Nov 2006

Have no time but i made it to Nicaragua and it is like being in a different world.......

Pigs grazing everywhere, horses, everyone selling something, hot hot hot, and lovely warmth in the eyes ad smiles of the people.

Red black flags flying everywhere.

My head is in spin spin.............

I was sitting in a cafe today. Feeling happy because they had soya milk and i was drinking my first cup of tea in 2 months. The table started to shake and I wondered why someone was shaking the table so hard, and then it built up and felt like there was a train hurtling through the ground right under my feet. I didn't know what was going on. It was very strange. Then some people (North Americans) started wooping and cheering saying it was an earthquake. Not sure why they were so happy. I suppose they didn't think a really big earthquake would happen when they'd paid to come on holiday. Or maybe it was just because they are used to tremors. And it was quite exhilirating. But i was shaking at the same time! and sort of waiting for the ground to start splitting open........It was the strangest thing. Like the earth growling, reminding us all that there's bigger things at work here.
So it's been a good few hours and there hasn't been anymore. Apparently it's perfectly normal at this time of year, because the rainy season is ending and the summer is here.
I think it will be on my mind, for a while though.........

Corcovado, the tropical paradise was my best experience yet in Costa Rica. You have to go on this really exciting boat ride to get there in a speed boat. You go past crocodiles on the river and then you go on to the sea and you get thrown all over the place and it was raining really heavy the day I went. Then you land on the beach and you have to wade through the sea to get there. So the place I stayed was a little bay with no roads, no shops, no electricity at night, just rain forest and these beautiful little secret beaches. The place I stayed was gorgeous, run by a Costa Rican family and really friendly. I slept in a beautiful cabin on stilts and you could hear the waves all around. At night there was lots of fireflies outside the window. There was coconuts and almonds growing on the beach, and all these beautiful scarlet macaws flying around. Seeing the scarlet macaws in the wild felt so so special. The colours are so vibrant, and they have these huge long, ornate tails. Such a difference to the macaws you see in cages, where they look all sad and their colours have faded. In the wild they are colour that I just can't describe with words, and the red and blue and yellow is even brighter against the green of the trees and the speed of the flight. I wonder how long they can last for. They just look too beautiful for this world. Corcovado has one the biggest populations left in the world. They're still there because it's still hardly inhabited by humans. It is a completely untouched natural landscape, just changed by time and the rain and the waves rather than by humans and their destructiveness. The beach has huge big ornate shells, like treasure. I have a few in my bag. I was so tempted to swop some of my clothes for some more shells! But just can't carry a heavier bag. So at night the electricity would go off, and it would make that sound that electricity makes when it cuts out, like that whirring down sound. Then the place would just pulse and vibrate with insect sounds and all these electronic beeps and buzzes, sometimes made by frogs or other animals that I have no idea what they could possibly be. Using flashlights and candles just gave such a deeper understanding and feel for the place. The darkness felt so soothing and tranquil and so much a part of the place. And so alive with animal life. I wanted to stay there forever. When I had to get on the boat to leave I felt like my heart would break, because I wanted to just stay in that world. Other places in Costa Rica feel natural, but that place was truly wild. Well there's lots more good experiences to be had. Yesterday I swam in a waterfall, and that was so exhilirating and was the full force of nature all around me again. I kept looking at it feeling like it must be made of plastic or some other manmade material. My brain is so detached from something so spectacular. The leaves and twigs I kept finding on my legs though, made it clear that it was really natural and not something created by Disney.
I'm feeling quite exhilirated. On my way up the Pacific coast on my way to Nicaragua........

Buses in Panama are lots of fun. All the luggage goes on the roof, so 3 men work the buses, one to drive, one to go on the roof and tie up the bags and one to stand at the door shouting the destination to everyone. They blast out the music all the way, so it depends who you get to what type of music you get. The first journey was 4 hours so we got the reggaeton all the way. Seems it is big in Panama too. Then when people get on the bus they greet everyone with a buenas dias. It is so brilliant. It was a big fiesta in Panama. A three day bank holiday for the independence from Colombia and the Day of the Dead. So exciting to be in Latin America for Day of the Dead. I wish we had it in England. I think it is a wonderful concept. I followed a marching band around on the night, lots of people held candles. All the way round I thought of my dad and grandad. Then I had a rum and coke and thought of them some more. That{s what it{s all about.

Back in Costa Rica. Im waiting to get a boat to go to a bay where there is no electricity, a huge poplualtion of scarlet macaws and lots of tropical rain forest. Sounds exciting.

I decided to come to Panama. Not somewhere I´ve thought too much about, I´m a little bit ashamed to say. I was so close though it seemed a shame not to have a look. So I´ve come to these islands, called Bocas del Toro. I came by speedboat! It was exciting crossing the border. Not too much officialdom, we all had to wait in the sweltering heat while the lady had her lunch break. She is famous for her lunch break apparently. The Costa Rican side have a lunch break too, and there is a time difference of one hour, so for 2 hours the border closes for lunch. Much more relaxed way of going about things than all that nonsense at Heathrow and LA when I left. A man with one leg accompanied me and some spanish girls across the bridge, making sure we got our taxi to the docks and to the boat. Didn´t really need his help but he was really friendly and welcoming. Lots of children stared at us when we came across the bridge. I met a canny english couple too and had a drink with them while we waited for the lunch break to end. They live on a boat in Panama.

The journey took about 5 hours. Nearly all the way here, there were only banana plantations, owned by Chiquita. It seems Chiquita own practically all of the southern tip of Costa Rica and the north of Panama. I feel so far from home here, it really makes me realise exactly how far that banana travels to get to South Gosforth Fruiters. Life looks hard for the people who live in those endless strips of banana plants.

Panama is bright. Lots of lovely, bright sunlight. The roads are really wide and made of tarmac. Didn´t realise, but what a nice break from tarmac I´ve had. Most of the roads in Costa Rica, except in San Jose, are just dirt or gravel . So these big, wide roads look strangely alien.

So I´m coming to Panama with a completely open mind. Don´t really know anything about it, or the people. So let´s see what it holds...........