And Now We're Birders

The cooler mountains of Boqute, Panama were exactly what we were hoping for. The sun was warm during the day, but nights were cool and you needed a sweatshirt. Oh, and there was an amazing bakery, Sugar & Spice, that had free coffee refills and some of the most amazing muffins I’ve tasted in a long time.

We took full advantage of the weather; ran in the mornings, tried to hike up volcano’s, found hot springs and played scrabble. Yes, Katie beat me, but don’t worry I returned the favor and was undefeated at Yahtzee. 

We met back up with our friends Sardinetaco, who also had a traveling companion, Dean’s cousin Cara. Suddenly there were enough of us for a party!

One afternoon we decided that we’d hike up to a waterfall outside of town and that was when it happened. About half way up the trail Sara stopped and pointed. To all of our amazement there in front of us was one of the most sought after birds in all of the birding world. The Resplendent Quetzal. Not only was there just one female, but five of them. At that moment we were all so excited and decided YES we were all birders! The waterfall became a distant second goal of the hike. Now that we’d seen the females we were all on high alert to scope out one of the males with one of their long blue tails.

We made our way up to the waterfall, which only held us for a while. After all, we were birders now. As we made our way down the trail we were moving a bit slower and still attentive to our surroundings, looking for the male Quetzal.
As the hike was winding to an end, we thought we were lucky to see just the females and that would have to be that. However, Sara, again with her spotting luck, stopped us all on the trail to point out another Quetzal and to our surprise it was the male with the long blue tail that we’d been hoping for. We stood in silence as it sat up there and stared back at us. YES, again we were all really excited about being birders!

After the hike we scoped out a spot to set up camp. After a little debating, the fairgrounds parking lot would be our abode for the night. In the brisk evening we enjoyed a campfire and Katie’s famous curry. At some point we were all discussing our paperwork and shipping the cars, and we all had paperwork out to compare numbers, etc. It was then we made the startling discovery that George’s passport number was wrong on the van importation paperwork… Bummer, this meant that we were headed back to the border the next day to get it corrected. Good thing the roads were in good condition and it would be a relatively easy drive…

The Longest Left

We pulled into Pavones from San Ramon late in the afternoon and successfully avoided Semana Santa traffic as we had planned. The funny thing about Pavones is it was one of the few places in Central America we knew we would go on this trip. George had spent three weeks there years ago when he and his good friend Willy had decided to learn how to surf. It’s always a little odd visiting a place that you’ve memorialized in your head. Everything changes with time and Pavones, known as having one of the world’s longest lefts, was no different. Not bad, not good – just different. We knew we’d be here for a while, our good friend Katie was flying into nearby Golfito a week from our arrival date, so we scoped out the best deal/accommodations we could find during the high season of Semana Santa. After we parked it was time for surfing to commence!

Arriving back to Pavones was a mixed bag of emotions for me; the first time I (George) was there the goal was to learn to surf and for a 23-year-old (see- arrogant, cocky) man from Colorado this would appear to be a simple challenge. However, the world has a wonderful way of humbling people when they truly need it and for the next three weeks after rubbing sunscreen on each other, Willy and I were usually happy to have not drowned after our “surf” session. Getting back in the water in Pavones after surfing on and off for eight years and having spent the previous four months surfing in Mexico, El Salvador, and northern Costa Rica I finally had the experience at Pavones I so desired back in 2005. During the sunset surf I easily caught more waves than I did in three weeks, but surfing in Pavones was one of the most technical and challenging places I’ve surfed on this trip. The current was extremely strong on either side of the rivermouth – you either got sucked out to the point or pushed down to the bay and the waves were consistently overhead.
The swell was big, and then it was huge. So huge that it drew folks from all over the world. I (Rachel) personally enjoyed sitting on the beach and watching the amazing surfers and the carnage. The waves were so loud, the crashing would wake me up at night. After the holiday the crowds thinned out a bit and made surfing a little more fun. So much so that I played in the water for a bit too.
I was so excited to discover the nearby Pavones Yoga Center! It was about a 20min walk up a really steep hill from where we were staying but it was a perfect way to get your morning work out in. Short run, steep hike and an hour and a half yoga class. It was one of the most beautiful studios I have ever seen. Open air, beautiful wood floors, arched doorways, views of the Pacific almost all the way to Golfito, a view of the jungle canopy and plenty of birds flying by to go with it. I loved making the trek up there every day. Indira was a fabulous teacher and I reveled in any minute I could get up there. During one class, while we were in warrior three (one of the most challenging balancing poses) a small earthquake tested our steadiness. Luckily we passed and so did the building.

These cute pups kept us company where we were staying.  Had we not been preparing to ship the van from Panama to Colombia in the next few weeks it’s very possible we would have had new furry friends.

Katie flew in early Thursday morning and we picked her up at the little airport in Golfito. After a beer overlooking the Pacific, it was time to head to Panama. The date we were planning on shipping from Panama to Colombia was keeping us motivated to press on and the heat had us searching for mountains. After a lengthy border crossing, double checking paperwork to make sure everything was perfect for shipping, and showing the inspector and guards how everything worked on the van (including popping the top) we were on our way to Boquete, Panama!

Switzerland of Central America

After a long day of travel, which you might remember from here, we arrived in Playa Grande, Costa Rica. Someone in El Salvador had aloofly told us that Costa Rica thought they were the Switzerland of Central America. Well we were excited to discover that this statement wasn’t without warrant and a welcomed change. The roads were good, the fences were straight, the beaches were clean, and you could drink the water! Yay for the Switzerland of Central America, we’ll take it!

It was so fun to meet up with our friend Cody, who was working in Playa Grande and meet his awesome world of friends there. Surfing different breaks, a surprise hatchling of baby turtles, trips to Samura and surrounding beaches and the best wave of George’s life, sums up almost 2 weeks of time here. The El Manglar hotel and the crew that runs the place made for an awesome time. Will, our friend that you may remember from here, was also in Costa Rica and as always it was super fun to see him and enjoy the party that inevitably ensues when he’s around.

Eventually the heat got to us and we were keen to head for higher ground. We made our way to Monteverde, to be welcomed by an earthquake when we pulled into the parking lot. We hiked through the Monteverde cloud forest and checked out flora and fauna, suspension bridges and waterfalls. Since we skipped out on our tourist activity in Leon, which you may remember here, we decided to set something up in Monteverde. Claiming to be the home of the first ever zipline, it seemed only appropriate to partake in this breathtakingly fun adventure. And because George couldn’t resist, we did the 40ft leap to Tarzan swing at the end. It was nice to be in the cool weather, enjoy a hot shower and slightly scare the shit out of ourselves.

From Monteverde we had a fantastic drive to Arenal. Albeit it took us all day it was my favorite drive of the trip. We encountered road closures, a super nice guy at a casada that hand drew us a map (which included instructions for 7 river crossings), windy steep roads, views of the Pacific and the Caribbean, stunning green mountains, and a distant view of the Arenal Volcano.

At Arenal, we searched for and found the free hot springs, which was actually a full-blown river of hot water. We found a set of rapids that offered a little massage and soaked for as long as we could take it.
When the grill of the van was melted, which you might remember from here, we asked on thesamba.com (an online forum that we use frequently for all of our van quires) if anyone knew a place south of the boarder that we might be able to find parts. From this post we had a Canadian couple reach out to us and invite us to stay at their home in San Ramon, Costa Rica. You can read their account of our stay here. We were grateful for their generosity, great food, washing machine and willingness to show us around their area. When we thanked them as we left, they told us they hoped someone would do the same for their kids.
George learned about a big swell coming through and Seman Santa and its crazy traffic was almost upon us so we decided that from San Ramon we were going to make the long haul to Pavones.