Sometimes a lemon (Limon).

29 December 2007

Puerto Limón, Costa Rica

Yesterday was the first time I didn’t get off the ship when I had the opportunity. It was Colon, Panama and as part of my new austerity plan I stayed on the ship for the few hours that we were in port. A number of people had given warnings about how potentially dangerous the place was and that outside the port area itself the risk of being mugged was fairly high, all of which made it pretty tempting to me (seriously) but I still made the decision to just stay onboard and get a few extra hours of sleep to try and make up some of the deficit I was building up. Today is a different story though. Today is Puerto Limon and I have just gotten back from walking around the town.

But, on to today.

Puerto Limon is a port. No two ways about it, this is a town that is a working port first and a place for tourists second. I have a feeling that the majority of passengers either do organised tours, being picked up and dropped back at the dock, or they don’t venture much further that the first couple of bar/restaurants one or two hundred metres from the ship. The slightly scared and confused looks on the faces of the few passengers that I did encounter as I wandered the streets further away gave me the impression that they felt a little intimidated by the surroundings and longed for a Diamonds International to seek refuge in. Unfortunately there are no major duty free stores and everything, short of the initial gauntlet of stalls you have to pass through to get out of the dock and into the streets, is geared towards the locals. It is a real town and makes very few apologies for that. There are no price tags in $US and even the meal of roast pork, rice, beans and mashed potatoes I bought had to be converted on a calculator and the total shown to me so I would know how much to pay. The $5 I paid for the food and a coke was excellent value though and goes a long way towards underscoring the fact that it is not only more authentic to eat away from the tourist haunts but can be cheaper and probably better for the local economy as well. I don’t know how much of the money from all those Carlos & Charlies and Hardrock’s stay in the local pockets.

It is raining today and it’s the sort of gray sky that has a feeling of permanence and solidity about it, a drizzle that just soaks in, wets you through and gives everything a monochrome visage despite how warm and colourful it may normally look under that tropical sun. It’s a day that will colour every view and opinion you may have about a place and give an unfair impression. Very few places are at their best in the rain and Puerto Limon started out by not giving me much of a positive impression at all. We do come back here in about ten days though, on our way to Panama, the canal and then the Pacific. If I am free to get off the boat I hope that the weather will be kinder then and the first impression can be redone in a blaze of sunshine rather than a haze of rain.

Getting off the ship it was a short walk from the gangway to the port building along a path defined by orange traffic cones and crossed occasionally by trucks hauling containers or stacked with cars. It is a working port and was still working even on this Saturday. To get out of the port building I passed through a maze of little stands, all covered in makeshift awnings of tarpaulins and plastic sheets trying to keep the water off the goods displayed. I had to walk in a slight crouch as I threaded my way through, careful not to disturb the water pooled in the covers above me and send it showering down on someone’s merchandise.

Getting through and out I was met with one of the most uninspiring first views of a town I’ve experienced so far. The rubbish floating in the water around the ship should have been a clue, without doubt the dirtiest water I’ve seen in a long time, but the town itself has a frontier, ramshackle, rundown look and feel to it. If you do come here on a cruise then I would sincerely recommend organising a tour. If my roommate from my last contract is to be believed, and he was Coast Rican after all, then the country is beautiful and has so much to offer but I don’t know if Puerto Limon is the greatest advertisement for it. You may enjoy wandering the streets; I certainly do, but otherwise get out of the town and try to see the jungle, the thing that Costa Rica seems to be justifiably famous for.

I wandered down to the ocean front and found a wooden boardwalk that may have been impressive once but now as I walked along it I had to jump over the parts that were missing, gaping holes where boards had disappeared, and there was just a view of the surging water underneath. A couple of times I tripped on nails that poked up from the boards that were remaining and the whole time I kept wondering if the entire structure would hold my weight or if I would simply drop from sight at any moment like a suspension bridge scene from a B-grade movie. There was even a large concrete structure jutting out of the ocean that must once have been a building offering ocean views but now just sat forlornly and offered not even a clue as to what it may have been.

I walked back from the ocean into town and just began to walk up and down the streets. No duty free stores here, just the normal places that any large town would offer its populace and there seemed to be plenty of people about. This had a very Latin American feel about it since we are now in Central America rather than on a Caribbean island. The people’s faces have a Spanish look and Spanish is the language spoken. Gone are the Dutch, French and English influences of the islands.

As I said, it’s raining and that has a certain impact on how you see a place but it lacked the colour and flavour of Cozumel, my only other real exposure to Latin America. The buildings are rundown, the people rarely smiled and all seemed to be intent on getting somewhere else, although they may simply have been trying to find somewhere out of the weather. But it is a real town, not necessarily a tourist Mecca and you have to allow the locals that freedom to be real and not put on a façade for the tourists.

If you’re coming here for something interesting then take a tour. If you want to just sit in a bar then you’ll find a couple close to the ship. If you don’t want to do either of those and don’t fancy just aimlessly walking the streets, which can be fascinatingly rewarding in its own right, then just stay on the ship and chalk it up as a laundry day.

I’ll be back here and, roster permitting, will have another look around. Maybe knowing what to expect and better weather will colour my opinion another way but for the moment I will have to leave Puerto Limon as I find it.