Jungles are muggy

Bet you all didn’t know that jungles are muggy! Even when it’s only 23°C it’s still muggy! The weather forecast says it’s 23 with a feels like at 28, and I certainly believe it. In fact I’m sweating like it’s 35.

Decompressed and ready

I’m ready for my next tour, I start the Panama trip today. I’ve already met my new guide Rafa, he seems great, and I  meet the rest of the group in about an hour.

I really should share some of the photos from my last few days on the last trip, including rafting and canyoneering. I’ll do that in another post because even with wifi it’ll take a long time.

Rafting from La Fortuna to San Jose(ish)

River rafting was awesome. Instead of taking the Intrepid bus from La Fortuna to San Jose, we loaded our bags on that bus and then took a different bus to the rafting place. They then took us rafting on the river and a few hours later we had lunch and they dropped us off at our hotel in San Jose!

End of another tour

 Intrepid Central American journey from Guatemala to San Jose Costa Rica has now finished.

My final two days were canyoneering in La Fortuna and river rafting a class 3/4 on the way to San Jose. 

Photos and everything to come once I’ve had a chance to received, download, and upload them.

Tomorrow I go across town into another hotel while I decompress and wait for the San Jose to Panama tour.

Doing these sorts of tours, especially Intrepid ones, really are a great way of experiencing places. I’d never have gone to most of the places we’d visited. Sure I’d like to have spent more time in some of them, but I’d never have gone to them in the first place without the tour.

If someone is thinking of doing a tour like this, do a tour and give yourself some time afterwards to go back to places you wish you had more time for (or simply plan to return at a later date and do it yourself).

We saw things!

 On the cloud forest walk yesterday, and the trip to La Fortuna, we saw animals!

Quetezals are beautiful birds, they have this very long tail and when they fly the tail waves back and forth almost like an ray. They really did remind me of a very beautiful eagle ray swimming through the air above us.

Don’t open if you don’t like crawly things

 Don’t open this post if you don’t like crawling things. Went to a guided night walk through a forest tonight, was very awesome…

A sleeping tucán!!!

Land borders

 Crossing land borders in most places, most definitely in Latin America, are quite a different experience than with airport borders.

The general flow is there is an initial check just to make sure you might be able to get through, that’s usually very quick, then you sometimes need to pay an exit fee — this will sometimes require going in a different line. Eventually you enter a line to get your exit stamp. Any or all of these lines could be inside the same building, or different ones, or outside. All of the lines could be slow. Depending on the country you may then have your bags scanned. 

Eventually it’s time to enter the new country, you may end up doing this in the same building, in a line right next to the previous lines. Or you may end up walking quite a distance to the next border. (Or driving if you have a car — something that can make it even harder and take longer).

Eventually you’ll have collected all your receipts and stamps and you can leave.

The part that is most weird is you can quite easily accidentally cross into the new country without having gotten the stamps. But doing so is generally a bad idea, as when you want to leave they will demand to see proof you entered.

Our guide tells us that pretty much every border here varies their specific requirements every few weeks. One week a group can be processed altogether, the next they must go individually. One week they’ll accept local currency, the next they won’t. One week you can pay your exit fee in the one line, others you need to use a different line.

We had been lucky and it’s only been around an hour to get us through each border…

However going from Nicaragua to Costa Rica it was 3 hours in the peak midday sun  for all but the last 10 minutes. Apparently there is a concert in Costa Rica tomorrow and lots of people are coming in for it.

Crossing borders is an exercise in patience. And more importantly, remembering “you have no power here”. Don’t ever argue, even with someone else pushing inline. Both of you will be thrown out. This happened to an American (not in our group).