Trip Report
CR and Panama - Many photos with a little climbing [TR]
Sunday January 8, 2017 1:49pm
I haven’t posted in a while and primarily its because of being busy. Its strange to think I’ve been too busy teaching high school kids to post but thats just how life comes about sometimes. I spent the entire summer gathering information for the third edition of the Alaska Rock Climbing Guide that I’m hoping to push print on sometime soon but in a strange change of events I started to sub for a friend in high school. She was my teacher and mentor for college so when I learned she was sick again with cancer I took over her class until she could manage to return. In an unfortunate turn she passed away after I’d been teaching for a week. It was a hectic time where there were counsellors, principles, and crying students filling the classroom. It was only about 5 weeks into the semester and they were going to need a teacher. I decided to stay and teach for entire semester, while running my own businesses and writing this book. It was something beyond busy where time began to blur and I didn’t know if I was awake or asleep. And then before I knew it I was on a plane to Costa Rica and Panama. It came just in time as I’m pretty sure I was careening dangerously close to packing all my things and disappearing into an unknown place for a few years. My girlfriend Shasta was able to keep my grounded long enough to get on the plane and we were off. The first few days I don’t have any pictures but I’ll write this story because I’d never made this mistake before and it sort of took me by surprise.

When I was booking the tickets I was working a conference where I had to take pictures for four full days and the lack of sleep caught fully up to me. I came up to the room that I had access too and jumped on the computer. After a little bit of searching I found $500 tickets to San Jose. For Alaska the prices were amazing. I’d already been to Costa Rica but Shasta hadn’t and I figured we could easily get to Panama, my last Central American country and 50th total. I asked Shasta to double check the tickets, then I asked my mom who was also there and we all agreed the information was correct and they looked great. Click. Purchase.

The next few months breezed by with the idea of a trip always lingering in my mind. The tickets were there to help me collect my thoughts and think, “almost there, then the world gets easier.”

We boarded the plane at 2am fully exhausted from finals week and ready to sleep. I slept little on the flight because I just can never seem to sleep well. Upon landing we spend just a few quick hours in the airport and then we were in line to board our flight when we heard something that was not what we expected, “Now boarding to San Jose, California.”
“Whoa, wait a second.” I said.
Shasta looked confused, “What’s wrong?”
“Did she just say California?”

Yes. She had. We had bought tickets to the wrong San Jose. In my tired stupor I’d purchased tickets to the wrong place. In my defense the airport code for San Jose Cali, is SJC and for San Jose Costa Rica it is SJO. Also, its CA for Cali and CR for Costa Rica. Despite knowing I’m not the only one who’s ever made that mistake I felt pretty stupid. We scrambled with a nice service counter lady who helped us look up flights to Costa Rica. We eventually were able to get some flights, plus the cost of the extra ticket but minus all the fees and all we had to do was stay in Seattle another 12 hours until the next flight and fly back from a different airport. It wasn’t what we intended but it would still get us the heck out of dodge. After a short visit with my brother who happens to live in Seattle we were back on track and in Costa Rica. When we landed we went straight to the Ticabus station and bought a ticket for the next bus to Panama where we had a contact that would let us stay at his place for a few days. The bus left in 6 hours. We were beyond exhausted at this point but we were on a mission. We payed to stay in the hotel for 4 hours and it was totally worth it even for the short nap. We hopped on the bus and drove the Costa Rican roads, #4 most dangerous apparently and made our way to the boarder. The border went as well as could be expected. First it was closed because it was Christmas, then when we finally made it through one and on to other side the power was out. It took 4 hours in growing heat to finally get through the border and make our way toward our stop in David, Panama, which they passed right by and I had to communicate poorly with the driver that we were about 30 minutes past our stop. He pulled over and put us on a random bus and finally we met with Ken who took us to his place. It had been three days and I’d slept little of it but we’d made it and the fun could begin. After a good sleep that is.

When we woke the first we noticed was just how beautiful the area was. Our view was better then any we could have paid for. This guy was something we saw out of the back window.


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But the view from the front deck? Welcome to Boca Chica.


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Ken had a boat and asked if we wanted to go out. I think of course was the proper answer.


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While out he really liked to go fishing and of course I enjoy fishing as well. I am a big catch and release fan.


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Shasta caught a bonito.


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There were also tons of dolphins in the bay and would often play in front of the boat.


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Beautiful beaches. You can just make out the roof of where we were staying in the middle of the photo.


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We stayed on the right side of the big house with the red roof.


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After a few days in Boca Chica we escaped into the cooler temperatures of the mountainous area of Panama in a town called Boquete.


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We ended up getting upgraded from a small car to a Toyota Hilux, I really enjoyed this truck!


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Something that surprised me was that the climbing was actually pretty fun. They had some cool areas, although the hadn’t escaped the local touch.


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Ah the ever so popular double gri-gri guide belay.


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The Gunko area. It was difficult getting used to this rock but it was pretty fun once you did. I was out of shape from to much typing and not enough climbing.


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Stairway to Heaven area. Mostly 5.11’s and 5.12’s with some 13’s probable.


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Another hard area. A 5.13 went through the roof.


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Well we climbed until we were tired, which didn’t take as long as it should have and then headed off into the jungle an a popular wildlife viewing. Ever since I got a bigger lens I’ve enjoyed thse walks more as I can actually get photos of things!


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Dense jungle.


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A very popular trail called the Lost Waterfall trail.


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Foliage.


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Bridges.


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Beauties.


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I was curious what was past this sign. It turns out paying any level of attention and you would see that it was bees. Lots of bees.


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Everytime you’re in the jungle here it is beautiful even if you don’t see any wildlife.


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This is sometimes called the oldest tree in Panama. It’s probably the oldest near a road but either way 1400 years and several volcanic eruptions is pretty impressive.


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But lets be honest, I was there for the monkeys. Howler monkeys in this case.


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Who’s king? I’m king.


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We continued to the waterfall and it was neat too. Although we both feel jaded from Iceland, those waterfalls were pretty impressive. Not to mention we’re from Alaska.


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Whoops..looks like I used the big pictures, sorry about that.

More coming soon….

  Trip Report Views: 1,533
Prezwoodz
About the Author
Prezwoodz is a climber of all types from Alaska

Comments
Mungeclimber

Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
  Jan 9, 2017 - 06:48pm PT
nice! TFPU!
7SacredPools

Trad climber
Ontario, Canada
  Jan 9, 2017 - 07:16pm PT
Fantastic TR!
i-b-goB

Big Wall climber
Nutty
  Jan 9, 2017 - 07:43pm PT
Nice TR, is that the Devils Stackpile? : )
MH2

Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
  Jan 9, 2017 - 08:14pm PT
So wonderful. A delight to see.
nita

Social climber
chica de chico, I don't claim to be a daisy.
  Jan 9, 2017 - 09:03pm PT
*
Prezwood, Thanks for the T.R..

Always love your photos and writing, keep them coming..

Sorry to hear about your friends passing....

ps..get more sleep..

Cheers
Nita..
Ezra Ellis

Trad climber
North wet, and Da souf
  Jan 10, 2017 - 02:51am PT
Great to have you back on the site,
Thanks Kelsey!
martygarrison

Trad climber
Washington DC
  Jan 10, 2017 - 05:39am PT
San Jose vs San Jose...now that's funny.
Jaybro

Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
  Jan 10, 2017 - 07:55am PT
Very nice!
jeff constine

Trad climber
Ao Namao
  Jan 10, 2017 - 08:31am PT
The local climbing in your town that u put looks way better Kelsy.
Gregory Crouch

Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
  Jan 10, 2017 - 08:54am PT
Rad. During the Panama invasion in 1989-1990, I was the 23-year old "military governor" of Boquete and Volcan for about ten days... Had my platoon based out of the police stations in the middle of each town. Our takeover was pretty tense. My 27 guys augmented by a squad and a few other officers accepted the surrender of and disarmed about 250 PDF soldiers. (One of the other officers was Mark Milley if I remember correctly. He was our BN S-3, then a major and now Army chief of staff. He was a good officer.) Only after they'd given up their weapons did we all show ourselves simultaneously. You should have seen their faces. We'd told 'em we were the lead element of a battalion. Which was true. Except that the rest of the battalion was back in David. Did a lot of patrolling in the area after that, but never discovered the climbing, unfortunately. Beautiful area. Loved it.
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