|
We got off to a bright and early start. In fact, the lodge
manager Ernesto made us speed up as he wanted to meet a new load of tourists
who were arriving at the airstrip in the local airline’s Twin Otter. Just
before leaving Elvira, one of the Kuna waitresses at the lodge, managed to
find a few minutes to put a Kuna bracelet on Angela's wrist as a farewell
present.
When we arrived at the airstrip the embarrassed lodge manager handed us an
official looking document, beautifully handwritten in impeccable Spanish, to
advise us that the village chief had decided to increase the landing and
parking fee by another USD 20!
Our flight back to Panama City and formalities at Marco Gelabert airport
went smoothly and we were soon off again for Liberia, Costa Rica. Three
hours later, we were greeted by smiling faces and no anti-drug police in
Liberia.
We were just thinking this was to be a piece of cake when they told us that,
unfortunately, due to work on extending the apron, there was not enough
space for general aviation aircraft to overnight there. Flemming hadn’t
checked the notams! The friendly officials were prepared to bend the rules
and allow us to push the plane onto some grass to get it out of the way, but
we were out of luck. Some civil aviation person in authority arrived from
San José just then and told them that under no circumstances were we to be
allowed to remain there.
This meant we had to move on to another airport the same day, which in turn
meant that we would need to obtain permission for a domestic flight in Costa
Rica. (It was too late to continue on to Guatemala that day.) To obtain the
permit, the Operations office had to fax Operations in San José. As a
result, we spent a total of 3 hours at Liberia airport before we could take
off for Tamarindo, a small airstrip 15 minutes flight away near the Pacific
coast.
We found a hotel in Tamarindo set in beautiful gardens with swaying coconut
palms just beside a surfers’ beach. We just had time for some body surfing
in the pleasantly warm waters before the sun set. We dined al fresco in the
hotel garden.
|
