July 31, 2007

The tiny Sixaola/Guabito border crossing on the Caribbean coast is little more than a few shacks at either end of an old train bridge. Wooden planks, many of them loose, had been laid across the tracks to allow single file vehicle traffic to pass.

We had to wait for the cars heading north Costa Rica to clear before we could drive across the bridge into Panama. As we drove across the bridge, there was barley enough room for the pedestrians to squeeze by.

It had taken us 90 minutes to drive from Puerto Viejo, where we had spent our last night in Costa Rica, to reach the border. The road wasn’t as bad as had we had been led to believe, with only a few small stretches not paved.

This corner of the country is clearly one of the poorer regions of Costa Rica, sustained, it would appear, mainly by the several banana plantations that line the highway.

(It is sad/ironic that with so many banana plantations in Costa Rica it is almost impossible to find large, unbruised bananas in the grocery stores.)

The mechanics of crossing the border went like this:

1) Park the van on the Costa Rica side of the bridge, head into the small customs wicket and get a fill out the Costa Rica tourist cards and get our passports stamped.

2) Provide the officials with the original of the Costa Rican vehicle paperwork we received when we entered the country. Keep a copy for ourselves.

3)Wait for clearance, and the drive across the bridge

4) Go through the fumigation station ($1)

5) Wait for the Panama officials to undertake a cursory inspection of the van

6) Park the van, and go to the Panama customs office and fill out the tourist cards ($5/each) and get our passports stamped.

7) Obtain our vehicle entrance papers (free). There is no requirement to purchase insurance.

From the border we first headed to Almirante, getting lost and then lost again as went because of the non-existent road signs (which, we were to learn, is a defining feature of driving in Panama).

Within a few hours of crossing the border we had climbed our way into the Chiriqui Highlands.

This region of Panama is full of spectacular cloud forests (rain forests at elevation) with clear rivers and small waterfalls running through them; that offers far-reaching vistas of the gorgeous Bocas del Toro Archipeligo on one side and the jungle-clad mountains on the other, and; that has an isolated and extremely poor indigenous population that mainly lives in stilt houses made of scrap wood.

There aren´t too many towns in the Chiriqui Highlands and when, with night fast approaching, the cops in Punta Pena wouldn´t let us camp in their large, empty asphalt parking lot, our only option was to ask a family if we could camp on their front lawn.

They graciously agreed and aside from the mooing cow that slept basically under the van, and the braying horses tied to the fence nearby, it was uneventful. There was a river just beyond the house which we used to clean ourselves up.

Key Facts & Figures:

-fumigation: $1
-Panama tourists cards: $5/each
-campsite, person's front lawn: $5