Costa Rican Mosquitoes, Team Cruz, and the Panamá Frontera

Palmar Sur, Costa Rica-Aserio, Panama

You can’t see monkeys in the wild for the first time every day. It’s just not sustainable. I mean, how many different kinds of monkeys are there? Maybe 20? If you rely upon new monkey sightings for your blog posts you’re going to be finished before you know it . . . 

Fortunately, the world has almost an infinite variety of insects. Especially Costa Rica. Ripe fodder for lots of writing . . .

The latest revelation on this topic involved our mosquito netting last night. Reality is I’m not sure I’ve ever used mosquito netting before. It’s not because I haven’t experienced mosquitoes. No. Quite the opposite. I’ve never used mosquito netting before because Minnesota mosquitoes would just laugh at this sorry barrier. 

In this regard Minnesota mosquitoes and Diana have a lot in common. If they want something on the other side – like human blood – for mosquitoes, or water to swim in – for Diana – neither is going to be stopped by a little half-hearted pantyhose fence. 

If you’ve been following this blog you will recall several examples of this on Diana’s part. There was the Missouri River in, well, Missouri – when Diana was almost swept to the Gulf of Mexico by the current because she was hoping to swim to the other side of the river and back. There was the alligator-infested lake in Arkansas. And there was the time in college when she literally scaled the fence at the town pool in Ithaca and ended up doing community service as penance for her sin. 

On the Minnesota mosquito front all of us from the Land of 10,000 Lakes know that no self-respecting Minnesota mosquito will be put off by a screen that is “mostly” good – that is, a screen that just has a few small holes. Nor does it work to have a screened in porch where the skeeters can come in through the floorboards. And for those of us who have stayed in a tent during mosquito season (basically April – October) we know that the tent better be 100% hole-less. And if you have to get up in the middle of the night to go pee you better have a serious plan for getting out and back in without letting a million of the little blood suckers in. This is because Minnesota mosquitoes – upon sensing the carbon dioxide emanating from the tent – spend the entire night buzzing around outside, waiting patiently for their one chance to get in and have dinner. I’ve never understood why Alfred Hitchcock made the movie Birds, but not Mosquitoes. Way more scary . . .

But after last night I guess I’m beginning to understand. The non-Minnesota world just wouldn’t get it. Not only are the mosquitoes down here small. They are also pretty pathetic. Minnesota mosquitoes would just laugh at their picayune cousins. 

Here we are in bed after biking all day – just exuding heat and carbon dioxide. We’re in a house with no walls. Literally. Floor boards? Massive spaces between the planks. We’re basically just big loaves of plasma floating in space – like a mosquito wedding cake. And do you know how many mosquitoes were buzzing around waiting for an opportunity to suck our blood? None. Zero. Nada. 

Let’s start with the mosquito. I’ve touched on this before – but it feels like a topic worth dwelling on. There is just a huge chasm between the reputation of tropical mosquitoes – they carry tropical diseases and all – and the reality of the little buggers.

Because if there were any mosquitoes at all they would penetrate the pathetic mosquito netting barrier instantly. First off, the mosquito netting is not zipped shut. It’s just gently overlapped at the edges. Like that would have any effect whatsoever on Minnesota mosquitoes. 

Gently overlapping the netting would be like telling Diana not to swim in a lake because there might have been an alligator sighted there last month . . . And then, worse, there are a bunch of just plain old holes in the netting. Netting like this in Minnesota would actually be worse than nothing. Because with netting like this the mosquitoes can easily get in – the holes might as well have WELCOME signs – like the Auto Hotels we see around here. But the worst part is that in Minnesota the mosquitoes wouldn’t be able to get back out again because they are so fat and unwieldy after sucking your blood. So you end up with even more mosquitoes around you than if you were just lying there naked – like in one of those OFF commercials . . .

All this to tell you that the mosquito netting worked pretty well . . . I don’t think we had a single bite between us . . .

The biking? Fun, as always. But no Wild Kingdom experiences today. No dramatic waterfalls. Just beautiful scenery and lush, lush, green. 

But there are a few other things to report on . . . 

First, we finally seem to have left Tourist Costa Rica. Don’t get me wrong. Tourist Costa Rica was great. Coffee shops. Indian restaurants. Vegan and vegetarian places on every corner. Para-gliding and para-sailing and para-lots of things. Even Jungle Pickle Ball.

But it is kind of nice to be back in normal Central America. More random things. Like the guys walking down the road carrying a huge load of banana leaves. (You just don’t see stuff like that in places like the United States or in Tourist Costa Rica.)

Better actual Costa Rican food. Lunch today was great. Rice, beans, ensalada. Stewed chicken. Nice portions. Much less expensive than in Tourist Costa Rica. And easier to strike up conversations with people because they don’t seem bored by yet another Gringo . . .

And then the Vuelta again. We missed today’s stage – which I guess was a brutal climb. But we saw three of the teams – Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Panama – pulling in to a restaurant for lunch after their race. We stopped, and ended up chatting at length with the team doctor for the Costa Rican team – Team Cruz – and some of the athletes. The team mechanic even checked over our bikes. (I’m proud to say that he found them to be in good working order – although Diana thinks he may have been a bit drunk at the time . . .)

The Team Doctor is some kind of surgeon. He’s not himself a biker but his cousin is on the team so he helps out. He told us how expensive Costs Rica is. He talked about his new car that costs him $2,000 per year – I think for the equivalent of license tabs, and also the high sales tax rate. I’m thinking “yes, but someone has to pay to keep the place this beautiful…” but I don’t say anything…

Afterwards we’re biking along toward Panama when a team car pulls over in front of us. Two guys get out and wave us to the side of the road. They grab some stuff from their car and we are basically sponsored by GU now. Neither of us really eats the stuff outside of races – but we probably have $100 worth of energy replacement at this point. So if anybody wants to come down and pick up a supply it might be worth the flight . . .

Finally, the frontera. These borders are basically such a farce. If you want you can just walk right across. No one cares. No one stops you. I swear the whole passport thing is just an elaborate ruse for people who like stamps. 

On a related note, one thing we’ve realized is that there aren’t really railroads down here. I mean, I guess there are a few – but they are pretty few and far between. I don’t think we’ve crossed a railroad track since Mexico. The upshot is that all freight transportation is done with trucks – which is probably one of the reasons people think the roads are so crazy down here . . .

But whatever. We need the stamps so that we can get into the next country . . . It is funny though. Even when you want to do the right thing at the border they make it difficult. We bike right along – past the huge line of semi trucks that apparently sit there idling at every border crossing – and wind up at a building with a big PANAMA on it. 

Umm, don’t we have to exit Costa Rica? After asking people, and finally going into the PANAMA building and inquiring, we figure out that we passed the Leaving Costa Rica post about 500 meters back up the road. I guess we’re already in Panama.

Is it just me, or should borders be organized so that you are funneled along as you go? You want to leave the country? Fine. You need to go through this building. You don’t go through the building, then you don’t leave. You don’t pass Go, you don’t collect $200. The people at Parker Brothers figured that one out a hundred years ago . . .

Next, you want to go into Panama, you have to go through the next building. You don’t go through the building, you can’t go on . . .

It’s not like you get to the border and there are seventeen different countries to choose from. Door one leads to Guatemala. Door two leads to Cuba. Door three – Nicaragua. . . . Etc. I guess I could understand the complexity if this was how it was. But with a binary system it doesn’t take a genius to make something sensible . . .

There are two countries with one border between them. Hire a high-priced consulting firm from the U.S. and they can tell you to build one road between the two. Put a fence up on either side and funnel people through. 

Oh, and by the way, I don’t know what’s going on with the semis, but, really, we probably double the consumption of CO2 in these countries just from border idling alone. 

Okay. Enough rambling. Bottom line – we made it through the border without much pain and we are now in Panama. Don’t have much of a sense of it yet – but, as usual, so far the people are super nice and friendly and we’re excited to explore our seventh country on the trip!