Panama and Volcan Barú

Tuesday February 23. Left without breakfast to go shopping in San Isidro. The bakery items we bought weren’t as tasty as they looked. The Pan-American highway down to the coast follows a beautiful river, then turns east to the border with Panama. The border crossing on the Costa Rican side was very confusing. We missed the checkpoint and had to go back. The adjudante was a young guy who was very pleasant and spoke pretty good English. I wondered to myself whether this was his chosen career or a way point toward further education. He said he was married and liked this job well enough for long term. On hearing of our plans to come back through Costa Rica in just a few days, the aduana suspended our permit and gave us the paperwork to reinstate it on our return. The Panama side was pretty standard—migration entrance form, customs form for the car, insurance and fumigation—and easy because their administrative process is a little more streamlined and they use US dollars. An hour and a half total.

The next stop was the city of David, the largest city in western Panama. A wreck had slowed traffic to a crawl, so we pulled off in a parking lot to eat lunch, then used back roads and maps.me to get

Street scene in David, Panama

into town. It was hot and congested. We finally found a place to park a couple blocks from the central park and walked around and around asking a dozen people where to find the tourist office. We never found one. We then asked people where to buy a highway map. We never found one. We then went to a hotel restaurant that was air conditioned and had hot tea and a cold drink. There was an older “ugly American” in the restaurant who didn’t speak Spanish and was dickering with the waiter who didn’t speak English about exactly what the club sandwich included, what kind of bread and how it would be toasted. I offered to translate, which they both appreciated. I learned that the guy was ex-military, had lived in Panama for 15 years, and when he became eligible for Medicare learned that he had to move back to the States to get his medical care covered. He likes to come back to Panama to visit friends. How can you live in Panama for 15 years and not speak Spanish?

The hotel clerk drew us a map to get us on the highway north to Boquete, the gateway to Volcan Barú National Park. That and maps.me got us there in less than an hour. Ioverlander found us a good place to camp: Pension Topas, run by a German ex-pat. There were several other RV campers as well as a few tent campers and several lodgers. They were majority Germans, with a few Canadians, French, Dutch and Americans, and one Iraqi-German who had very strong opinions about George Bush (negative), Barack Obama (positive) and recent history in the middle east. He was from Bagdad. A German couple showed us their custom built travel van and oriented us to the kitchen, bath and internet facilities at the Pension. A couple young Germans told us about their night climb up Volcan Barú and helped us formulate our climb plan.

Wednesday February 24. We spent most of the day at Pension Topas catching up on internet and getting ready for our hike up Volcan Barú. Took a big load to the laundry down the street and explored the town.  Drove up to the trailhead at 4pm, met a couple French guys who were also planning to climb, cooked ramen for dinner, and went to sleep for a few hours. It would have been the perfect plan, except that a guy in a black Chevy Yukon and his girlfriend parked across the road from us for a romantic tryst, complete with a soundtrack of radio, giggles, doors opening and closing, and electronic door alarms. They didn’t leave until we got up for our hike.

Thursday February 25. We got up at 11:30pm and were on the trail by 12:20—except that my watch was still on Costa Rica time, and it was really an hour later Panama time. All the other hikers had

View from Volcan Baru at sunrise

gone up at midnight or 1:00 Panama time. Fortunately the sun and moon were also running late, and we made better than average time, so Mike summited just at sunrise and Sharman arrived shortly after, about 6:50 Panama time.

The view from the top was dramatic: the Pacific coast and ocean on one side, and a dramatic cloudscape on the Caribbean side. Maybe we were looking at a bit of water under the clouds, maybe not. We could also see Chirripó sticking though up on the Costa Rica side. Except for the summit rock itself, the crest of the peak is covered with a forest of cell towers. But the most unique thing about this climb is the trail

The "road" up Volcan Baru

itself. It is a 4WD track used by the cell tower workers and the occasional tour vehicle. But it is not like any 4WD road we have ever seen: it is very rough, some of it like a streambed with boulders in a narrow canyon, without the water. I couldn’t imagine a truck getting through. So I was eager to see one of these mystery vehicles. And on the way down we were gratified to see two of them. They are standard vehicles outfitted with giant, oversized tires that stick out like race car wheels and ride high, like maybe 24 or 30” of clearance. Even so they sometimes scrape bottom, as we could see the oil smudges and leaks on the rocks. And I never got to see how they fit through the narrowest spots.

Volcan Barú is 11,411 ft (3478 m). The hike is 14.5km each way, with about 6400 feet of elevation gain (including the downs-and-up-agains). The first half of the trail is steeper than the second half, so as the altitude gets harder the trail gets easier. Even so, the altitude-handicapped Sharman is ready to swear off anything over 10,000 feet. Maybe if she and her digestive system had had a little more time to forget the grueling ordeal on Chirripó she would have been a little more enthusiastic.

We were back in town by 10:30 am, checked in to our RV park, popped the top, and went down for a nap by 11.

After cleaning up a bit, we went out for lunch and errands. Found a homey little restaurant that fed us a vegetarian lunch for two for about $7. There was a blues band playing in the city square as a warm-up for the jazz and blues festival starting the next day. The band members looked Norte Americano, except for the girl singing a Bonnie Raitt song who only sounded Norte Americana. The sosteria repaired my torn shirt for $2 and the zapatero repaired the torn loop on my hiking boot for $2. Stopped at the supermarket, the Spanish wine store, and a couple produce stands. All the ATMs in town charge $4 for cash withdrawals, so we skipped that and spent our last $4 on beer. The guy who owns the “Big Daddy’s” restaurant spent his career running a car dealership in Washington DC, burned out after his sons left for college, chucked it all and moved to Panama.