Waltzing with Whale Sharks

“Coiba diving is amazing.  Boca is a party town”

That was the opinion of a fellow traveler in Cerro Punta, and that's all it took to rotate our heading from the Caribbean, to the Pacific.

The Island of Coiba and its surroundings is a national park, famous for large marine animals.  At this time of year, whale sharks are the star attraction.  They are the largest fish, reaching a length of 15 meters.  Being a meditating diver, I arrived at the hamlet of Santa Catalina without any expectations, or at least that’s what I told myself.

“They come and go,” said the girl at the dive shop “they follow the plankton, and for the last few days, they have not been sighted.”

Since I was still suffering from a nasal congestion, I decided to rest a day before diving.

‘Maybe by then they will come back’ I thought.

Santa Catalina is also one of Panama’s best surfing breaks, and I spent the day in the company of bored surfers, whose rest was imposed by the lack of waves.  The absence of swells seemed to overlap with the absence of the whale sharks, and I formed a neat nautical theory connecting the two.  As if to confirm my theory the dive-boats returned without a sighting.

Towards the end of our first dive, two in our group sighted a whale shark, but the low visibility prevented me from seeing it.

“It was an interesting dive anyway” I told myself

The second dive location featured many white-tipped sharks, but not the stars.  Before the third dive, a couple of people felt tired and stayed on the boat.

“This is a known feeding spot,” said the dive master, “just sit back and look”

He was right.  There was nothing to do.  The water was unpleasantly cold, and the cold current brings with it plankton and low visibility.  The underwater scenery was dull, and the overcast sky made it dark and gloomy.

'What a waste!' I thought while hugging myself, and after a pang of guilt, I relaxed into my mantra 'No expectations.'

And then suddenly, a blurry shape materialized out of the darkness.  It was huge and it came closer.  One at a time they swam up to the surface, lingered a bit displaying their spots, and then disappeared in the murky depths.  They swam slowly, ignoring our presence, and I grew bolder, approaching one within 2 meters. Judging from the photos, the biggest shark was at least four times my size.

‘They only eat plankton, but a side swap could hurt.’
Just as suddenly, they left.  Back on the boat, we did not have to speak.  Our smiles said everything.

Click here for a whale shark video  

Serendipity

Serendipity is one of the attractions of nomadic travel.   In this case, I found an enchanted forest.

Boquete, rejected us.  This famous town in Panama’s Highlands was celebrating the “Flower and Coffee Fair”, and all the beds were taken.  I was relieved.  A place where all hotel owners are white and all beers are expensive, maybe fine for expats, but is no place for me.  Instead, we headed to Volcan, which is on the other side of the Baru volcano.  It had the look and feel of a gold-rush California settlement, and was clearly my kind of town.  The following day, we continued to Cerro Punta, which is higher on the same road.  This village has a distinct European flavor.  Its clean streets, steep-angled roofs, and decorative flower gardens are reminders of the Swiss group that settled here a hundred years ago.  Men on horses share the road with Toyota Hilux trucks and with indigenous women dressed in colorful embroidered dresses.  The villagers grow vegetables on the steep flanks of the volcano.  However, agriculture went high tech, and it was not too surprising to learn that Israelis were the consultants behind the plastic greenhouses and the renowned strawberries.  In the village, we stumbled on the office of Ecotreat, which brews a good Cappuccino (that was the initial draw), and rents cabins inside Amistad National Park.  The cabins were built long ago, and were grandfathered into the protected area. 

It took half an hour driving up a tough 4X4 road to reach the site.  At an altitude of 2200 meters, the cabins are surrounded by forest, and within sight and sound of the headwaters of Chiriqui Viejo River.  As I stepped into the forest, I entered a magical kingdom.  The trees are huge, and the ground level is covered by dense tropical vegetation.  I realized that I found the prototypical cloud forest which I was seeking in El Salvador (Parque Impossible), and Nicaragua (Reserva Miraflor).  The atmosphere is cool, humid, full of animal voices, but devoid of any man-made sounds.  The scene is eerily reminiscent of the movie Avatar, and as I walked, I felt the savage within me getting ready for the hunt.  The trail was not easy.  When not muddy, it was steep and slippery, but we endured, driven by the quest to find the Quetzal, a small bird with a long colorful tail.  Looking for birds, first you hear them, and then you spot them.  Adi was my hearing aid as she pointed at various birds; pretty, colorful, but no quetzal.  Night approached, and our rain jackets proved useful as the cold rain demonstrated why this is called a Cloud Forest.  Nacho, the only caretaker on the premises, lit the wood-burning furnace, which easily heated the cabin.  At sunrise, when I ventured out to look for the early bird, the thermometer read 5 degC,

Pardon the commercial, but our time in the forest cabin (ecotreat.com) was the highlights of our trip so far.  Nacho claimed that later in the season, the quetzals can be seen from the cabin deck, and we booked another stay for our way back after the Carnaval.  Maybe this time we will be lucky.

  Click for a quetzal photo