, we grabbed a taxi very early (again!) and then a boat to Bocas Brava, a small jungle island in the Golfo consisting of a hostel/bar/restaurant, and ... quite literally ... nothing else but trees.
It was really nice but, to be brutally honest, pretty isolated. We were still with Elise and Greg, so on the first day we had fun just sitting around doing nothing. I say "nothing" but we did manage a 4 hour team nap in the afternoon. On the second day we decided that we had to leave the bar area, so we did what we always do when looking a bit of fun - we booked another fishing trip. This one was far less successful than the one in Belize however, but at least the setting was great. The Golfo De Chiquiri is a group of spectacular jungle islands off the south westerly coast of Panama. As we were transported in our boat to the "fertile" fishing areas, we passed a number of great looking islands rising out of the sea.
When we got to the area for fishing however, we were handed trawling rods. As mentioned in an earlier post, trawling = boring. The fish you catch whilst trawling are usually much larger than with fly fishing, but on average you get one per hour, which amounts to a lot of meandering around in a boat, holding a rod and praying for a bite. This time Elise was the the lucky one out of all of us - or as she would put it - "by far the most skillful". She managed to catch two very evil looking needle fish on our two hours out on the water (yes that's right - one fish per hour). Unfortunately needle fish aren't good to eat, so our guide simply unhooked them and threw them back. At the end of two hours we had nothing in the boat.
As we were reaching the stage of fishing I like to call "numb bum time", and thus considering cutting our losses and heading home, the guide suddenly pointed to the horizon and said something in spanish that no one understood. He then translated for us - "Whales". "Stuff this fishing lark," we said, "take us over to those whales!" He agreed, and soon we hurtling at high speed towards what turned out to be a pod of at least four humpback whales! It was very exciting. We saw them "blow" from a distance, then got closer and closer until we were pretty much right on top of them. They kept coming up for air, at one point emerging just 50 yards from our boat. They were very difficult to photograph - you never knew where they were going to turn up; just popping up out of the water for half a second or so before disappearing again. That said, Liz managed to get a great shot which now graces the top of this post.
We pretty much gave up on fishing and spent the rest of our time watching the whales. On the way back however, I decided to chance my arm at a bit of trawling anyway. Even though we were not in good fishing waters, it couldn't hurt - right? I wasn't expecting much luck, but then, to my surprise I got a bite! I exclaimed with joy, and started to reel the sucker in. It felt like a big one - it was definitely putting up a fight, and I told everyone so. After what seemed like ages, and after a whole lot of effort, I finally wrenched the thing out of the water. It was a medium sized tree branch. Apparently it felt like it was fighting because of stong sea currents in the area. There followed many jokes at my expense ...
In disgust I threw the thing back into the sea and we set off again. Fortunately for me, Liz then caught exaclty the same branch around two minutes later ... which made me feel a whole lot better.
That night was supposed to be the last night on Team Quad (ie. the four of us) in Central Amercia. However, after much cajoling (and a few glasses of sangria) Elise and Greg decided to accompany us to Panama City to send us off in style. And what style it was too. We visited the local sushi bar twice, went clothes shopping twice, ate at a great middle eastern restaurant twice, celebrated Elise's birthday once (because we failed to celebrate it in Costa Rica two weeks previously) - with a cake, candles, presents and everything - and hit the casino once. We only did the casino once because despite Liz and me coming out of a casino in credit for the first time in our lives, Greg and Elise didn't have so much luck. It wasn't pretty, and they vowed not to return to a casino for a long long time ... (we actually received an email that they went back the night after we flew to Venezuela, so a long long time ended up being around 48 hours).
After all that however, it was time to go. The parting was emotional since we'd been with travelling with these guys for a while now, and they were absolutely brilliant. We could not have wished for a better two poeple to travel with. We are hoping to meet up with them again towards the end of travels in Chile - or failing that in New Zealand ... what do you say guys?
In any case we said goodbye, and then left to spend the night in Panama City airport. Our flight was at 5 the next morning so we thought we'd save on a night's accomodation and sleep in the departure lounge. Yes - it has got that bad! We were excited however to return to South America - and to go to Venezuela; a country we hadn't yet been to ... which surprisingly hasn't happened for ages ...
PS. The observant among you may have noticed that in the picture above I seem to have some sort of hair growth on my face. This is in preparation for the "handlebar moustache" I pledged to grow as required by the vote held on this site a couple of months back. The moustache has indeed been grown, pictures have been taken ... and yes ... it looks terrible. More to come on the next post (including mug shots).
We had returned to Panama for 2 reasons. Firstly we were flying out of Panama City to Venezuela, so it kind of helped being in the correct country for that. Secondly, when we were here last we failed to see one of Panama's highlights - the Golfo De Chiquiri - so we thought we'd remedy that and get there asap. As we had limited time before our flight, we grabbed a taxi very early (again!) and then a boat to Bocas Brava, a small jungle island in the Golfo consisting of a hostel/bar/restaurant, and ... quite literally ... nothing else but trees.
It was really nice but, to be brutally honest, pretty isolated. We were still with Elise and Greg, so on the first day we had fun just sitting around doing nothing. I say "nothing" but we did manage a 4 hour team nap in the afternoon. On the second day we decided that we had to leave the bar area, so we did what we always do when looking a bit of fun - we booked another fishing trip. This one was far less successful than the one in Belize however, but at least the setting was great. The Golfo De Chiquiri is a group of spectacular jungle islands off the south westerly coast of Panama. As we were transported in our boat to the "fertile" fishing areas, we passed a number of great looking islands rising out of the sea.
When we got to the area for fishing however, we were handed trawling rods. As mentioned in an earlier post, trawling = boring. The fish you catch whilst trawling are usually much larger than with fly fishing, but on average you get one per hour, which amounts to a lot of meandering around in a boat, holding a rod and praying for a bite. This time Elise was the the lucky one out of all of us - or as she would put it - "by far the most skillful". She managed to catch two very evil looking needle fish on our two hours out on the water (yes that's right - one fish per hour). Unfortunately needle fish aren't good to eat, so our guide simply unhooked them and threw them back. At the end of two hours we had nothing in the boat.
As we were reaching the stage of fishing I like to call "numb bum time", and thus considering cutting our losses and heading home, the guide suddenly pointed to the horizon and said something in spanish that no one understood. He then translated for us - "Whales". "Stuff this fishing lark," we said, "take us over to those whales!" He agreed, and soon we hurtling at high speed towards what turned out to be a pod of at least four humpback whales! It was very exciting. We saw them "blow" from a distance, then got closer and closer until we were pretty much right on top of them. They kept coming up for air, at one point emerging just 50 yards from our boat. They were very difficult to photograph - you never knew where they were going to turn up; just popping up out of the water for half a second or so before disappearing again. That said, Liz managed to get a great shot which now graces the top of this post.
We pretty much gave up on fishing and spent the rest of our time watching the whales. On the way back however, I decided to chance my arm at a bit of trawling anyway. Even though we were not in good fishing waters, it couldn't hurt - right? I wasn't expecting much luck, but then, to my surprise I got a bite! I exclaimed with joy, and started to reel the sucker in. It felt like a big one - it was definitely putting up a fight, and I told everyone so. After what seemed like ages, and after a whole lot of effort, I finally wrenched the thing out of the water. It was a medium sized tree branch. Apparently it felt like it was fighting because of stong sea currents in the area. There followed many jokes at my expense ...
In disgust I threw the thing back into the sea and we set off again. Fortunately for me, Liz then caught exaclty the same branch around two minutes later ... which made me feel a whole lot better.
That night was supposed to be the last night on Team Quad (ie. the four of us) in Central Amercia. However, after much cajoling (and a few glasses of sangria) Elise and Greg decided to accompany us to Panama City to send us off in style. And what style it was too. We visited the local sushi bar twice, went clothes shopping twice, ate at a great middle eastern restaurant twice, celebrated Elise's birthday once (because we failed to celebrate it in Costa Rica two weeks previously) - with a cake, candles, presents and everything - and hit the casino once. We only did the casino once because despite Liz and me coming out of a casino in credit for the first time in our lives, Greg and Elise didn't have so much luck. It wasn't pretty, and they vowed not to return to a casino for a long long time ... (we actually received an email that they went back the night after we flew to Venezuela, so a long long time ended up being around 48 hours).
After all that however, it was time to go. The parting was emotional since we'd been with travelling with these guys for a while now, and they were absolutely brilliant. We could not have wished for a better two poeple to travel with. We are hoping to meet up with them again towards the end of travels in Chile - or failing that in New Zealand ... what do you say guys?
In any case we said goodbye, and then left to spend the night in Panama City airport. Our flight was at 5 the next morning so we thought we'd save on a night's accomodation and sleep in the departure lounge. Yes - it has got that bad! We were excited however to return to South America - and to go to Venezuela; a country we hadn't yet been to ... which surprisingly hasn't happened for ages ...
PS. The observant among you may have noticed that in the picture above I seem to have some sort of hair growth on my face. This is in preparation for the "handlebar moustache" I pledged to grow as required by the vote held on this site a couple of months back. The moustache has indeed been grown, pictures have been taken ... and yes ... it looks terrible. More to come on the next post (including mug shots).
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1 comment:
I can't wait to see the handlebars!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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