We left Carmen with teary
eyes the next day (23 Feb.), heading to Guadalupe, full of expectations
for some nice bird seeings for we were walking on the “Quetzal
Trail”... The landscape was amazing, once again, and even if the dirt
road leading to the entrance of the National Park semt like 100s of
kms, we felt very happy to be there J What also made the walk even
nicer was the fact that we got the chance to talk about environmental
and political issues with the park ranger: there is obviously a project
of building a road right in the middle of this protected area, just
because a faster connection between the cities of Boquete and Guadalupe
would “skyrocket” the price of the land- and what’s on this land? The
finca of the President and, even, of her political opponent... Sad,
sad, sad....
We went on walking up the trail with the bitter feeling
that maybe one day, this astounding and spellbounding landscape would
only be a dream from the past. We spotted an amazing bird, big, white,
with a lack bill and 2 very funny long thingies falling down each side
of his beak. We assume it was a Bellbird. Really cool!
The great
thing about going up in altitude is that the landscape changes:
starting from a rather brownish dryish area, we slowlu ended up in the
middele of really vegetations. Mist, mosquitoes, birds, cracks in
bushes and branches, humidity, mud, silence, small trees, big trees,
old trees, huuuuuuuuuuuudge trees, vines, bromeliads, ferns and green,
green, green just about everywhere! -Each time it feels like beeing in
a documentary of the BBC, Discovery or National Geographic! Great,
simply great!-
Half way on the trail we met the very nice “gringos”
we had got to know with Brad, in Las Lajas. They were going down, we
were going up,.they had sore knees, my ass was in flammes, again : -)
but hey! that was for the right cause!
We did exactly what we hate
other people to do. we talked, and talked and talked in the middle of
the jungle! That was a very nice break but after a while we parted –God
knows when we will see these really special people again...
OK, back
to the physical exercice, a long way was still awaiting us and by the
time we reached the top of the mountain everything was covered in mist
and it was pretty fresh. Guadalupe was also still far and now we had
to descend a few kilometers down to reach that village. Nature changes
slowly, again, and pretty soon we felt like we were in Switzerland –
very odd! We could see the results of deforestation and in the same
time understand how difficult it is to combine human interests with
nature conservation. But by the end of the day, we all need to eat and
we can not just pick food from the forest anymore. There goes
agriculture then, and meadows, and roads...
After such an early rise
and heavy walking we were quite happy to have a lovely bed in a cosy
and clean room even though we had to share our dorm with 2 other
people. But we should not complain, anyway, for we were alone the first
few hours we got there and our luggage was safely waiting for us.
Furthermore we had a 2 persons bed right under the roof, with a wooden
ladder leading to it –really special!
Nice breakfast, nice shower,
and we were ready for some new adventures again. Stef was feeling a bit
weak but when Brad surprisingly showed up in front of us we decided to
go walking a bit more in the direction of the International Park
Amistad. We went pass an orchid garden but simply decided to stroll
around the grounds and went on further the hills to lose ourselves in
the lush nature. Brad decided to head back to Boquete, 3 hours ride
from Guadalupe and we had to exchange our “farewells” in the middle of
a magnificent garden- not a bad and common way to say “Goodbye”!...
Stef and I walked, and walked, and walked, desperately looking for the
quetzal whose elusiveness was at that point getting to get on our
nerves ;-) No sign of it, but we to discovered some really lovely
trails winding around waterfalls, going up and down in the middle of
the forest and stayed there until the rain caught us up. It was getting
fresher and fresher by the time we got back to our dorm and were nicely
surprised to see that we got the room for ourselves! And apart from the
fact that we had some deserved privacy J, I immensely appreciated
our “isolation” when I got sick, “over” our bed... Once again, the
very “gore” side of me took over and managed a stunt for the pure
delight of Stef- God! I threw up in a restaurant, I threw up from our
bed down to the floor in a dorm - What’s going to be next?!!
The
next day I was not feeling brave enough to undertake anything so Stef
had to go walking on his own and met Robert Johnson, an American
painter pretty famous in The States, who was staying in a very fancy
cabin, up the hills, from where he could behold the marvels of nature
among which a few quetzals nesting in front of his nose–lucky bloke!
”The next day” we went to the Amistad Park, protected by the UNESCO
and strangely enough rather unvisited. We walked to an isolated
waterfall, going down the lush slopes and along mossy trees –We were
the only ones; lovely!
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