72 Hours in Panama's Stunning San Blas Islands - 8-16-2012

From August 15th until the morning of August 18th, I was on a sailing charter that cruised through the San Blas Islands of Panama. I can tell you without exaggeration that the San Blas Islands are among the most beautiful places on Earth, and certainly one of the most beautiful places I have seen myself. A previous post talks all about why you should visit these gorgeous islands. This post covers Day 2 of my sailing charter. Read about Day 1 here.

The San Blas Islands, Day 2:



The Da Capo - San Blas Islands, Panama

I woke up early on the Da Capo's deck to a deep blue morning sky punctuated with wispy cotton ball clouds. I had slept the night above deck, dreaming of a tropical paradise while the Da Capo anchored in one. Being on vacation, I treated myself to a couple more hours of sleep below deck before I started my day for real. Yay, sleeping in!

After a quick breakfast with Captain Mats, his family and the two other passengers, we left our night anchorage in eastern Cayes Limones and sailed east two hours to Cayes Hollendaise. The journey was smooth and I found myself quickly getting accustomed to the rocking waves, salty sea spray and stiff breeze. There's something magical about this part of the world. The water is so warm, as is the air...but it's pleasant and not in any way oppressive. Every island we passed had white sand and thick green jungle. Every island had at least one simple hut built from wood boards and a thatched roof. The San Blas Islands really were a tropical paradise, unspoiled by the over development and exclusive resorts that turned so many stunning locales into generic, expensive, culturally bankrupt, Westernized tourist traps. Waikiki or Cozumel, anyone?

We anchored far from shore when we arrived in the Cayes Hollandaise. "The reefs come up quickly here as you approach shore," Captain Mats told us. It was fine, though, the five minute swim through calm, warm, green-blue water was heavenly and I hadn't done much more than splash around the previous day. A proper swim felt good. Curious schools of bright yellow and blue fish came near me a few times during my swim, wondering who the interloper was.




White sand beach in the Cayes Hollandaise

This island in Cayes Hollandaise looked to be uninhabited. Ilonka and I walked through the jungle and around the shore for a good 15 minutes and didn't see a single hut. Captain Mats' six year old son, Mateo, accompanied us and played guide, energetically explaining to us in Spanish which plants were medicinal, which the birds ate, which had pretty flowers when blooming, and so forth. We walked along the soft, white sand beach and waded waist deep through water so clear it seemed you could see forever through it if you dunked your head in it and took a look. After climbing over a few palm trees that had fallen into the sea,we came upon a small crescent-shaped cove. Partway along the beach, several trees reached over the water, creating a shady place to sit in the warm water and rest. How was it possible that every place we stopped at was more beautiful than the previous place?

Ilonka and I sat down in the water and talked for a while before Mateo got bored and started acting up. Ilonka volunteered to accompany him back to the Da Capo since she could see I was completely enraptured with my picture post card gorgeous surroundings. The pair walked off and I was left in silence.



Cayes Hollandaise

Gentle waves of clear water lapped quietly against my stomach. Tiny yellow and grey striped fish came up and swam underneath my legs. Palm fronds whispered in the warm tropical wind. For 10 minutes or 30 minutes or two hours or forever, I sat in that turquoise water, on top of white sand, beneath the blue and grey sky, and in front of a wall of dark green palm trees. I had NEVER been so satisfied with my life as I was right then and there.

I remember eight months ago being stressed about my job's future and about what the future might hold for me in general. "Have I saved enough money to take a break? What about passive income? When can I walk away from this three hour commute and do something I love, like travel?" I used to worry. How I wanted to run away back then to a beach side paradise and find a jungle to explore, warm water in which to swim. Now I was doing just that...I was vacationing in paradise...a beautiful, verdant paradise with crystal clear perfect water. I had jettisoned the commute, the office politics, and the job. I had saved enough money to take a break. I was living my ideal life. Talk about manifesting my will!

 

Ingmar interrupted my serenity and we talked a bit. He was having as great a time exploring the island's jungle and reef as I was soaking up its peace and beauty. I accompanied him further around the cove before he suggested we turn back. We had been away for a while and he said Captain Mats wanted to reach our next stop, Chichimi, by mid afternoon. Satisfied, but by no means sated, I returned to the Da Capo with Ingmar. I'll definitely be coming back here one day. Soon.

 

 

I totally ate all of that.

We left Cayes Hollendaise and traveled another couple hours east to Chichimi, where we stayed for the afternoon and anchored for the night. Shortly after anchoring, I kayaked ashore with Ingmar and we explored this island. We also kayaked to two other nearby islands, but only observed them from the sea. Just like yesterday, the water between these islands was so shallow we could have walked from island to island in shin deep water. Back ashore, Dina prepared a sumptuous lunch of skewers, rice, two salad, another rice dish, rice/banana/milk for dessert. She was friends with the local Kuna family and they helped her some as well. Ingmar and I cooked the skewers on a BBQ at the beach. 

 

 

Ilonka in Chichimi in the San Blas Islands, Panama

After lunch, Ilonka and I took some pics of this tropical paradise, and took some tourist shots of each other. During part of her 20s, Ilonka modeled professionally. She stopped in her late 20s, but there's no doubt that it's still in her blood. Just like riding a bike...one never forgets how to do it, right?

Ingmar and I went sea kayaking again after Ilonka's impromptu shoot. This time, he and I rowed to several nearby shipwrecks, including a large single hull yacht and a small freighter rusting away on top of a reef that reportedly ran aground when the night watch fell asleep. We must have kayaked several miles because I remember being quite tired. Ingmar got out of the kayak a couple times to go snorkeling, but I was content to rest in the kayak and enjoy floating on the sea. 

 

 



Bonfire in Chichimi

More than an hour later, he and I came back to a dinner of lunch's leftovers and amazingly flavorful chicken that Dina marinated and BBQ'd. To top it off, we started a big bonfire (not as big as the ones I've seen in Playa Samara) from dried palm fronds. By the time the fire was dying, I noticed the air had grown heavy and still. Distant peals of thunder and forks of lightning announced an encroaching storm. Ingmar, Ilonka and I commandeered the Da Capo's raft (which Dina had brought), and kayaked back to the boat through the pitch black night. We arrived at the Da Capo less than a minute before the heavens opened up and a downpour began.

 

 

 

 

 

72 Hours in Panama's Stunning San Blas Islands - 8-15-2012

From August 15th until the morning of August 18th, I was on a sailing charter that cruised through the San Blas Islands of Panama. I can tell you without exaggeration that the San Blas Islands are among the most beautiful places on Earth, and certainly one of the most beautiful places I have seen myself. A previous post talks all about why you should visit these gorgeous islands. This post tells the story of Day 1 of my sailing charter.


The San Blas Islands, Day 1:

Carti, Panama

The first day of our charter, our 4x4 taxi picked me and several other travelers up from Hostal Mamallena in Panama City at 5:30PM for the four hour ride from Panama City to Carti. Only three of us, though would be doing the boat charter. Ingmar was a 24 year old Austrian guy who looked a bit like Harry Potter, if Harry Potter was 6'4" and built like a mountain. Ilonka was a 32 year old Dutch woman who turned out to be a former model and currently owns her own interior design firm back home. And of course there was me, the former economist turned backpacker. The scenery outside of Panama City is beautiful, by the way -- winding roads and dense jungle for hours. Around 9:00AM, our taxi dropped us off at a dirt parking lot a wooden dock and two water taxis. This, apparently is Carti. We waited 20 minutes for the water taxi to arrive, but it gave the three of us plenty of time to talk and begin getting to know each other.

The Da Capo

The 30 minute taxi ride from Carti to Captain Mats and the Da Capo was smooth and was very pretty. Light blue sky above, dark blue water below and dark green jungle in the distance reminded me I was along way from Los Angeles. We greeted Captain Mats, a sixty-something Swede from Stockholm as he helped us onto his boat. Once aboard, Captain Mats showed us around his 36 foot sloop, the Da Capo, and collected the $300 from each of us for our three night cruise.

Captain Mats is a former investigative journalist and media consultant. He worked for decades for the largest newspaper in Sweden before he and his wife started their own media consulting firm. During the post-Internet bubble of 2001 to 2003, many of his clients merged or were acquired. The successor firms saw PR and media consulting as a cost center and so Captain Mats' business dried up. He and his wife sold their PR firm, split up somewhere along the line, and he dedicated himself to his lifelong hobby -- sailing. His adventures took him across the Atlantic multiple times, through the Caribbean and for the last several years, to the San Blas Islands.

Ingmar, Ilonka, your author making friends in San Blas

We start our trip when one of Captain Mats' Kuna friends rows out to the Da Capo in his canoe. He comes aboard and greets us with a friendly smile. In accented, but perfectly understandable English, he invites me, Ilonka and Ingmar to Nalu Nega, the island he and his family live on, for a tour. "Bring your cameras and leave your shoes," he advises with a laugh. Damn good advice for any tropical vacation, I'd say!

The Kuna are friendly folks, but aren't shy about asking for a dollar every time you take a picture with one. Thankfully, there were plenty of other great shots to capture, including charming wooden huts, clear water, and smiling children who were gracious enough to not ask for money. Our guide explains that about 20 families live on this island and that his uncle is chief. The island has a school, a sparely appointed hostel, a basketball court and a few small stores selling bottled water, bug spray, soap and other simple consumer goods. He gives us a tour of his hut as well, a huge structure with hammocks and clothes hung throughout. Large pieces of thin, multicolored, patterned cloth partition the large hut into "rooms." There's no running water or electricity, but I'm still impressed at the small luxuries the hut has. The large luxuries of free time, a warm climate and a stunningly picturesque locale that come with living on this island leave me more than a little jealous.




Your author and a coconut in San Blas. Damn it was yummy.

Also awesome was sipping coconut water from a freshly opened coconut, which Ingmar, Ilonka and I did leisurely under the shade of a palm tree after our tour of Nalu Nega was complete. After Captain Mats' friend rowed us back to the Da Capo, we sailed east about one hour to Isla Pero (Dog Island). Dog Island is a tiny island that took all of 15 minutes to walk around. People don't go there for the hiking, though. They go there for water so clear you could see forever, so blue you think you're in a painting and so warm you'd think you had died and gone to tropical heaven. As soon as the captain dropped anchor, Ingmar, Ilonka and I were in the bathwater warm sea. Ingmar explored a sunken wreck just off shore. I swam with Ilonka to the white sand beach.

Isla Pero (Dog Island), Panama

I'll never forget how beautiful that day was, with its crystal water, warm breeze, dark green palm trees tall against a sky impossibly blue and endless, and my amazement that places this gorgeous still existed in the world. Also striking was how I was exactly where I wanted to be, and had wanted to be for a long time. Seven months prior (and for many months before that), I was unhappy, working a job I didn't enjoy and wishing I could run away to tropical island paradise where I could bask in peace and beauty. And now...I was! That afternoon, I realized that I was a long way from my old life, and I couldn't have been happier about that. It's a wonderful feeling to experience a dream coming true. I remember thanking God and the universe for my life a lot on this Panama trip, but never as much as I did when I soaked in Isla Pero's calm and beauty.

Ingmar, your author and Ilonka. San Blas Islands.

For several hours on this idyllic mid-summer afternoon, I alternated talking with Ilonka, and swimming around the island's reefs with Ingmar...a pattern I'd repeat for the next two days. Ilonka and Ingmar were vastly different people, but I enjoyed both their company. Ilonka and I thought about the same things frequently: purpose, building something for the future, living a life that honored our values and dreams. Her's was a life of glamor, adventure, but struggle as well. Through everything, she worked hard desired to be successful as an entrepreneur and interior designer. Ilonka had a great life story and I could see how it forged her into a strong, assertive woman. She guarded her sentimental side with a certain coldness, but it was there if you looked...and if you earned her trust. She wore a ring on her left hand -- part reminder of a past love her heart clung to despite him treating her badly, and part hope that she would find a new love who would respect her. Looking back, I think meeting her on this trip and spending hours talking to her in San Blas, and then back in Panama City, was my trip's highlight. There wasn't anyone I met on this trip whose company I enjoyed more than Ilonka's. Ingmar was young, adventurous and active. I didn't have much to talk about him with, but he could always be counted on to go swimming, sea kayaking or photographing with. Part of me envied his youth and all the traveling he had done at only 24 years old. How could I so easily have traded my youth for over a decade of stress and late nights at the office?

Sunset in Cayes Limones, Panama

The afternoon passed all quickly. Too soon, the three of us swam back to the Da Capo and Captain Mats sailed us east again to our night anchorage at eastern Cayes Limones. We anchored between three islands that formed a loose triangle between them. Much of the sea between the islands was so shallow, you could walk from island to island and stay dry above your knees. Ingmar was eager to go sea kayaking. I had never kayaked at all and I wanted to try, so we went together. I sat in the front of the kayak and he sat behind me. Ingmar's muscles were twice the size of mine, and his never tired. Still, I kept up as best as I could. We kayaked between all three islands, admiring their white beaches and green jungles from the water. Small bright blue fish swam beside our kayak. Brighter orange starfish on the shallow sea floor almost glowed in the weakening sunlight. I could reach into the water to grab one and barely get my elbow wet, the water was so shallow here. Tired, but completely at peace, Ingmar and I rowed back to the Da Capo for dinner as afternoon faded to evening.

While Ingmar and I were out, Captain Mats' girlfriend, Dina, prepared a sumptuous, creamy lobster pasta for dinner.  The lobster was fresh. Kuna fisherman had caught it that day and sold it to us from their canoe not three hours prior to dinner. I do try to eat well when I travel, and this meal was still the best of my Panama trip. The company was excellent as well, and we all talked, ate and drank the rum I bought late into the night.

After everyone was asleep, I found myself still awake. It wasn't a tense wakefulness, though. It was a peaceful, serene wakefulness that wanted to enjoy the evening. That night, I don't recall how late, I climbed up to the deck and lay down. Above me were more stars than I had ever seen before. Tiny white lights twinkled in the sky from horizon to horizon. The brush stroke that was the Milky Way was nearly directly overhead. The air was warm and calm. Gentle waves rocked the boat and splashed lazily against the hull. There under the stars, in the warm air, a million miles from my old life, I slept through the night on the Da Capo's deck.

Why and How to Visit The San Blas Islands in Panama - 8-31-2012

From August 15th until the morning of August 18th, I was on a sailing charter that cruised through Panama's San Blas Islands. I can tell you without exaggeration that the San Blas Islands are among the most beautiful places on Earth, and certainly one of the most beautiful places I have seen myself. And with 380 individual islands, some only yards long and wide, you can check out a new island every day of the year with a bit left over.


This post covers the history of the San Blas Islands where to stay, and how to get here. Subsequent posts will cover my three day cruise through San Blas (which was awesome, thanks for asking).




Isla Pero (Dog Island)

History of the San Blas Islands and the Kuna Yala Comerica:

The San Blas Islands are part the Kuna Yala Comerica, which is a semi-autonomous region of Panama. The indigenous people, the Kuna Yala, have had contact with Europeans since the 1600s and are a fiercely independent people. In 1924, they violently rose up against the Panamanian government in response to adverse policies affecting the area. Shrewd diplomats, the Kuna Yala struck a deal with the American military. When Panamanian military elements moved to respond to the uprising, a Yankee gunboat was waiting for them. Backed by the Americans, and powered with their deep sense of sovereignty, the Kuna Yala negotiated their own constitution with the Panamanians, and autonomy within Panama. Subsequent constitutions have ceded more and more autonomy to the Kuna Yala. Today, the Kuna pay no Panamanian income taxes, have their own governance and police force and control all development within the Kuna Yala Comerica, including the San Blas Islands. Panama takes care of all international affairs and military defense of the Kuna Yala Comerica, and only interferes in Kuna law enforcement in the most serious circumstances such as murder.

Kuna Village

San Blas Today:

The Kuna have severely limited commercial and resort development in the San Blas Islands, making the area somewhat "rough" for typical Western tourists. Don't expect nice hotels, electricity, or even running water if you stay on an island with the Kuna. Do expect to bathe in rainwater from a bucket and use an outhouse sitting over the water on an isolated part of an island. The upside is that the islands are nearly completely unspoiled; you get NONE of the obnoxious, high density resorts and high rise hotels that dot Waikiki Beach in Hawaii, for instance. You also get the clearest, most pristine water you may see outside of Belize or the Maldives, and you get thick, verdant jungles on many islands.

Fresh fish

Island Accommodations:

Several Kuna families in San Blas host backpackers in Kuna "hostels." Like regular hostels, these hostels have dorm beds and private cabins. The dorms and cabins will be spare...don't expect mattresses or electricity. Do expect some bugs in the cabins, and again...expect to bathe from a bucket and use an outhouse for your toilet. Meals are included in your stay; expect simple rice dishes and seafood. If you get hungry, though, nearly all Kuna accommodations offer guests the opportunity to purchase fresh crab, lobster and fish pulled from the ocean that afternoon.

Unlike regular hostels, you have to book these Kuna hostels either through a hostel or hotel in Panama City, or through a travel company like Panama Travel Unlimited. Different hostels, hotels and travel companies have relationships with different Kuna. So check around to see which place offers nights at the Kuna island most suited to you. Expect to pay between $35 and $150 per person per night depending on the food offered, island you'll be staying on, tours included, and whether you booked a private room or dorm. One hostel I stayed at in Panama City, Mamallena Backpackers, has relations with several Kuna families and offers a range of budget options to stay with the Kuna. Mamallena's owners also own Panama Travel Unlimited, which offers more expensive options to stay with the Kuna.

Travelers I met stayed two or three nights with the Kuna, but you certainly have the option to stay longer. The people I met cited boredom and "island fever" by the third day as their reason for moving on from San Blas.




So relaxing...

Sailing Charters Through San Blas:

Not looking to shower from a bucket? Rather not commit to one island for several days? Book a boat charter! My friends and I used our hostel, Mamallena Backpackers to arrange transportation to and from Carti, which is where the water taxi picked us up to take us to our boat. We arranged our boat charter by contacting a captain directly, however (see below). Mamallena Backpackers in Panama City, and other hostels and hotels in Panama City, have relationships with tour companies and boat captains and can definitely assist you. The list at the end of this post offers several reputable sailing charter companies you can contact, including the one my friends and I used.

Expect to pay between $125 and $175 per person per night for a San Blas Islands boat charter.




Getting to the San Blas Islands:

My friends and I used our hostel in Panama City, Mamallena Backpackers to arrange transportation to and from Carti, which is where the water taxi picked us up to take us to our boat. We arranged our boat charter by contacting a captain directly, however (see below). Mamallena Backpackers and other hostels and hotels in Panama City will have relationships with tour companies and boat captains and can definitely assist you too.

Expect to pay about $60 round trip for the 4x4 taxi ride between Panama City and Carti. Also expect to be picked up from your hostel or hotel around 5AM. The trip should take three or four hours. Taxes to enter Kuna territory are $3 and are payable upon entrance to the Comerica. The water taxi from Carti to the islands or your boat should cost $10 to $15, depending on which island you're headed to.

If you want to contact a tour company or boat captain yourself, start with the following reputable operators. Please note that different captains will have different sized boats, so be sure to ask about boat size and how many people the boat can comfortably accomodate.

1) Panama Travel Unlimited -- http://panamatravelunlimited.com. This company is owned by the same folks who own Mamallena Backpackers in Panama City. The company has relationships with numerous captains, and even some Kuna if you'd like to stay on an island instead of on a boat.

2) Captain Mats of the boat Da Capo -- http://www.saildacapo.com. This is the boat my friends and I used. Captian Mats has a reputation for being well...moody. He treated my friends and I great, however, and fed us really well. I would recommend using him, if you're OK with sharing the boat with his girlfriend (a great cook!) and their six year old son (somewhat hyperactive).

3) Yacht Latina -- yachtlatina.com. As of August 2012, this company has been operating for about six months, but has a positive reputation. They have two boats.

4) Sailing One World -- www.sailingoneworld.com. The One World is a custom-built 64 foot brigantine schooner. She's got plenty of space and plenty of sail to take you where you need to go.

La Selva Animal Preserve in Playa Carrillo, Costa Rica - 5-31-2012



La Selva Aniimal Preserve in Playa Carrillo, Costa Rica

Do you like wildlife photos? Do you like animals? If so, then you need to make visiting La Selva Animal Preserve part of your trip to Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula. The preserve will hold different animals than when I visited, of course, as their current holdings are released to the wild and as other animals are brought in. You can be nearly certain, however, to see many turtles, plenty of iguanas and an alligator or crocodile whenever you visit.



Green Iguana at La Selva Animal Preserve, Playa Carrillo

La Selva Animal Preserve in Playa Carrillo accepts animals injured in the wild as well as wild animals held illegally as pets. The preserve nurses these animals back to health and, if held as pets, socializes them with other animals in preparation for their release into the wild. The preserve receives animals from all over Costa Rica, and I saw several animals that were not native to the Nicoya Peninsula.








Margay at La Selva Animal Preserve, Playa Carrillo

When I visited in a rental car with several friends from Casa Brian in Playa Samara in late April 2012, we were given a tour by the woman who has run the preserve for years. The entire tour took 45 minutes (the preserve is small) and covered the names, origins, and habitats of each animal in residence. We started the tour near the preserve's entrance. Our guide showed us numerous mice, rats and frogs, each in their own spaces. The frogs were noteworthy for being particularly large, though they weren't very active during the day. After the frogs, we were shown several long snakes, all of which slept through my picture-taking. The tour moved on to a local bovine (like a pig, but bigger, browner and covered in fur), and then to several small leopard-looking cats, called margays, in large cages. One cage contained a mother, Maya, who paced restlessly, and her cub who playfully scratched at one of my Canadian friends when offered the top of his hand. From there, we were shown several colorful toucans and a parrot. The parrot didn't talk, but he seemed friendly enough.



Fat Squirrel at La Selva Animal Preserve, Playa Carrillo

From there, we were shown the fattest squirrel I had ever seen, sharing a cage with a lazy, sleepy tree sloth. If you've never seen a tree sloth, they seem to wear a built-in smile. This one was white and maybe three feet long from hand to foot, though he never rose from his sleeping basket. The squirrel was kept illegally as a pet and was being put on a diet (seriously!) at the preserve before being released back into the wild. After this unlikely pair of roommates, our guide showed us several kinds of owls, bats and nocturnal birds. The bats were quite inactive, hanging peacefully from their cage's ceilings. Likewise, the owls stayed in their cubby holes, or rested on their perches.

From there, we were shown the Iguanarium, which was full of emerald colored lizards sunning themselves on leaves and rocks, and the separate turtle habitat which must have had nearly three dozen small turtles hidden in ponds and in holes carved into cinder blocks, like turtle apartments.



American Crocodile at La Selva Animal Preserve

American Crocodile at La Selva Animal Preserve

The last stop on the tour was the crocodile pit. A single American Crocodile was held in a large concrete pool covered with water-borne plants. The crocodile came out of the water only when offered a whole chicken from local supermarket. He scarfed it down quickly then disappeared back into the water. He did pose for a few pictures, though, before leaving.

La Selva Animal Preserve, Playa Carrillo, Costa Rica

Once the tour was over, our tour guide invited us to stay as long as we liked. We stayed another 45 minutes taking pictures of the animals and flowers. We also inadverteantly disturbed a fire ant nest...bring some bug spray! The flowers at the preserve were beautiful shades of red, yellow and orange, and their leaves were the most verdant green I'd ever seen. Even if you're not interested in animals, the botanical photos you'll take are well worth the price of admission.


Find La Selva Animal Preserve by taking the road that leads south through Playa Samara. Follow the road out of town, past the various sodas and stores, past the small primary school on your right and into the deserted Playa Carrillo. At the second bridge in Carrillo, follow the dirt road up into the hills for about three minutes. La Selva Animal Preserve will be on your left -- you'll see a couple signs for it. Admission is $15, but includes a tour and covers a return visit in the evening when different animals are active. Please note that the evening visit must be on the same day as your daytime visit, otherwise you will have to pay another $15 entrance fee.


Playa Carrillo, Costa Rica

 From Playa Samara's main street, the journey is about 15 minutes by car and about 40 minutes by bike. Playa Carrillo is gorgeous when it's deserted, but it's only deserted during the week because Carrillo is a really popular Tico beach. Saturdays and Sundays, especially during high season, are packed. I recommend you visit La Selva between Monday and Friday so you can take pictures of Playa Carrillo when it is empty and at its most beautiful.

Night Hike Through Jungle and Afterwards - Monday 3-23-2009

By the time we finish booking, it’s almost time to leave for the tour. I head back to the hotel to grab my fleece. At 6:00PM the bus drops me, Ricardo, Fernando, and eight other tourists off at the Preserva Santa Elena, the Santa Elena Wildlife Preserve. Our guide, Christian, greets us, asks us to introduce ourselves, and then hands us flashlights. Besides me and my Portuguese friends, the group comprises a pair of Swiss girls, a pair of college kids from Detroit, an Israeli couple and two Englishmen. I snap pictures of the rainforest, dark green against a sky that moves quickly from blue to purple to grey. Moss covered trees tower above us as we follow a marked trail into the preserve. The forest is so thick that the trail becomes impassable without flashlights well before sunset. Christian points out animals as we come across them. Early, we see a rat-like creature the size of a small dog, a raccoon, a squirrel and white-faced monkeys stunned by the light we shine on them. The evening darkens and I point out the yellow glow of fireflies. Christian tells me that those are click beetles, flying beetles with a bioluminescence similar to that of fireflies. Click beetles glow for ten to fifteen seconds, whereas fireflies flash for a few seconds at a time. A click beetle lands on my sleeve. Christian pulls it off and gently places it on an open page of his guidebook. We gather around to see the two gently glowing yellow spots on the beetle’s body. The beetle then takes to the air with a loud “click,” disappearing into the night. We walk deeper into the preserve, and now the vast canopy of trees above is just abstract black shapes blocking out the grey, moonless sky. At ground level, the trail is clear but our flashlights barely pierce the thick forest surrounding the trail, our light blocked and diffused by countless leaves, branches, fallen logs, and massive trunks. Click beetles glowing yellow and fireflies flashing white flit across the trail ahead of us and then vanish into the woods. I marvel at how tree trunks can surpass several feet in diameter, and grow several hundred feet tall.

High in the trees, the wind alternately whispers and howls. Branches bend in the gusts, and then straighten in the stillness. Stars twinkle in and out of sight, hidden and then restored by the moving boughs. On the trail, the air is cool, damp and calm, moved only slightly by errant breezes. Crickets, cicadas, and the occasional songbird break the silence. Christian points our attention to a green viper high in the trees. Its venom liquefies the innards of the snake’s victims and can easily kill a man, he tells us. Further on, the trail opens into a clearing and I get my first good look of Monteverde’s sky. I openly remark to Ricardo at how many more stars I can see here than in Los Angeles. Stars I have never before seen lay scattered like diamonds on dark grey velvet. Even familiar stars glow white or red with unfamiliar intensity. Light grey clouds move quickly across the sky, carried by strong winds. With difficulty I locate Orion and the Big Dipper, hidden against a backdrop of stars I could never see in Los Angeles’ light polluted skies.

The night walk ends too quickly. The bus drops everyone off in Santa Elena. Ricardo, Fernando and I eat dinner at the Tree House Café, a second-story restaurant with a live tree growing through the floor to the second story. A live salsa band plays in the bar area. Taylor, an American girl from Georgia who is traveling with her friend and whom we met on the bus, walks over to say hello. The food is good – I have the Tree House Special which is pretty much Spanish paella – but expensive. ($5000 colones, or $10). After dinner, Ricardo, Fernando, and I find Taylor near the bar. We all sit order, drinks (my Corona was a needlessly pricey $5) and enjoy the night. We move to Bar Restaurante Amigos, half block away and 150 feet down a dirt road. The bar feels warehouse-sized, with a dance floor taking up roughly half the space. Strobe lights, and laser lights compliment the pounding hip-hop, reggaeton, and latin music. American college students on Spring Break and younger locals occupy half the tables, while the other half sit empty. Few people dance. We order another round of drinks (my Corona was $3.50 here, which still seems expensive since beer was $1 at the restaurant at Costa Rica Backpackers). I teach Taylor a few salsa moves and we all chat some more. About 11:45PM, I bid everyone good night and walk the one mile uphill to Manakin Lodge, enjoying the cool, dry night air the whole way.