Buenos Aires or Brrr, Brrr, Cooooooooo-ooooooold!

The plane lands at Buenos Aires and everybody claps.  This happens throughout Central America too (but strangely not Brazil - it must be a Spanish thing).  I actually find it very disconcerting when it's been a trouble-free landing.  It makes me think that my life has been in great danger and that I haven't been paying attention.

The first jolt to the senses on arriving in Buenos Aires from hot Cuba and Panama is that it's cold.  Maybe up to 14 degrees in the daytime and only around 9 or 10 at night.  Not having a jacket, I basically had to resort to wearing a shirt over a t-shirt.  Not that this makes a lot of difference, as a brutal roof-top bus-ride was to prove a couple of days later.

The second impact that the city makes on you is its sheer vastness.  Some 15 million-plus people live here in 48 districts but it was also a city built on a grand scale.  Wide avenues run through the city - in fact, one of them, is the widest in the world - and there is a 280 acre park on one end of the city.  The whole city was,federalised about 15 years ago, so it's technically a state in itself.  Needless to say, walking anywhere here takes time but it is a great city to walk around.

Our first couple of nights are spent in San Telmo, an arty but run-down suburb.  It's apparently the home of tango in Buenos Aires (although, strangely, I seem to be hearing the Smiths wherever I go) but even better, around the corner from our hotel, there's a brew pub outlet...

My kind of chocolate wheel

At last an IPA!  And then a Stout...suddenly I'm not feeling the cold.

Of course, there's also the smell of meat being grilled everywhere.  An impromptu steak sandwich, which actually comprised 3 steaks between 2 pieces of bread took some eating!

Everything said about the steaks is true.  The meat, and the food in general, is just delicious!  And washing it down with a Malbec just seems very civilized.

We took the opportunity to watch Argentina play their last group game at one of the big-screen areas in the city.  The first thing to note was how polite Argentinian fans were.  The opposing team's anthem was applauded by a few people.  Good play was clapped rather than accompanied by raucous cheering.  In fact, it all seemed rather like a day at the cricket in England.  That said, the place did erupt when a goal was scored and, with Argentina's penchant for letting Nigeria equalise, goals were needed.

Weight of expectation not shown

There was almost a sense of expectation rather than trepidation when Messi placed the ball for a free-kick and, sure enough, he calmly slotted into the corner beyond the reach of the diving keeper with the ensuing, elongated, "Goooo-aaaaaalllll!" Cometh the hour, cometh the man, indeed!

Interestingly, having listened to the Spanish commentary, I realise that Messi, is probably the only player whose name I pronounce correctly.  There may be a PhD in the importance of having a an easy name to say and being famous...


As mentioned, we took a rooftop bus tour, which was a great way to see the city, and to get frost-bite.

We were given giant headphones, which mainly served as ear-muffs but did mean you had to endure a deafening piece of tango (I assume) which was on about a 2 minute loop non-stop for the 3 hours, only interrupted by fragmented English commentary on the sights, which in turn was interrupted by Spanish advertisements and instructions not to smoke.  I've also come to the conclusion that in every piece of music there's a part that sounds like Moon River...but that could be just because I heard this segueway 84 times...

It is a great city, although my travelling companion, Dr. Paul, informs me that Argentinians have the highest rate of psychological consultation in the world.  I'm sure this is connected to all that clapping when planes land.

Too much to possibly be able to describe

 


 

On the Buses...Finally

Well, you'll be glad to know, we made it out of Havana on our third attempt.

We saw a couple of the smaller towns with their beautiful cobbled streets, had an overnight stay in, and a walk through, the mountains near Trinidad before stopping at the enormous Che Guevara mausoleum, complete with a very prominent poster for Hugo Chavez, on the way back but it was a very serious place, more them showing us propaganda than allowing us a proper gander...

It wouldn't be Cuba though, without one last hiccough.  When we got back to our (new) hotel in Havana, they had no electricity in the the rooms we'd been booked into.  It was explained however, that they'd moved us to a better hotel nearby.  They then organised for the porter to wheel our bags the six blocks to the hotel, while we walked along behind trying not to look like colonial stooges.  And, to be fair, the alternative place was impressive, overlooking the Plaza d'Armas.

The first book-seller starts to set up in Plaza d'Armas

So, a last mojito/daiquiri in one of Hemmingway's haunts before heading back to Panama, which, I must say, has lost its allure, now that I've discovered that Panama hats are actually from Ecuador.  And from there it would be just a single night stay before flying on to Buenos Aires.

And so ended our Cuban misadventure, but it was great fun and definitely a place to come back to.  Meanwhile, in spite of my belief that a mojito does cover most of the food groups, I do need to reacquaint myself with not drinking rum cocktails at lunchtime...

Rubics Cuba (Part II)

The afternoon before we were due to depart on our trip, a message, slipped under the door, informed us that the trip had been cancelled.  So, another trip to the travel agent, another set of online bookings and non-working cancellation web-pages later, we were advised that that there was another trip leaving in two days' time...

By now, we were celebrities in our hotel.  This is probably why, the next day, instead of having breakfast downstairs, we were ushered up to the 9th floor, which according to their service guide, is where the VIPs have breakfast.

Given the amount of time we're spending trying to leave our hotel, it seems reasonable to try and say more about the place.  All of the (bigger) hotels have a wall of fame with fabulous black and white photos of the celebrities who've stayed there.  Ours is very literary with not only Hemmingway and Simenon having been special guests, but Room 501 being the very room in which the main protaganist from Our Man in Havana was placed, "The Graham Greene" room as the receptionist calls it.

But on a less literary note, apparently Al Capone, Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky, "The Mob's Accountant" (with a face only a mother could love) also stayed here.  One can only wonder what it must have been like in those days.

Hemingway at the Floridita

Hemming way deserves special mention - he seems to have drunk, and presumably been drunk, in every bar in town with all manner of cocktails named after him.  One even has a life-size statue of him propping up one end of the bar.








Infrastructure is fragile to say the least, so wi-fi is only limited (and expensive at $8.00 for an hour of unreliable access).  My bathroom shower has a 50 degree sign over the hot water tap but having had a couple of showers, I wonder if this is in fahrenheit or perhaps refers to some aspirational target.

View over the avenue towards the Malecon

So, a further 2 days in Havana before we would make our third attempt to leave.

Still, when you're sitting on a rooftop bar watching the World Cup with a gentle breeze blowing while sipping a mojito, it's not a bad place to be, despite the difficulties.

Rubics Cuba

It is difficult to organise things in Cuba.  It's a very piecemeal process.  Nonetheless, we decided to take the train down to Santiago and then to fly back from there.

The first problem was that the flights were booked out.  The second problem was that it was unclear if the train was running.  The original train, "The French train", which was normally the only reliable service, had been out of commission since February.  So, we were left with booking a 15 hour bus-ride, starting at 7.30 am.

Hotels had to be booked separately because the travel agent we were dealing with, who admittedly wasn't especially helpful, didn't have a working phone on her desk.  We did this online although no confirmation of the booking was received.  In order to contact the booking agency on their website, you had to enter one of those annoying numbers/picture values.  As annoying as those things are, it's even more annoying when the thing you are meant to be entering isn't actually displayed...  I'm guessing they get very few complaints!

Nonetheless, we checked out of our hotel at 6.45, grabbed a quick coffee and a roll and waited.  And waited.  Waited until 9.30 am, when, upon seeing a guy from the same company come into the hotel, we asked him about the bus to Santiago.  He duly called the head office for us and told us that we had just missed the bus but they would get it to come back to the hotel. Of course, this was sheer fiction and at 10.30 am, we went back to the reception counter and asked if we could check back in.

It now remained to try and cancel our bookings.  Luckily, there was an agency office near our hotel and, even more luckily, this time, we were dealing with an extremely competent woman.  She was able to make all of the required phone calls (a surprising number of these) and even persuaded the hotel in Santiago to cancel the online booking over the phone because of the website issues.  We then booked tickets to nearby Trinidad but there were no departures for another three days.

View from our hotel - with which we became increasingly familiar

So, another 3 nights in Havana.  Not the worst outcome by any stretch of the imagination - there are far worse places to be stranded - but it does show why people travel here on organised tours...

Havana Good Time

Having cracked that joke a thousand times back home, I could hardly pass it up, now I'm actually here.

First impressions of Havana are that, like everywhere else around here, it's very hot.  I don't know about the April sun in Cuba but this June sun is blazing.  And, seemingly irrespective of the temperature, the afternoons are thundery affairs with the storms sometimes rolling in, sometimes just providing a lightning show.

Our visa was a painless experience at the check-in counter in Panama - and we could have even apparently got one at the departure gate but that seemed, even to us retrospective planners, to be cutting it a little fine.

The ride in from the airport sees you pass very little traffic.  Then, when you do see cars, at least half of them appear to be American cars from the 1950's.  Now I had heard about this but it only registers when you see it.  There's a wide array of transport available, very little of it modern but some of it looking magnificent nonetheless.

Cuba Classico

Cab rank Havana style

As for Havana itself, the old city is something quite remarkable.  Not so much faded glamour as crumbling grandeur.

View of the Capitolio from the Malecon end of town

Stately and ornate buildings alongside a grid of narrow laneways and piazzas making up the largest old city I've ever seen.

This report brought to you by
our man in Havana

Every doorway seems to have somebody sitting in it and every passer-by you meet seems to have a secret line on a cigar factory deal, which, regrettably, they are very anxious to share with you.

As well as the old town, there's a great strip along the waterfront, the Malecon, which looks like something out of a movie set.

Our other man in Havana

As the sun falls, while we marvel at what we've seen, the locals seem to just be enjoying the simple things in life.

 

You Say Panama...

The first impression that one gets of Panama is that it is a a much bigger, modern city that you might have imagined.  There are a lot of skyscrapers and plenty more under construction.



 






Later, on exploring it more, you discover that it actually has a very under-publicised old city, which is a great area to walk through. 

And it even has a pub brewing its own beer.  Now we're talking!   

La Rana Dorada

Farewelling our tour guide

And drinking...







Unfortunately, exploring Panama isn't entirely straightforward, as there are very few street name signs but my main difficulty with Panama was in saying Pana-manian.  My brain just wanted to say Pa-namian even though I can see that this isn't correct.

I think they should add another "na" in there and called it "Pananama".  That way, they could have the Muppet song as their national anthem.  Imagine that being roared out at the World Cup (minor issue of non-qualification notwithstanding).

From here, it was back to travelling on our own and next stop: Cuba. 

Canal Route Therapy

It had been agreed that we'd stop at the canal on our way to Panama City.  This would save us making a trip out from Panama and would also served to give us a break from the bone jarring bus-ride we were having.  It wasn't that the roads were bad, far from it, but we had a driver who just loved going fast and changing lanes and stopping suddenly.  It was with some relief that we reached the canal for a break.

The canal is in its centenary year, having been completed in 1914.   The idea had first been considered way back in 1524 but was too difficult.  The French had then given it a couple of goes during the late 19th Century but had to abandon the attempts after more than 22,000 people had died and cost over-runs. 

The first thing that strikes you about the canal is how narrow it is.  At first it's hard to imagine a container ship fitting through - I'm sure there are plenty that wouldn't.  That's probably why they're expanding it, with additional locks being added next year. 










Luckily for us, a ship was passing through, so we joined the throngs to watch it make its progress.

The ship moves slowly but inexorably, with rail assistance, towards the lock.

Once it reaches the gates, it waits for the next lock to be filled, the water level on its own side going down at the same time.

All this (along with artificial lakes) is to make up the 26 metre discrepancy between the Pacific and Caribbean ends of the canal.






Once the water on both sides is level, the gates open and the ship moves through.  It takes a ship about 8-10 hours to move through the 77 kms of canal.

It is quite an amazing site to see.  You really get a sense of the engineering marvel that it must have been when it was first built.





The remainder of our bus trip into Panama City was a far more animated affair with everybody much more upbeat after the stop.

Surfin' Safari

A 5 hour bus drive down the mountain and out to the Pacific Coast brought us to surfing hangout,  Santa Catalina.

And within this surfing hangout, we were staying at the Oasis Surf Camp. Now "Camp" is not a word I like to see in a hotel name - it's not saying "Relax".  Give me "View" or "Resort" any day.  After wading across a stream to get there, we were told that 4 of the blokes had to share a hut.  What was that I was saying about camps?   

To be honest, our hut made it look more like we were at Harry Potter camp.

And it wasn't all hard work...

It actually was a surfing beach with good waves and lessons being offered.

Having watched Paul do his best ride first up and then proceed to fall off with increasing rapidity, I realised that I was probably at my surfing peak right there and then.  Taking a lesson would only set the decline in motion, so I had a beer and contemplated my current awesomeness at surfing.

There was no working wi fi at surf Camp - how come the Beach Boys never mentioned this - but, being run by Italians,  there was great pasta!   

And so it was with filled stomachs that we walked back across the river and onto the bus for our final destination: Panama City.

Livin' la Vida Coco

After bidding more emotional farewells, this time to the Caribbean family that had hosted us for the last 3 nights, it was back across the water to the bus station.  We'd upgraded to a single bus (so much for roughing it to the heart of darkness) but given that the upgrade got us a single bus for our next 3 stops, rather than travel on 4 local buses just to get to the next stop, it was an easy decision to make.

The next stop was in Boquete, about 4000 feet above sea-level although, given that we had to swap into a truck to make it up to our hotel, we had to be quite a bit higher than that.

The hotel was by far the nicest one we've stayed in on this trip.  Our Intrepid tour companions were delighted and with some of them having been travelling for 60 days, I can imagine how good it feels to hit some luxury!

The hotel had great rooms and showers and a large deck looking out onto the mountainous vista.

View from our hotel's deck

Apparently this area is (or was) the number one retirement place in the world.  I'm not quite sure how that's worked out - certainly not by the number of old people walking around the town.  I guess we needed a guide to be able to see them, although Paul, using those sloth-detection super-powers, was able to spot one up on a balcony...





There was the option to make a midnight climb to the rim of the local volcano to see the sun rise (so we're talking a several hour climb here) but we decided to go on a coffee tour instead.

It was high-risk - we were going to be drinking coffee in the afternoon, after all.  Call me crazy but sometimes you've just got to be out there!

The coffee plantation had been set up by a guy, Tito, who having driven back from seeing a working plantation, promptly started to cannibalise his jeep to make the relevant parts.

What's left of Tito's Jeep

Some beans

As well as being taken through the harvesting process, we were also shown how the beans are dried, graded and roasted.

Some roasted beans

The light, medium and dark roasts are commonly known as American, French and Italian.  Strangely enough, those dark more flavoursome beans actually have less caffeine in them than the lighter ones.

But obviously the most important thing is the skill of the roaster.  Fortunately, this guy really looked like he knew what he was doing:

   

Starfish Starfish Beach

The original plan had been to go snorkelling but half the group came down with the Latin equivalent of the Bali Belly, the cause of which was hard to pin down, as we'd all eaten at various locations without there being any common element.  Incidentally, you can't really call it the Central American Belly, because that could only refer to the way guys cool themselves down here which involves them rolling their t-shirt upwards so that their stomachs can get some air.   As cool as you might feel, it's not a look to try at home unless you really want to be the man from uncool.

Instead, those that were still walking, decided to go to Starfish Beach.  After a boat-ride and a surprisingly (to everyone but our guide) long bus trip, we reached the beach.  I should say "a beach" because we then had to walk round a couple more bays before reaching our destination.

The place had a great vibe to it: lots of families enjoying a day at the beach, music playing, barbecues and lots of swimming.  And, most importantly,  for us whiteys, plenty of shade!


Amazingly, there were even starfish.  This is when I'd like to tell you more about starfish but actually I've got nothing other than that they're 5-pronged pointy things that sit on the bottom of the ocean.

The "main drag" in Colon

After the beach we headed back to Colon where we decided to grab a bite to eat, while we were in "the big city".

We found a bar/cafe called La Buga which our guide tells us means The Boogie.  Nobody believes this.  The place looked across the water back to "our island".

The view back to Bastimentos Island

It also had a parrot there that could wolf-whistle.  That's amusing for about 2 minutes.

"Waiter!' - La Buga

Having taken everybody's order, the waitress gets to me and, to everybody's astonishment, wants to know if I'd like the special beer promotion that gave me 2 beers for $3.  This was in spite of several people before me ordering beers.  It's that thirsty face again, I tell you.

Darkness fell and it was time to head back.  There's no taxi-ride quite like a speeding water taxi in the dark, the tillerman also holding a torch so that any other boats can see him.  With a (literal) show-boating, last high-speed swerve, we were back at our hotel.

On the Waterfront

After our border crossing caper, it was a short minibus ride followed by a 30 minute speedboat ride out to our hotel, the Caribbean View hotel on Bastimentos Island.  Run by a really great Caribbean family, you were made to feel very welcome.

And you couldn't say that it was unreasonably named.  This was from the front deck of the hotel where you had your meals and took your "taxis" from.

Once we'd got sorted, the initial plan (for a few of us) was to go for a short walk and a climb up the hill to a cafe that grew its own coco and made its own chocolate and coffee.

It was some climb mind you, our guide being somewhat notorious for underestimating distances and times.  Once we got there though, it was a pleasant relief from that scorching day that even had had the locals talking about 'heatwaves".

TYou could have an ice coffee or a nice coffee  and chocolate truffles.  Not sure how you grow chocolate truffles but I think it's something I might look into with my green-finger skills.

Bastimentos Waterfront

Frontiers With Games

Crossing land borders is rarely fun and the Costa Rica-Panama one was no exception.

A bus trip of only about 45 minutes gave us a false sense of progress.  First we had to clear Costa Rican immigration.  Having got to the gate, we were informed that while we had to pay $US 7, we couldn't pay in cash at the gate.  Apparently, not that there was a sign or anything, there was a pharmacy a couple of hundred metres back down the road that would take cash payments - I'd love to be able to tell Australian customs and immigration, "Don't worry about me - I went to Priceline on the way here".   Otherwise, you could pay using a credit card (and watch your bank take as much for processing the transaction).  Given that it was approaching 38 degrees, most of us just opted to pay by credit card.

The immigration office was air-conditioned but we weren't allowed to queue inside it.  Instead we had to to queue in the sun but that was okay because there was a sign, in the finest of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy traditions, saying "Stay calm". 

Approach to the bridge to Panama

From here it was a walk across a long, ramshackle rail bridge to the Panamanian side with many people offering to carry your luggage with no doubt an obligatory fee to be payable on the other side.

Having crossed the bridge, we were pointed to a very nondescript office, where we paid another $US 3 and had a sticker stuck into the passport.  Now having paid some money and had a guy stick something in your passport, you'd be forgiven for thinking that you were now legally in Panama but you'd be wrong.  Around the corner from this office was a much bigger office (still partly under construction) where your passport was properly stamped.  That's where a guide is really useful.  I'd have happily strolled on into Panama only to be picked up at the first checkpoint, which we passed about 10 minutes later in the bus.

Border difficulties notwithstanding, we were in Panama!

Iguana Break Free

We took a day to go sight-seeing.  First stop was the Jaguar Rescue Centre where, inevitably, there were no jaguars but then perhaps the guy named it after his car.  It was however, a really interesting place with the tour guide giving us a very entertaining and impassioned explanation of what each of the animals were doing there, sometimes as the result of calamitous human intervention but often just accidents in the wild.

This little guy (or maybe gal) really liked licking people because apparently we're just walking salt licks...

And these sloths were pretty cool.  In addition to these big guys, they'd just taken in a brand new baby who was being hand-fed.

You were also allowed into a very enclosed cage with young spider monkeys but no cameras allowed in there and, having once had a pair of glasses whipped off my face by a monkey (and then just snapped in front of me for good measure), you get no complaints from me about that policy.

It;s hard to beat toucans though.  This one just tore about the place!  You could touch his beak but seeing as what I saw him doing mostly was biting stuff, I declined that offer.

Most animals and birds here are being trained to leave their cages and hunt for release back to the wild but some, they know, will never hunt again, so they have to come up with alternative plans.  An old ocelot was going to be released back into a specially acquired reserve so that he could die as a free animal - this is tougher than watching a lassie movie!

After the rescue centre, we took a walk through the rain-forest, which runs right up to the sea.  You really need to do these walks with a guide because these guys see everything.  We'd only walked two metres and he stopped us to see if we could spot 3 iguanas in the trees nearby.  It took us about 5 minutes to find them and that was only because we knew we were looking for something.  In a two hour walk, we saw snakes, sloths, monkeys and ate some termites (because lunch was included).  Actually I wasn't crazy about the termites - they tasted rather like wood, unstrangely enough.  And Paul, by the way, was remarkably adept at spotting sloths.  I'm not sure if this is some secret middle-management talent...

Last stop on the wildlife front was an Iguana farm.  Now, these things really do look amazing.  Literally, relics from a different age.

The females lay about 75 eggs, of which, in the wild only about 5% survive, but on the farm, they were rearing about 40% of them and from there, they were being reintroduced to habitats in which they were endangered.

Mind you, I kept calling them goannas, so despite all those facts and figures I just quoted, I couldn't have been paying enough attention.

And that'll do fauna.