El Porvenir

Starting in Quito, we decided to follow the wise advice of a French girl we met in Quito to travel in some hacienda and do some horse riding!

We had just met those 2 canadians in the backpacker and we met francis, the Bavarian we first met in Panama. The 5 of us were therefore ready for new adventure and we traveled in an early morning with all of our bags to this place (as we intented to go to Baños afterward).

Just to go to the train station was a pain, many bus routes, few information and with all of our bags, it was already hard enough. It just started to be annoying when I got picked-pocket and lost my credit card (BUMMER!). And when we got to the train station, we saw this:

It was then out of question to take a bus, so we got into this car/truck for a good 3 hours of dirty and bumpy roads (hoooo, we love those!). That was already some emotions we had for this day, and when we get there, we were welcomed with a nice grog and some cheesy things. Everything was so delicious, and the place was soooo comfy. We felt immediatly at home! But we had to ride our horses and we got our costumes.

Here we are!

On the road

Francis before the fall

The horses were following each other as their lives depended on it... Therefore we struggled to get them out of the path (you know... for fun!). The fun came later with some heavy hail. All surrender by storms and lightnings, the horses were nervous when we heard: "no, no, no, no, nooooooooooo".

The horse of Francis was bolting. To see the tall German on a little horse was funny, but to see him charge into the wild only stupor was upon us (ok, it was hilarious afteward). The fall had a dull thud and a scream came right after: "I'm alright!".

Realisticaly, he could have hurt himself badly, but we already had our bit of unluck for the day. Everything went perfectly this day, the soaked clothes and backpack, the nice pictures, the hot and delicious meal which was waiting for us, and the warm goodbye to the Julia and Claire...

That was a nice ride!

Colombia and Ecuador

After this adventure in Kunas territory, we arrived in Colombia with all the bad things we heard in Europe and with all the good things we've heard from the traveler. Let's just say it was sort of a mix between a magical place full of faeries giving candies and one of dragons giving diarrhea.

It was all surprises when we arrived in Cartagena with its amazing old town, super rich sky lines and some of the finest almuerzo (lunch)... I let you discover the pictures, they do talk for themselves.

Cartagena !!

During this stay, we've met many nice people. We will think particularly about Kaspar (half French, half German), Camille (a traveler who uses very few backpackers hostel by asking for a shelter to locals), Sam (A Londoner who looooves very old books), Nergiz (German music junky) and Anne-Sophie (german sarcastic girl with a french name) and (finally, last but not least) Marion (who was working in Quito and who gave us many advice for Ecuador).

Kaspard, Thinking !!!

Marion, Smiling?

Despite our good surprised in the country, we had to rush a bit and took a flight to Cali (where we learned how hard it is to find a post office...) and then: straight to Ecuador!

Ecuador was a blast where Quito (our first city) stand out with its baroque churches (in which you are not welcomed for mass...).

Quito's cathedral

It's here where we finally enroled Francis, the Bavarian, and two Canadians to follow us in next adventure...

Claire and Julia

The tall Bavarian

2 handsomes cowboys

Los Kunas

What we understood from their culture in 3 days

Politics

The reserve (called Comarca) Kuna Yalla is mostly independent but for the National Defence and the National Education Program. They seem very interested in the Panamean politics (for the most educated of them).

On a local basis, daily meetings (called "Congresso") are held everyday to address practical matters: "Should we clean the beach?", "Should we make it compulsory for people to clean their own backyard?"... or more critical ones: "Should we accept to be connected to the national electricity/phone/mobile network?"... or even matters not really part of their responsibilities: "Are we happy with the school teachers work?"

These "Congresso" make this society seems like a true democracy. Indeed, everyone in the village (I mean every Kuna in the village) is consulted on all kinds of matters. The problem is that a large part of the population is extremely conservative (especially women). It means that any attempts to modernize a bit the local society are always rejected. Culture needs to prevail.

Funny facts:
- The congresso is held from sunset to 9-10PM (everyday). During this period of time, the bar of the village is closed. If you want to drink better anticipate...
- They are so conservative that they didn't modernize the toilet system yet. You have one spot for the whole village and its located 10 minutes away from the village (see picture). Remember "Slumdog Millionaire"? ...
- Same for the shower,  there is a pipe carrying water around the village, there is a tap in a kind of bathroom... why not make a shower out of it then?... No they decided to fill some buckets with the water. So, to shower you need to do it the old fashion way by pouring water on our head... Fancy !!!!
- We are not sure why, but somehow, it seems they decided to not have animals inside of the village. We were eating a lot of chicken, so they must be somewhere... But not inside the village, running wild...


School System

We met the teachers from the village. Most of them are from other parts of Panama, they don't speak Kuna and they don't understand the local culture.

According to them, kids are not supported at all by their parents. Elder Kunas might be able to help kids but they don't value at all the national education system. For them, local culture is really the priority.
On top of that, kids suffer of malnutrition issues. They only eat fish, rice, plantain banana and coconuts... it is not enough. They suffer of a lack of vitamins and minerals necessary for their concentration.


François: "So what do you think of the army here?"
Ufemia (local teacher): "Well, there are 3 things really. Firstly, it's safer. Secondly, they are educated and open minded. It's more interesting to talk to them than to locals. .... ....."
François: " And third?"
She blushes and doesn't answer for a second.
Ufemia: "I can't really tell you that"
François: "And third: they are cute?"
The 2 women laugh
Ufemia: "No, no, really, that's not that!"


The militaries

As explained in the previous post, this village is protected by the Panamean army. This army is making sure that the FARCs (Those famous terrorists from Colombia who kidnapded Ingrid Betancourt about 7 years ago) don't cross the border of Panama.

Carlos, one of the militaries we met, really wanted to play football with us. He told us when we met him that later on in the afternoon we should meet him on the beach to play football with him and some of his colleagues. What a good idea !!
4PM, we decided to walk to the beach to play football. When we got there, Carlos told us that we needed the approval of his captain first.
We walked together to meet his captain and after a very short introduction, Carlos left and the captain looked at us and said "So?, What do you want?"
Francois: "Well, we were thinking to play football with your guys if it was possible?"
The Captain: "Humpffs!!!!"
We briefly looked back at Carlos who was 10 meters away trying to understand the result of the conversation like a child.
The Captain: "You see, after some time in the jungle, many of my guys are injured and I can't allow to lose anybody else. I'm sorry. But you can ask the young Kunas if you want to play."
François: "Oh, ok, of course, we understand. Thanks for your time !!"
No need to say that Carlos was ... disappointed...


The Kuna women

Kuna women are very conservatives, we said already. They were those colourful outfit wherever they go (They start wearing those when they become women... if you see what I am talking about....).

They are very powerful, when men only partially attend congressos, they attend most of them and make sure to be heard.

They manage all the money matters, you won't see a man in the only shop of the village. Women manage it and make sure that foreigners pay double anything they buy. This way they make sure that foreigners won't stay, and they make money for the village.... Indeed that's the funny thing about this culture. They are very conservative and want to live as they always did. But in the same time they understood very well what capitalism is all about. As soon as they can make extra money... They do !!!

It was one of those unique experiences

As I was walking to the loo (meaning walking 10 min...), I met many Kuna women working the coconuts field and, naturally, I greeted them. To my surprise, most of them didn't even reply to my surprise but they produced a guttural sound in response to my shy "Buenas!".
It kinda goes like this: "hum huuuum" (the first "hum" being higher pitch than the other).
The recent translation from the expert says that it means:
"hooo, you are very handsome and we are ready to give your family 1 000 coconuts to marry our daughter".
They are 10% sure of this translation.

There is always another way

As we were in Panama, we looked for a way to cross the border to reach Colombia and, at first, it seemed all the possibilities will cost us a damn sh*t load of money. We weren't ready to pay those price (350 $ by plane or 450/550 $ on a sailing boat and, frankly, as we looked up the Internet for some inspiration, "the other way" looked very tempting as it was: long, hard to perform and kind of safe. The other way was all about lanchas!

Over there, the lancha is as important as an horse in a very poor village on the land. Those boats are sculpted directly from the trunk of a big tree and the floating line is VERY low. The stability is so-so, but as you trust your driver (:-$), there is no worry. So, we would go for the hard way, but performing all the way down to the frontier in this kind of embarcation is, all together, expensive and wetty. We took then a first class shortcut: the plane. Flying inside of the country isn't so bad in comparaison of international flights and the cost stayed limited (80 $ per head). We would have go for Puerto Obaldia straight, but all flight were booked for (at least) the next month. We checked the closest airport on the Panamean side and finally landed in Molatupo, little carrabean island (so little in fact, the airport is litterally on another island).

From this point, except the spectacular lack of information for a 4 hours delay flight, all was shinny for us: the point of view of the San Blas (the Panamean coast we had to go through) was spectacular. We felt like being Yann Arthus Bertrand.

Yep, that was a small plane

I never said Yann Arthus Bertrand had it easy

Or if I said it, I didn't say it loud...

The airport was really small (only some logs and straws, really) and full of these people with strange habits: the Kunas. Women were wearing very traditional clothes (and shakiras all along their legs and arms), and Men, not so much. We could tell straight away those persons were poor as one of the passengers of our plane had a lancha without motor waiting for her (3 hours of paddling was ahead of them).

Could be 4 hours actually

Finally in the city, we could also tell they didn't lost the North as they were asking for 150$ total to reach Puerto Obaldia: No thank you, we have time, we can find better price...

Some talks at the pier got us into a boat covering half the way for only 6$ each (and the possibility to stay overnight). Followed a good 2h30 of wet water and cold wind to get to the village called Punta Carreto, one of the most conservative indian village of the reserve.

The Kuna colors and sign.

Warm welcome by the army

As we arrived on the beach, nothing could give away we were in the XXI century: no piers, fichermen all over the place, military presence and very old equipment (our motor stopped 4 or 5 times). Apart from the "sophisticated" weapons (a strange mixed of old russian ones and brand new americans) of the army and the old motorboat, you couldn't tell from which of the XV or the XVI century we were.

A real leap in the past.

Panama

Finally talking about what is happening right now is really a pleasure and, therefore, the topic of today is Panama!

We left Costa Rica 10 days ago (from the depressing San Jose, seriously: don't go there) for the party place of Bocas del Toros, located in the region Bocas del Toro. What does this lack of imagination from countries of Latin America means? Quick examples that come to mind are Oaxaca (city), Oaxaca (state) Mexico or Panama (City), Panama (state), Panama (country). I mean... Really? Can't do better than that? And I'm not even talking about the impressive number of city called San Pedro (oupsy, I actually did...).

Any how, going back to an Island in the Caribean is always something... surprising.

First thing first: people seems weirder on those islands (I'm not bullshitting you, we did 3 of them). People are difficult to approach, and they can be aggressive toward you (being insulted in Caye Caulker, Belize, or even got a little cigarette burn on my forearm in Bocas del Toro). They all know each other and, if being in the tourism, are super nice with you.... til' they understand they won't get any money from you, and then, they give you the attitude.

Finally, you have those parties, usually held on a regular basis (every 2 or 3 days) where you usually can't really approach locals til' late in the night when everybody is pretty much drunk. But even then, you'd better be walking on eggshells. The day after this kind of party, the city will behave like a ghost town with people walking goalless.

Another particularity of central America, and even more in Panama, is the Chinese presence. We've seen them owning shops and even restaurant so far, but here, on Bocas, they virtually own EVERYTHING! They are the one building new stuff, having the casinos, the backpackers (even though they hide it pretty well by paying up some locals to run the place, it was obvious the Chinese were behind). I still don't have an explanation for that but locals seem to dislike it doing nothing to prevent it (and of course, I've never seen 1 Chinese during the night parties).

Then, we headed to Panama city (being stopped at night at an immigration office in the middle of the country, I still don't get that...) which was a surprise of wealthiness. Big towers, big cars, big malls, it's like USA all over again. But as a reminder, the numbers say that 40% of the population lives below the poverty line...

Anyway, stunning city if you have $$$ to put on the table and if you have a car (as the pedestrian way are just here to look nice... Wait, they aren't even nice!).

Finally, a little word about prostitution as it appears to be very present in the capital. You can't even stop in the street to eat something without someone proposing the specials services of some Colombian girls, and it seems very difficult to get in discotheque for free without being surrounded by wh*re (literaly). Definitly NOT a place to party...

We are ready to cross the border with Colombia which should be the hardest/longest/most expensive we will have to deal with.

Here are the pictures of Panama so far.

Francois & Damien

Catching up post !

After the Mirador, we had a nice spell in Guatemala. We obviously had a rest in Flores, where the people still wear traditional clothes (mostly women though) and where every sunday is a city's party made of dance and music.

We couldn't go to Semuc Champey, this very rare formation of caves and pools. I won't detail the pool more than this picture: 

What I can say is that we crossed them with a candle and water at our waist (we also had to swim which is much harder than you think having the candle in your teeth and trying to avoid the invisible rocs from behind).

Shemuc Champey

After the Mirador, we had a nice spell in Guatemala:

Lac Atitlan

and Antigua. Then, we did a quick stop in Utila, Honduras to get our certification Open Water.

A crazy funny corean

Finally we were off to Nicaragua in the superbe city of Leon (with a nice trek to the volcano Telica)

Volcano Telica

Volcano's lava!

 and the island Ometepe where we learned how to ride a moto (Youhouuuuu!).

Ometepe

Some biker

During this long travel, I can say many things surprised us:
- The calm of the people in a crowded / late / overheated / noisy / smelly bus.
- The difficulties to remember the name of the people you just met (how hard is that!).
- The border crossing, sometimes easy, always long. We had, at times, to show a fake ticket to prove we would go out of the country.
- All the scams we escape just going out of the bus (pickpocket, taxi driver with very high prices, etc.)
- Big cities are usually populated by a majority of white people, the country side is usually full of indigenous (Mayas / Indians) and the coast inhabited by black people (of slave descent).

Now, from the few travelling tips we learned (if you decide to go around the planet one day), we have some advices for you:
- Always get a second opinion from the people catching you out of a tourist bus. You can either just walk away, but I think the very best option is to talk to the locals on board.
- Always get some food and water for travel. Best choice for us: all sort of peanuts!
- Try to make sure your money/credit cards are not all in the same place.
- Bring some toilet paper with you (it's always very embarrassing when they offer you 4 pieces of toilet paper, and you are all like: "yeeeeaaahh, I would need 6 times this please :)". Or even more embarrassing when the toilet attendant unroll the thing, watching you, trying to evaluated how much the big guy will need...)
- Finally, last piece of advice: never let the people you don't know getting to close to you or even let you touch you. If you react strongly to those things, they will have less opportunity to pickpocket you.

We are now in the nice island of Bocas del Toro, Panama, ready to relax a bit before a big piece of travel, soon to come.

El Mirador: Day 3

Another morning in the jungle, again a slow paced walk and still the guide (sober for once) at the back of the line. The mud and water were there to welcome us with the ants and banana-spiders on the way.

Orchid

As explained by Raul, we quickly arrived to a “small” river that wasn’t that small anymore: from 20 to 50 m large and the deepest point going over 2m50/3m. The cross will be something… We find our way a bit down the river were some branches were stuck and allow us to get an hold on during the cross, and quite frankly, we passed easily even though the currant was strong. Then, the turn of our guide, who was still on his mule waiting the good moment to go through. Everybody is ready to help him out in this ‘not-so-good-idea’.

Well, everybody but me :)

As the mule walk straight to the currant, logs on its left, we tell Raul to get off it. 2 meters later, the mule only has 5 centimeters to breath, and we now shout at him: Get off the freaking mule!! 

Not so sure of himself anymore...

Here you go...

Head in the water, breathe taken away and hopes vanishing little by little, Raul is finally off and in a matter of second, the mule is swept away by the currant, under the logs. Everybody is now tense, searching for the animal down the river. No sign, for what we think of an eternity. No visible bubble, no swirl what so ever. 

Tension

The tension goes away as the desperation take place, but suddenly we can see an ear, soon a second one. The mule is trapped underwater by the leash! With the strength of the last effort, it manages to finally breathe with a terrified look, kicking in the water, trying to swim. Nobody dare to move, it’s still too dangerous to risk to be stunned in the river and we are now waiting for a miracle to happen. The animal won’t be able to keep up this rate longer and will, for sure, collapse of exhaustion. And it happens: the miracle. From nowhere, the mule managed to locked its head into a tree to not go further down the river.

The miracle

But it is in the middle of the river, still kicking. At once, somebody shout that we need to get the leash back and Damien is already swimming against the currant to carefully approach the animal. The risk is high because if the mule frees its head, he might receive a kick, but the good fortune is here to protect us. In my boiling head, the eventuality of seeing my cousin, unconscious, floating and taken away by the current is washed away quickly as Damien reach the closest tree of the mule. He is now out of danger. Everything is still to be done though. He grabbed the leash and throw it to Nick, Adam and I. The mule HAS to cross now, pulled by us, as much as we can. Head out of the water, the last meters are finally crossed and in 30 centimeters of water, it collapsed, exhausted. We finally saved it! The tension goes down as we all take our breath back. 

Saved!

But… Where is the guide? Our little crippled Raul was still hanging on a log, waiting for help and thankful for us to have saved 3000 Quetzales (more or less 300 euros, the equivalent of 5 treks like this for our guide).

Back from a very closed one

We took a lunch well deserved but we all had something in mind at the moment: we were late. And there is something you do NOT want to, it’s to walk in the jungle by night and there is 7 hours waiting for us now: no time to relax. Therefore, we packed our things, and started again. But after a bit, our guide is still not behind us… I had to run back and pulled the mule. Every minutes count now but we are soon back on track at a good pace.

The second river, easier to cross as we are now in control of the trek, is a small detail. We are all tired but pushing to the very end: El Mirador. The closer we get, the more impatient we are. Only one hour and a half away, the rain started. Lightly at first, it wets everything on its path. Speeding up in the end, we got to the camp under heavy rain.

Maybe that’s one of those moments of pure happiness; being in a relatively dry place, hot coffee and even a cigarette.

Totally worth it!

El Mirador: Day 2

The night was noisy, as every night during the rainy season, and even more noisy when an alarm clock goes off in the middle of it (like… 3 am…). No need to precise it’s our lovely guide who fucked up. So, we woke up like flowers (grumpy ones) as Raul went shopping (yes, you can shop at 6 am in this part of the world). He came back full of courage in bottle mixed with a soft: the trek is going to be fun for sure now.

I wish I was kidding

Expecting the worst of Raul, we started the trek on a slow pace in the muddy and humid jungle. The guide was behind (?!?), on his mule, answering ‘STRAIGHT’ to any question.

“Is it right or left?”

“Straight!”

“Up or down?”

“Straight!”

"How do you prefer men?"
"Straight!"

Straight!

Nick forgot quickly the concept of dryness after a short hour, followed by the two other British. Damien and I, happy with our super waterproof shoes, learned quickly how ironic those gears are as they stayed full of water as soon as the path is too flooded. For a normal hike, they are perfect, to ‘swim’: not so much. Meanwhile, Raul was laying on his donkey, having a hard time to articulate his thoughts as much as his gibberish. Two times at least, he felt down from drunkenness, miraculously without hurting himself.

Tarentula

Our new best friend: the sticky web of the Banana-Spider

Supposedly a pawnprint of a tyrannosaur

After a good 10 hours of slow pace hiking, we finally arrived in Tintal, our first stop and unexcavated temple of the old Maya’s empire.

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El Mirador: Day 1

After Mexico and Belize (where you will have the privilege to see some pictures here and here), we arrived in Guatemala on a cloudy Sunday. Totally broke BEFORE the border, it was already an adventure to get to Flores, little island on a lac. And as soon as we were there, we got hooked up by a tourist agent for a trek in the Jungle to go to the mythic El Mirador for the following day. We agreed totally unprepared and lacking both money and food at the moment.

Meeting at 5 am, we woke up 30 min late and the only memory I got is myself, on the street, bare foot and only wearing a short, calling the goddess of luck to not loose the 1350 Quetzalles we gave the day before. Well to be honest, I was also wearing my lucky charm as the bus appears. Our guide, Raoul, an old and crippled Guatemalan, pick up another three dudes (Bristish) to complete the group he is supposed to lead 5 days in the jungle: Adam, Nick and Piers.

Raul 'The Burden' Mayen

Adam 'I dunno' Wickes

Piers 'Captain' Davies

We quit, little by little, any civilized world. The houses are as rare as the teeth in the mouth of our guide. The road gets dirtier and more and more flooded. So much flooded indeed that we get stuck at the exact middle of our road to our first stop: Carmelita. The bus is stuck, and we need everybody to release it from the mud/water. 

The sweat

The little sweat didn't do much for our moral but the 4 hours of waiting for some miracle to happen got on the nerves of some. Bargaining with almost every vehicles passing by (which were few as we were in ‘nobody gives a shit’ land) and calling the tourist office did not help so much (it work just as much as complaining). 

The wait

Very long wait

Finally, a pick-up from Carmelita helped us out and we finally got to this remote village where the beer is hot and where you can find a stick signaling THE spot to get a mobile signal.

Carmelita

It was too late to keep on with the plan, so we had to sleep there. Raoul got on his mind to get wasted (just that) and disappeared for 3 hours. It allowed us to know a bit the locals who were very talkative about our guide… our alcoholic guide…

Little boy with a top

As Nick said on this first day: “There is gonna be quite a few firsts”.