Golfito

Every three months we have to leave Panama for three nights because we are still on a tourist visa rather than an investors visa. We usually visit Southwestern Costa Rica, which is close by. The first two times we visited San Vito, but this time we decided to go to Golfito, which is situated on the Golfo Dulce (Sweet Gulf). Golfito is situated in very beautiful surroundings. And the centre is not much more than one road in between the bay and a steep hillside covered in primary tropical forest.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/loesroos/album?.dir=/cf21re2&.src=ph&.tok=phyAQkGBOu66MnBC

Until the seventies of the twentieth century Golfito was one of the main ports through which the United Fruit Company exported bananas to North America. When UFC left, Golfito descended in dire poverty. Nowadays Golfito is becoming an important port again, but this time for tourists on their way to the Corcovado National Park on the Osa Peninsula.

However, Golfito appeared to be a rather sleepy town. Nothing very much was happening and March is supposed to be high season for tourists. The main activity was caused by the arrival of a US coast guard vessel. Six weeks on the high seas apparently makes one very, very thirsty. Consequently, the bar of the local yacht club probably makes more money during the shore leave of those guys and girls than during the intervening periods.

The only indication of the high season were the absurdly high prices. Hiring a boat with an outboard engine cost 20 USD per hour, which is rather expensive if you are only two people. And although there were no other clients to be seen, negotiating a price was not possible.

As an alternative, we hired kayaks. Not very cheap either, at 6 USD per hour for a well worn single kayak with a very heavy paddle. And although the bay is very well suited for paddling around we did not get very far because Loes got very tired weightlifting the paddle. But we did explore some of the mangroves and saw lots of herons and an osprey.

We also try to do a few things that will help the company ahead. This time we collected some seeds during a walk in the primary forest on the hill behind Golfito. One of the fruits looks a bit like a chestnut and we also collected a few pods from a tree with lots of large purple flowers. Some of the seeds from those pods have already germinated. We have also made pictures of flowers, birds and lizards for the web site.

Kees also claims that everytime he goes birdwatching, he is actually practising for the future. The trips around Golfito were quite fruitful. We saw a tanager that only occurs around Golfito and on the Osa peninsula (the Grey-cheeked Ant-tanager, Habia atrimaxilaris) and a trogon that only occurs in the low-lying tropical forests of the Pacific coast of Southwestern Costa Rica and Western Panama (Baird’s Trogon, Trogon bairdii).

We also met a Dutch girl who lived and worked in Puerto Jimenez, near the Corcovado National Park. She is organizing tours into the park and was busy trying to forge relationships with European tour operators. She mentioned that she regularly got people who were looking for volunteering opportunities and asked for information on where to go in Panama. So she might turn out to be a very useful contact.