Of Chinese Canals And Spanish Treasure (#2 in river series)

 

For those of us who like to travel on rivers, San Carlos is a sort of a double bonus.  Maybe even a trifecta.

It's situated where one river, the Rio Frio, empties into Lake Nicaragua, and where a larger one, the Rio San Juan, empties out and winds all the way to the Caribbean, some hundred-and-twenty miles distant.

For those of us who like history as well -- the place is awash; in fact, it fairly laps at the shores.  Some peoples of note who passed this way:

• The earliest Americans, who settled there thousands of years ago.
• The Spanish, who sailed upriver from the Caribbean, crossed the lake and established a city, Granada, on the northern shore.  
• The Buccaneers, who later sailed up the same river to rob and rape said city. 
• The English, who came to lay siege to a Spanish fortress along the way.
• And more, much more.

Wow, talk about a past!  After a few hours exploring San Carlos, as boisterous and busy of a river town as I've ever seen, I heeded the call and headed down the San Juan.

Loading up to head downriver.

Hutch along the way.

A half-mile wide in some places, I discovered that the San Juan is both substantial and interesting to boot.  For we river explorers, a real bonanza.

Nowhere is that more evident than downriver at El Castillo or "the castle."  Named after the Spanish-built fortification that presides over the area, it is perhaps the consummate river town because no roads lead into the place; it's come by river or perhaps drop in by parachute, or else forget it.

 

El Castillo

Completed in 1675, La Fortaleza, as the fortress itself called, was placed there to stop pirates and other enemies from proceeding upriver to cross the lake and raid Granada, which had become a repository of Spanish treasure.

La Fortaleza sets atop a hill overlooking a stretch with rapids -- a seemingly strategic location.  Any boats approaching could be raked with cannon fire.  In addition, the waterway was then infested with crocodiles and sharks, which migrated upriver from the Caribbean en route to Lake Nicaragua.  It made for a dangerous place to have to take a swim.

Despite all this, the fort was conquered by successive waves of raiders, and the riches of Granada plundered again and again.

Nevertheless, give the Spanish their due -- it took a Herculean effort to build it out of that wilderness, and even centuries later it's still an impressive structure to tour.

La Fortaleza

Street in El Castillo.

Seen about town.

You can tell a lot about a place by just walking around, I've found.  Or as Yogi Berra used to say, You can observe a lot about people just by watchin 'em.

El Castillo is the residents going through the morning ritual of sweeping the sidewalks with bundles of straw lashed to sticks.  It is a pig, squealing for dear life, being dragged through by a rope...a woman doing your laundry in the river for $2 U.S., and then hanging it out over bushes and banana leafs to dry.

Woman doing laundry in the San Juan.

It's a mounted vaquero or cowboy romping alongside cattle across-river...or sitting on the porch of the Hotel Victoria watching the flow in the moonlight and listening to a chorus of frogs rise to a crescendo, then fall off -- over and over again.

It's the white linen napkins at the Victoria house...where the whole grain bread comes hot out of the oven and is served with scrambled eggs and tart blocks of cheese...and where the mango juice is served in stem glassware and a single room goes for $16 U.S. per night.

In case you're wondering, in this part of the jungle that 16 U.S. gets you wood paneling, air-conditioning and your own bath.  

Usually I stay at hostels for half that price, for a bunk in a dorm room.  As my father used to say, I was the last of the big-time spenders.  But for those couple of nights in El Castillo, I indulged.  (I don't know.  It just seemed right.)

Your humble correspondent in the lap of luxury.

Magdalena, manager of Hotel Victoria.

Main means of transport here.

Downriver from El Castillo, more history -- the skeletons of paddle wheelers lie in the undergrowth; beams rotting away, their boilers and piping encrusted with rust -- relics from that great American entrepreneur Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Back in the 1800s, he set up a system to ferry 49ers from the Caribbean to the Pacific, and then on to the gold fields of California. This very river, as well as those paddle wheelers, were part of it.
 
Which brings us to present day and possible history in the making:  Our old friends the Chinese want to build a canal through Nicaragua, a rival to the famous one through Panama.  One proposed route would use the San Juan, like Vanderbilt did, cross Lake Nicaragua, and proceed to the Pacific from there.

Another proposal, the most favored one, would use a river farther up north.  As of yet, it's undecided, as far as I can tell.  But supposedly a deal was struck and construction is to start in December.

We shall see.

Could massive freighters someday loom in out of these mists?

Red Hibiscus

At any rate, far too soon, it was time to move on.  I had a date, shall we say, with another body of water, alluring in its own right -- Lake Nicaragua.

I had decided to head back upriver to San Carlos and go for an all-nighter across the lake.  Little did I know what lie in store.  Even for an old Coastie, supposedly accustomed to such things, it turned out to be one helluva time.

Last look at El Castillo -- where even the dogs were friendly.

[Part Three to follow, next Sunday, March 2]

Jungle River To Nicaragua (#1 in Central America river series)

 

On the Rio Frio, heading toward the border.

Besides all of its natural wonders, Costa Rica has some interesting border crossings.  One of these, on the southern end, is detailed in a previous blog post, "In Search Of Panama Hats."  Another, even more out-of-the-way, I traveled this year.  It's located on the northern side, where C.R. butts up with Nicaragua.

To take advantage of low airfare offered by AeroMéxico ($268 round-trip out of NYC) I flew on New Year's Eve and landed in C.R. on Jan. 1.  It meant that I was 40,000 feet up when the ball dropped, but who cares?

After two weeks in San Jose, the capital, where I got dental work done, visited Dr. Montero, one of my chiropractors (the other is in Montrose, PA), visited with friends, made the rounds of various hostels, casinos, restaurantes, etc., I was ready for something -- something adventurous, that is.  Los Chiles came to mind, a little town on the northern frontier where you can transit into Nicaragua. 

I had wanted to go that route for years.  Mainly because I had heard that there was boat travel involved, and with such things I cannot help myself.  So I arose in the night like a ghost and caught the 0530 bus for Los Chiles.

Waiting to get passports stamped at Los Chiles, Costa Rica.

The bus trip, five hours, was the kind that I've come to love -- the road wound past sweeping green mountains, providing wonderful vistas of the countryside, and slowed through neat little towns or pueblos, as they call them here, providing glimpses of local life.  So it was a look at C.R. that I've  never seen.  

In addition, the bus was full, with people standing in the aisles, yet I was the only gringo or white person on board!  With the country a-swarm with sunseekers, backpackers, and the like this time of year it was a nice respite from the tourist zones.

A lot of the passengers were Nicaraguans (Nicas, as they're called) heading across the border to visit relatives or simply return home.  For whatever reason, I've always hit it off with these people, and this came in handy because some of them helped me with getting through immigration.  I speak some Spanish now but with officials barking orders and directions, demanding money for this and that, it's hard to figure out what's what and not get scammed.   

Eventually, though, we got through and headed for a brown, sluggish river down the road from inmigración -- the curiously named Rio Frio. 

 

A river ferry coming in at Los Chiles.

The name is curious because Rio Frio means "cold river."  However, it's about warm as wash water, as least when I was there.  Yet it's what makes this border crossing unique.  The river is the "highway" leading up north, across the international border -- the only way to get there.

It's not a scenic tour, as such, but it could be:  You cruise through trees and dense jungle alive with monkeys, sloths, cranes, storks, turtles with the most colorful heads I've ever seen, fish, including tarpon and snook, caymans, which are a type of crocodile, and more. 

In the wish-that-I'd-had-my-camera-ready department, we passed a dozen iguanas laying out on a branch, warming themselves in the sun.  They had a yellowish, even gold-like cast to their skin and would have made quite a picture. 

Generally though, I just sat back with mouth open, taking it in... 

Some kind of herons, I think.

Nicaraguan military shake us down mid-voyage.

Reminds me of the Upper Amazon.

As trying as they may be sometimes, I like to cross these borders.  Often you have to wait for hours in the sun outside immigration, only to be grilled by authorities or hustled by shysters posing as officials, but they can be quite the travel experiences.  

Call this one a border crossing with elements of a nautical safari.  Other such transits are scattered about the Lower Americas, but this was certainly noteworthy.

All good things must come to an end, and this one came to a rather grand one.  The Rio Frio empties into spectacular Lake Nicaragua, about a hundred miles across.  Quite a sight, after being on jungle-enclosed river for so many miles, to be unfolded onto that massive body of water.  Our boat steered toward a town simmering off in the distance, San Carlos. 

San Carlos, from the mouth of the Rio Frio.

Reception committee at Nicaraguan immigration.

 

We were entering another country, of course, so we had to pass through immigration there.  Under the watchful eyes of soldiers with AK-47 rifles, we hauled luggage off the boat and sweltered for an hour or so in line. 

Eventually the AKs were slung across their backs and they became absorbed in their cell phones, like much of the rest of the world.  I paid my twelve dollar entry fee, got my passport stamped, and wheeled my duffel out into rollicking, little San Carlos, to begin Part Two of my Nicaraguan river adventure.

San Carlos dock, with Lake Nicaragua beyond.

[Part Two to follow next Sunday, Feb.23]

In Search Of Panama Hats, Part III

                                                           

Along the Avenue of the Volcanoes.

It came to me up toward the top of Ecuador -- a revelation.  I was hopping buses at the time along the famous Pan-American Highway, a stretch known as the Avenue of the Volcanoes, when the trip became more than simply about hats.

Sometimes, here and there, I could catch glimpses of the peaks -- Cotopaxi, near Quito, at 19,347 ft; Tungurahua, towering over the resort town of Baños, at 16,500; and the highest of them all, sacred Chimborazo, at 20,702.  As well as others.

Tungurahua was giving off a steady plume of ash, while glowing red at the tip at night as if the mountain itself was perpetually toking on a cigarette.  Almost all of them were snow-capped, with symmetrical cone-shapes, like helpful pyramids marking the way along the High Andes.

For days the peaks had been playing peek-a-boo with me through swirling clouds and rain showers -- maddening for someone trying to take decent pictures.

Disappointed, I happened upon a religious pamphlet at a road station, with a definition of the word pilgrimage:

"...a journey, especially a long and arduous one, made to some sacred place as an act of religious devotion."

Fellow travelers on the bus.

Quite honestly, if I had just wanted Panama hats I could have gotten them in the country of Panama or back in Cuenca.  No problem.  And for less money than elsewhere because so many of them are made there.  

As it turned out, I didn't just want Panama hats -- I wanted their history, their roots, their core.  Actually I was on my own pilgrimage, of sorts, which is why I descended those mountains and endured that god-awful stretch of Ecuadorian coastline.

 A street in Montañita -- tourist trap extraordinario

Indeed, the beach towns that I visited were some of the biggest holes that I've ever landed in -- Montañita, Puerto López, etc.  I didn't leave them as much as flee them ASAP.  I can't say that I wasn't told -- other trekkers had warned me.  But Montecristi, the veritable Mecca of Panamas, was but a few miles inland, practically en route, so I thought that I'd breathe a little salt air first.

On these trips, I've learned, you have to go with it...go with the flow.  And the flow was spurring me away from the squalor and grayness of the coast, toward the interior, where the sun finally shone through.

The plaza at Montecristi.

Your humble correspondent -- under the big sombrero at last.

What interested me there as much as anything were the straw cutters.  Even now, in the 21st Century, they're still guided by the moon.  For five days in every lunar cycle, after the moon reaches its waning quarter -- then and only then -- do they machete down toquilla, the ten-foot-tall, palmlike plant from which the hat is woven. 

However, it's more than mythology:  The straw holds less moisture then and thus is lighter, easier to cut, and more pliable to weave.  It's something that has been learned through the centuries.  It's what gives Panamas, the genuine articles, that light-as-a-feather feel, that cock-of-the-walk attitude, that combination of style and practicality which virtually oozes of the tropics when you see one.

WOW! I recoiled, now this is what they do when you get to the source of something:  myths, lore, trivia, facts to amaze, and, of course, making them.  After drying and sorting and aging, the palm is taken to places such as this...

Glenda Pachay in front of her family's home/hat shop.

Regular households, really, which are scattered throughout Montecristi.  These are where the real work is done here, where the superfinos are made.  For some models, the artisans can take two months to make and the weave is so tight you can tip them upside down and they'll hold water!  In fact, locals used to use them to haul water.

Pop one of these babies on and look in the mirror -- you can see why they've become a fashion statement.  Not only does your look change but your disposition as well.  I angled my head higher, acquired a little strut in my walk.

  

 Flerida Pachay Anchunida at work inside.

For my purposes anyhow, Flerida Pachay about did it.  Spending time with this master hat maker and her daughter Glenda was both informative and a true delight.  Plus I came away with a sense of closure.  The mission was now completado.

Their household, and dozens of others in Monetcristi and nearby, are where the tradition of Panamas began, and where it continues to this day.  I had seen the process from top to bottom, and had even trod the dirt from whence they are grown.

Through this last month, seeking them out had been a true adventure, travel at its best.  Like all such endeavors, it had its ups and its downs.  But boy, what a pay-off.

Now all that was left, I decided, was to buy a few.

Back home with three different styles.

Finally, a travel thought:  Ecuador uses United States dollars as the national currency, which cuts down on some of the stress of traveling as you don't have to change money when you arrive, you aren't charged extra fees for credit card transactions, etc.  Which makes it nice and simple.

Un saludo a Ecuador for that!

THE END

In Search Of Panama Hats, Part II

   

Cuenca, Ecuador -- some 8,400 ft. in the Andes

Winding down out of the high passes in the bus, looking out over the city, I was struck first off by all the domes, shiny in the crisp, mountain air.  Cuenca is a city of churches, as it turned out -- dozens of them.  They seemed to be everywhere, including the central plaza area, which boasted not one but two cathedrals.

The "Old Cathedral"

Down, down our bus descended, until we entered the city proper...with the cobblestone streets, the four rivers winding through, balconies fronted with ironwork, beautiful courtyards with tended gardens within.  I became a fan of the place before I even checked into the hostel!  The Spanish influence seemed to be everywhere.  No wonder that the city has been declared a World Cultural Heritage Site.

However, I wasn't able to connect with the inhabitants as well as I had in other countries in Latin America.  Many Ecuadorians were descendants of the Incas and other early immigrants to the Andes, with a culture much more stoic and conservative than, say, neighboring Colombia.  Often I couldn't break through to them, especially out in the countryside, as much as I tried.

Nor could I speak with them that well in Spanish.  It seems that the accent or style I learned in Central America did not communicate briskly there.  Because this was disappointing, and sometimes exasperating, I decided to concentrate on something else...to wit, my unofficial "mission" there, getting to the bottom of those Panama hats.  

Hot on the trail.

As it turned out, Cuenca and its suburbs are the hat capital of Ecuador.  You can this see just walking around -- colorful murals and logos adorned walls, walkways and store fronts.  Indeed, los sombreros de paja toquilla, as they often call them here (hats of toquilla palm) are practically a symbol for the area.

And it's not just a male thing, by the way.  To the contrary, women favor the famous headware more than the men.  Many even make their own.  Amazingly, using special treatments for longevity of the palm fibers, some keep them for decades, even their entire adult lives.

An Indian woman, in Sunday finest.

Now, of course, even seekers of truth get hungry.  As many of you know, I make it a habit of sampling unusual or even exotic foods in the countries I visit.  I consider it part of the cultural experience; how you really get your money's worth from traveling.  And Ecuador was no exception.

Barbecuing cuy -- pronounced "coo-eee"

Now, exactly what is this cuy? you might be wondering...  

In a real culinary twist, compared to the United States anyhow, guinea pigs have been used for food here since the time of the Incas.  And probably even before that because the Incas weren't in Ecuador that long (arriving shortly before the Spaniards).  I doubt that much has changed in that time as far as preparing them.

If you want real fresh, just pick one out and the woman will reach into the cage, grab one by the scruff of the neck and...well, you get the idea.  The next thing you know, yours is being rotated on a stake over white, hot coals of carbón wood.

As for the result, it tastes like chicken, or squirrel, or something.  Nothing exceptional, if you didn't know what it was.  Rounding out the exotic foods list for this trip, I also had piranha (supposedly) down in the Upper Amazon, but that's another story.  Back to the search for the sombreros.

While hat sellers abound in Cuenca itself, and a few hat makers as well, eventually I found that the wholesale production was done in the outlying pueblos.  Little towns such as Biblián, and especially Sigsig, emerged as more like the real sources.

So it was back to the bus station, terminal terrestre, to use the Spanish, for a trip farther up into the mountains

The central plaza in Sigsig.

 
While Cuenca is sprawled out over elevations of eight-thousand-some feet, Sigsig is even higher. And I was huffing and puffing on my walks as it was.  The height affected me so much that, those first days in Cuenca, I was light-headed, tired, and had to take naps every few hours.

In time I had adapted to Cuenca's elevation, but when I got off the bus in Sigsig I knew that I'd be woozy yet again.  But no matter -- the quest had to go on; it could not be denied.  In fact, it put a spring in my step when I heard that they fashion Habana Clásicas up there while standing on street corners.  On street corners!  Can you imagine?

In Sigsig, they do make them on street corners...

...and in co-ops and homes and little shops...

Townswomen wear them to community gatherings.

Sigsig seemed to have it all, as far as the hats go.  And it was a pleasant, little place to boot, unfettered of souvenir stands and chain restaurants, situated between two lofty peaks.

Mainly though, I thought that I was finally there; the birthplace of the style icon itself, the place where Panamas came into being.

Then, disappointment again...I was told that, no, actually it didn't begin in Sigsig or Biblián or even in Cuenca.  Rather, hat-making migrated to this region from a little town called Montecristi, near the Pacific coast.  Flat-Landerville, as we call such places back in PA.  La Costa, as they call it here.

Hat production had been shunted away from there decades ago, I learned, to take advantage of the numbers of skilled weavers in the highlands.  Nowadays, the Cuenca area produces the most by far, but Montecristi still has the best, the superfinos.  Moreover, it's where it all began. 

As you can imagine, what choice did I have?  After three weeks up in thin air country, I was tired of the mountains anyhow.  A few days later, I returned to terminal terrestre in Cuenca and caught a slow bus for the coast.

[Part Three to follow, next Monday, Nov. 18]

In Search Of Panama Hats, Part I

                      

Tracks To Panama

Located towards the Caribbean coast, this combo railroad/walking/driving bridge marks the northern border of Panama.  Called the Sixaola crossing, from Costa Rica to Panama, it's one of the more unusual borders I've ever seen.

Making my way across a few years ago, dragging my trusty duffel behind, I had to squeeze against the railing as a hulking bus crept by a foot or so away.  The structure is so rickety, some places you can look between the planks and see brown water swirling below.  Smiley people pop out seemingly from nowhere to offer plastic bags swelled with coconut juice or hand-carved wooden necklaces.    

Passing over the first time, fairly dripping from the humidity, I peered out through the wavey heat with anticipation -- I thought that I'd get to the other side and find Panama hats hanging about on trees, they'd be so plentiful.  In these I had long had an interest and looked forward to getting one of the real thing.  What a souvenir to show 'em back home!

Was I in for a surprise.  Not only didn't I find any, except for "knock-offs" or so-so imitations, I discovered that I wasn't even looking in the correct country.  Like an international woman of mystery, the hats were a lady with a past.  And like so many things Panama, I discovered, it has to do with the Canal. 

                                        

El Canal De Panamá

It took time, but I learned that the hats originated in Ecuador, a country along the Pacific coast of South America.  (Panama is in Central America.)  In fact, the hats were developed in Ecuador centuries ago.  The palm to make them is grown only in two provinces along the coast, and the hats, the genuine articles, were woven there and still are.

Because Ecuador is an out-of-the-way country, with no major routes passing through and no place to market their wares to the world at large, hat merchants shipped them to the isthmus of Panama in the 1800s. 

 
There, the 49ers were passing through in droves en route to California.  There, later on, the French and then the Americans and others arrived en mass to make the Canal.  The wide-brimmed hats proved perfect to protect the workers from the blazing sun and were pretty spiffy to boot.  Accordingly, they sold by the thousands.

And there, the hats eventually underwent a transition, of sorts, at least in the eyes of the public -- from practical headgear for the tropics to fashion statement.

As often happens, a President of the United States might have set off the trend.  On an inspection tour of the Canal in 1904, Teddy Roosevelt snatched one up and soon after was photographed on a steam shovel.  The image appeared on the front pages of newspapers around the globe.  As he might have said about all this:  "Bully!"

TR at the Canal in 1904.

With his hat back in the U.S. later on.

In subsequent decades, everyone from movie stars to gangsters was sporting one and they became symbols of wealth and elegance.  Because the country of Panama was the prime selling point, they became forever etched into the collective consciousness as Panama hats.  Poor little Ecuador got lost in the fray.

Such misnomers are not unusual, of course; they appear throughout history:  The Holy Roman Empire, for instance, was not holy, was not Roman and was not an empire.  The Bridge On The River Kwai in Thailand, of book and movie fame, did not span the River Kwai, and the Canary Islands off Spain are named after dogs, not the little, yellow tweeters.  And so on and so forth.

Most people, you understand, would just let this hat thing go.  They'd buy a knock-off, sip a cool drink with a little umbrella inserted, watch the ships pass by, and go on with life.  As I said, most people. 

However, me being what I am, I was determined to get to the Source.  Oh, it had to wait a few years, until this September as a matter of fact, when I finally got to make a visit to Ecuador.

[Part Two Follows, next Monday, Nov. 11]