As a certified travel agent for four decades, international airline employee, researcher, writer, teacher, and photographer, travel, whether for business or pleasure, has always been an important and integral part of my life. Some 400 trips to all parts of the world, by road, rail, sea and air, involved destinations both mundane and exotic. This article focuses on those in the Central American countries of Belize, Costa Rica, and Panama.

Belize:

Belize, the first of them, was admitted to Belize City. Particularly adventurous in nature, his exploration included an expedition on the New River to visit the Lamanai Archaeological Reserve, a Mesoamerican site that was once one of the major cities of the Mayan civilization.

Located on 950 acres, it constituted one of the largest Mayan ceremonial sites in the country and incorporated more than a hundred minor structures, a ball court, and a dozen major buildings, the most notable of which was the Temple of the Mask, the Temple of the Jaguar Masks, and the Greater Temple.

Although most other sites offered similar configurations with surrounding ceremonial structures and plazas, the Lamanai site featured those that lined the west bank of the New River and New River Lagoon, with residential structures occupying the north, south, and west sections. .

Lunch under the umbrella of the dense rainforest here included typical Belizean fare: chicken, rice, beans, and plantains.

Altun Ha, another pyramid-provided Mayan archeological location about 30 miles from Belize City, consisting of a complex of tombs, pyramids, and temples, once served as a commercial nexus during the Classic Period of the Mayan Empire, from 250 to 900 AD Meaning “Rockstone Pond” in Yucatec Maya, it consisted of an artificial lagoon.

Ambergris Caye, just a short hop from the mainland in a six-passenger Britten Norman Islander turboprop, was the largest island in the country and offered abundant opportunities for swimming, snorkeling, diving and other water sports. Its Hol Chan Marine Reserve, one of the top dive sites on the Belize Barrier Reef off the east coast, featured the 124-meter-deep Great Blue Hole, along with significant marine life.

Accessed by golf cart from the small airport, San Pedro was the island’s main town and Ramon’s Village offered an immersion in tropical living.

Styled after the Tahitian cabins on the Polynesian island of Bora Bora, it consisted of cabins built from native materials by craftsmen using the same skill and techniques that the islanders had in the days of the tall ships. A sanctuary nestled in a tropical garden of Royal Palms, bougainvillea, lilies, hibiscus and many other types of tropical flora, was dotted with Mayan sculptures providing glimpses of the civilization that preceded it in what can only be labeled a Caribbean paradise. .

Costa Rica:

Costa Rica was visited on several occasions. Characterized by volcanoes, it offered numerous opportunities to explore and obtain information about them.

Located in the northeastern part of the country, the cone-shaped Alajuela volcano, for example, was more than 1,600 meters high and had a crater 140 meters in diameter.

The Irazu Volcano was another. Because its summit was near the tree line, the local area wind produced a virtual moonscape. Its many craters were lined with twisted and charred trees, and its rain-fed mineral pools were brilliantly colored.

Stretching to 1,657 meters or 5,437 feet, Arenal Volcano loomed imposing and ominous above the green slopes of grass that surrounded its base, and had been the most active in the country for the last four decades, its thunderous roar periodically piercing the lush vegetation. , quiet environment.

As a powerful symbol of the geothermal forces that shaped Costa Rica, the Poás Volcano revealed a bubbling, green, rain-fed sulfuric lake, surrounded by smoke and steam that rose from fumaroles at its bottom as the mist and clouds parted. The water, seeping through cracks in the hot rock of the lake, continually evaporated and formed pockets of steam.

A trip east along the Guápiles Highway from San José through the Zurquí tunnel transported me from the modern world to the Braulio Carrillo National Park, with rain and cloud forests, whose hiking trails and cable car provided views of some 500 species of birds and mammals. such as howler monkeys and white-faced capuchin monkeys, tapirs, Deppe’s squirrels, white-nosed coatis, northern tamandua, jaguars, white-tailed deer, ocelots, pacas, and raccoons.

Unique to a later ride was an off-road adventure. Made in 1984, it uniquely incorporated an expedition in a 7,500-kilogram Zyl Terra-X6, once a Russian missile launcher truck equipped with two 4.5-tonne, 600-mile-range SAM surface-to-air missiles, but later fitted with a bus cabin. Passing through the Estrella Valley and winding your way through banana plantations, you stopped at the banks of the Bananito River for refreshments and wildlife viewing.

Other notable areas were Alajuela, the Bananito River, Cartago, Limón, the Orosi Valley with its lush vegetation and coffee plantations and, of course, San José, the capital, with its Pre-Columbian Gold Museum, the La Sabana Metropolitan Park, the Cathedral Metropolitana (Metropolitan Church), and the Yellow House.

Panama:

Panama was also the destination of more than more trips.

Synonymous with the 40-mile-long Panama Canal, it attracted notoriety when it was completed in August 1914, allowing large ships to avoid the 8,000-nautical-mile circumnavigation of South America and facilitating their direct passage between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean through the Miraflores and Gatun locks.

A 30-minute drive from Panama City was Gamboa Rainforest, whose activities ranged from visiting an indigenous tribe, going on a night safari and spotting wildlife on the riverbanks, to staying at the Gamboa Rainforest Resort for ultimate luxury. of the area.

A trip of 600 meters, almost to the height of the treetops, in its cable car allowed to observe the local flora and fauna.