Drifting down the road: From Costa Rica to Panama

119100 miles

We left the hotel without a specific plan, so we drove around the mountains just to enjoy the place. This took us to the town of Fortuna and the nearby volcano El Arenal. This volcano is still active, but fumes and lava are difficult to see because it is normally covered by clouds. Still, it is a nice mountain and it was worth the trip.

When driving in the mountains the landscape changes continually, and our focus keeps changing from a close tree, to a nearby bridge, to a distant farm, or to a remote mountain ridge, over and over again through hundreds of turns in the road. By night time we were exhausted and looking for an hotel. We ended up in dump called Berlor, near the San Jose airport (better to avoid it...!).

On Saturday we went to Volcan Poas, which normally is also clouded and difficult to appreciate. However, we were extremely lucky and the sky was clean at the top, so were able to see all the details. There are roads taking you uphill, and a short walk from the parking lot to the crater. The volcano is also active with fumaroles arising from the inside rim of the crater. Close to the crater, and at a slightly higher level, is Laguna Botos. It results from rain water accumulating on an extint volcano crater.

We ended the day driving across San Jose to the city of Cartago, some 15 miles South of San Jose. This is a nice, clean, and colder place, where we spent the night before continuing to the border with Panama. The hotel is in the second floor of a restaurant, and , as it was a Saturday night, we had free live music from 20:30 until midnight.

We had one more border crossing, this time out of Costa Rica and into Panama. This probably was the best of all of them. All very professional and fast, letting us pass in about one hour. After the border we spent the night at Santiago, half way from the border to Panama City. Here started our real challenge: This is a big city, with an impressive waterfront all covered with skyscrappers. The place is hot and humid, the streets are mostly broken down because of a big project to build a Metro, the streets don't have a posted name, and traffic is really bad.

We had to take our car for inspection before taking it to the Colon for shipping, therefore we could't avoid getting into the big traffic mess. Otherwise, it is much preferable to move around in a taxi.

Tomorrow we will go to see the operation of the Canal, and after that we will coordinate the shipping of the car and our own transport to Cartagena, Colombia.