Panama, Sort Of ... and Home At Last

Visitors to Costa Rica who are granted a tourist visa must leave the country every 90 days. Since The Kid and my grandkids also needed to do the mandatory 72-hour exit, we traveled together to the border town of Paso Canoas, where Costa Rica meets Panama, four hours away.

I was excited to see the southernmost part of Costa Rica. As we progressed southward, the mountains fell away to the east. The bottomlands that we drove through were abundant with pineapple, oil-rich groves of palms, and wide swamps of rice. Unlike our mountain climate, the air was thick and humid. Poverty was more evident here than in the other parts of Costa Rica that we’d seen so far. Ramshackle stores, dilapidated but still operating restaurants, and rickety shacks comprised much of the small towns that we passed through.

Paso Canoas is perhaps one of the strangest places in the world – and to think, this is the main border crossing between these two Central American countries.

As we approached the parking spots at the Costa Rica immigration offices, a handful of rag-tag boys ran up to the car windows, telling us they were for hire to guide us through the departure process. No necessito, The Kid told them, as he’s done this several times. After filling out forms, we stood in line a long while. Peddlars with carts offered shaved ice or fria pipa (cold coconut milk) sold in sandwich baggies. A barefoot man carrying an empty bleach bottle turned it upside down and stood near our line, beating on this drum and singing a sorrowful tune. Several tourists gave him money. After being scrutinized by immigration officials and a few questions answered, our passports were given the necessary exit stamp and we could proceed to Panama.

This is where it got dicey. Rather than drive into this next country, as one (yours truly) would have supposed, we left our vehicle at Costa Rica immigration and walked a few hundred meters to Panama Immigration to receive our entrance stamp in the passport. Here we stood in line again to repeat the same process.

This stretch of a few hundred meters between immigration buildings for each country is technically neither Costa Rica nor Panama. It is truly a No Mans Land – and a rather unnerving one at that. Several semi-trailer trucks were parked near the tall, open stations where all vehicles entering either country are fumigated. These poison-spraying stations are located near the places where tourists must stand to get their passports stamped. A few of the trucks looked as if they’d been there a while, slung with hammocks underneath their bellies with drivers snoring loudly in them.

No fence, gate or other boundary separates these two countries. In this twilight zone the north side of the main street is Costa Rica and the south side is Panama. This street stretches about a half mile in length. It is lined with rusted-tin shacks that share walls, one junk-filled store after another offering cheap, touristy goods from Asia. Bootleg DVDs, liquor and other such goods are sold on the Panamanian side. Cheap hotels ($8 night, we’re told), houses of ill repute and sketchy restaurants are on the Costa Rican side, which offers a broken sidewalk here and there, as compared to the other side where vehicles pass within inches of stores and shoppers.

Litter was everywhere, offset by large piles of rotting, sometimes-smoldering garbage about every fifty feet along the street. Narrow alleys of more tin-shacked stores were stuck to the backs of the stores fronting the street, and more behind them, forming a honeycombed, sweltering-heat experience for any who dared to venture in. Beggars were everywhere, and so were persons of both sides of the street who looked as if they’d like to shake us down, knock us down or knock us out. The Kid warned us to move quickly and not look anyone in the eye.

Technically, you don’t have to leave the confines of this border town to wait out the 72-hours. As long as you have your Costa Rica exit stamp and your Panama entrance stamp, there is no need to actually walk through the gate into Panama. We zig-zagged down several side streets in the neutral zone, driving away from the busy, sketchy areas of immigration, vendors, streetwalkers, hustlers and all sorts of persons waiting to prey on unsuspecting tourists.

We came to a somewhat pleasant residential area that also was home to several decent hotels for persons who were in-between countries. One could almost forget we were at the same seedy, weird and wild border. We stayed at a nice hotel where The Kid has stayed before. We swam in the pool, read books, dined in the hotel restaurant and basically relaxed and hid out, biding our time in this strange twilight zone that belongs to no country.

Finally ready to leave, we stood in line again to receive our Costa Rica entry stamps. This time it was a hassle as the immigration officer insisted on seeing verification that we would indeed leave Costa Rica before the next 90 days were up. He said he would not give us the stamps unless we bought five bus tickets to Nicaragua or elsewhere, that is the law. The Kid, normally one of the calmest persons you’d ever meet, demanded angrily to be shown the law book or to be given the stamps. They argued back and forth for about thirty minutes, while we stood to the side and tried to look innocent. Once again our street musician appeared, this time belting out his tune while drumming on an empty plastic gas can with a hole in it. The immigration official left his window and ignored The Kid for a while, before returning to sullenly stamp our passports.

We were back in the country. Or had we ever really left it? Pecos and I could not have negotiated this process, and possibly this place, without the good graces and keen-eyed temper of The Kid.

We decided to take the coastal route home, knowing it hadn’t rained in days and the narrow, steep mountain climb would be do-able. A short ways up the seasonal dirt road, the vehicle over-heated. My grandkids and I decided to walk on upward, while The Kid and Pecos waited for the engine to cool. It was humid and hot down in this coastal area – too hot for a hike but also too uncomfortable to wait at the vehicle. We hiked up an exhausting ways and waited.

Finally the vehicle emerged, straining to come up the jungle road before coming to a stop near us. Smoke poured from the engine and from under it. We waited a little while but my grandkids wanted to climb higher. Another exhausting half mile upward and we were admiring the flowers and ferns at the edges of this pathway. Suddenly, a five-foot purple-brown snake slithered across the road right in front of us! We three turned and ran down the road, back to the vehicle where The Kid and Pecos were under the hood, trying to fix what was wrong. The vehicle finally started but had a loud knocking noise. It would need to cool further.

Pecos walked upward with us again, past the snake’s territory, and we waited a long time until the vehicle came near, but again it overheated and this time would not re-start. The men opted to wait at the vehicle and attempt further repairs, but my grandkids and I decided we’d go upward and they could catch up to us. We walked up and up, now too far up to climb back down, but grueling to continue.

After another hour of climbing, I figured that The Kid and Pecos must have walked back down to the coastal town. My grandkids and I had climbed so high that I doubted we could get all the way down the mountain before dark. Our best chance was to plunge ahead and hope that we could reach the top of the mountain before nightfall. We had no flashlights and no water and it would soon be dark.

On and on we trudged, my seven-year-old grandson bravely leading the way, brandishing a walking stick. Thick clouds had rolled in. My granddaughter kept up a steady conversation as we slowly stepped forward. This road was deeply rutted with overhanging foliage. Insects chirped loudly and startled birds flapped up here and there as we plodded on.

Finally, two dirt bikes approached from below! They stopped and one of the drivers held out a note from The Kid. Bring his (brakeless) jeep that was parked at our place, and pick them up. They were still at the vehicle. One of these Ticos offered a ride upward for my grandkids and they jumped on behind him. The other motorcyclist looked at me, and I climbed aboard. What a ride! These dirt bikes high-jumped ruts, swayed through jungle growth where the ruts were too deep, and bounced us along at high speed. Centrifugal force tried to pry me loose. The kids were screaming up ahead. About a quarter mile further, they stopped and said the road ahead could not accommodate passengers. No problemo, I insisted, thinking they wouldn’t have left us in the dusk if we weren’t near the top.

I was wrong. We climbed on and on. I wondered if we were truly on a 45-degree angle. There was no end to this climb. We were thirsty, covered with sweat. Our clothes clung to us and we were mud-streaked. My grandkids faces were bright red, yet they trudged on. And on and on.

Finally, just as it became almost too dark to see, we broke to the top of the mountain. The jungle fell away behind us and we were on a real gravel road surrounded by rolling farm fields. These normally-steep roads seemed easy. We picked up our pace toward the last two miles to our village and I promised the kids we would stop at the pulperia for cold drinks. A farm truck climbed up toward us and it was the owner of the pulperia who had come out looking for us. The Kid had climbed downward to finally reach cell service and had alerted him that we were coming up the mountain. He drove us home, jumped in the jeep himself, and drove down to pick up The Kid and Pecos.

A shower never felt so good. The kids were cheerful and I told them over and over how proud I am of them, that surely no other kids their ages would have climbed that mountain without complaining. When The Kid and Pecos arrived, dinner was ready. The Kid said we’d climbed up a few miles and more than 2,000 ft. in elevation – a feat I certainly could never have accomplished before our daily hikes during this stay in Costa Rica. 