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Letting the Locals Lead
Article by
Kevin Revolinski
Photos by Eric Busch, Jeff Booth, courtesy of ScubaCoiba.com
SO, BASICALLY WHAT YOU’RE telling me is, we’re on this island, far from anywhere, with a group of prisoners running around free?” I asked.
Gilberto, president of El Club Excursionistas del Istmo (the Isthmus Excursionist Club), smiled broadly and shrugged. Images of Gilligan’s Island ran through my head. Our six-hour tour had carried us in a rickety fishing boat to Coiba, a small jungle-covered isle off the Pacific coast of Panama. No cars, no roads, no souvenir shops, no tourist information offices. But, yes, prisoners. At least I was in the capable hands of complete strangers.
Coiba Island is both a national park and (until recently) a national prison, but being several hours from shore and reachable only by boat or a very expensive plane ride, it is not exactly a popular destination. Typically only the wealthy have the opportunity to see its pristine, monkey-filled jungles and protected snorkeling bays. But I—whom no one has ever accused of being wealthy—ended up racing with dolphins on the final stretch to the island and spending the rest of the afternoon face-down in the crystalline waters chasing orange and blue schools of fish and a sea turtle with a couple of new Panamanian friends.
“We go to places that no one sees in Panama,” Gilberto explained. “Maybe we climb a mountain and camp there. I go and I explore there, and then I mark a trail. Next month we go.” I had read about $1,000 tours to Coiba; I went for three days and paid $100 for transport, food, and a bed in the simple park dorm. The members of the club are Panamanians, not tourists. They get together a couple times a month, and each trip carries a modest price tag that barely covers their expenses. For the budget traveler, it is an excellent way to see Panama, and with people who consider you not a paying customer but a fellow excursionista.
Same deal in Italy. If it’s general outdoorsiness you want—hiking, climbing, mountain biking—check in with the local chapter of CAI, the Club Alpino Italiano. Each region of the country has a chapter with a yearly calendar of events. I joined them for a four-hour hike through the mountains of Aspromonte National Park to reach a remote and fascinating abandoned village. One of my hiking companions narrated the story of the town and its Greek—not Italian—heritage; he had been born in the village before it was abandoned in the ’70s. Then we swam in a pool beneath a mountain waterfall and explored a long row of gaping houses perched along a sliver of a ridge above two stony washes. It was better than any $50 get-on-the-bus offer, and none of the guidebooks or tour operators even mention it.
If rock climbing’s your thing, visit the local climbing gyms. I asked my friend Sonia Knapp, who has climbed her way around the world, if she had ever hooked up with the locals. “Of course!” she said. “In fact, it’s the preferred way to go and the way most climbers do it. Local climbing gyms in Korea accepted me as a member, but certainly Koreans were excited any time a foreigner turned up at a gym or at the cliffs. Likewise, I enjoy showing foreigners around, here in Colorado.”
Sometimes, getting specialized gear is what costs the most when you go with a professional outfitter. But the fellows at the Canoa Club Dolomiti have plenty of whitewater kayaks available for only five euros a day. They host an annual
European kayaking rodeo championship on the Mis river in the Italian Dolomites, and welcome foreigners who want to learn an eskimo roll or bomb Class IV Alpine canyons. Traveling with your own parapenting rig (like a cross between a parachute and a hang glider) isn’t too practical, nor is it easy to find one to rent or deal with liability issues. No worries. Join Zsolt Mihàlyfi and the Hungarian Cloud Base crew for a day of flying lessons, thermals, and tight spins over the Danube with Budapest spread beneath you.
Where there are wind and water, there’s windsurfing—and windsurfing clubs. Members of the eight-year-old Magna Grecia Wind Club ride the breezes that Ulysses once faced on the Strait of Messina between mainland Italy and Sicily. Year-round they’re out catching a nearly steady wind of 20 to 30 knots that whips them along a scenic coastline full of mountains, including the still-smoking Mount Etna. Would they take the occasional stranger in a strange land? “Of course,” says club president Gianlorenzo Imbriaco. “The idea of the club is this: to just get together and do it.” Sounds better than renting a board from Luigi the hotel recreation coordinator. To find these clubs, start on the Internet, of course. I quickly located organizations and Websites for a variety of activities, including some less-common pleasures such as caving and spearfishing. Petrus Zenter, who heads a club just for hitting the sand dunes of South Africa, says: “I’m in sandboarding for the experience and joy of it, not the money. The main idea was to get people to travel with me to share in the fuel expenses.” He started a Web page, and it took off from there. “Before that, my fellow travel buddies were mostly close friends, but since then I’ve met a lot of new people from all over.” But in non-English-speaking countries, local clubs aren’t likely to post info about themselves in English. Tourist information offices, university notice boards, gyms, and sporting-goods stores are also great sources for information. I found a university cycling group in Ankara, Turkey, just by asking a student on a bike.
One thing to remember is that these are not likely to be your standard licensed and insured professional operations. The members of an informal dive group might not be trained in the use of a decompression chamber. Likewise, don’t expect English instructions, though communication isn’t usually too hard between like-minded enthusiasts. And if you’re just casually interested in some light mountain biking, make sure the locals aren’t looking to make the highlight clips on the next episode of Jackass. In the same vein, you might not want to be identifying wildflowers and rare birds when you hoping to free-climb some
5.10 routes.
Remember, these trips aren’t free, just a lot cheaper than paying some professional guide. At the very least, you can expect to pay your share of group expenses. Sonia paid dues at the gym in Korea. CAI requires a day’s insurance, around $5, plus gas or bus fare. With the Panamanian group, I forked out $100 for the Coiba trip, but I knew it was an excellent deal. You can’t really put a price on making new friends and snorkeling unexplored crystal clear bays—but less than a grand sure sounds good.
LOWDOWN
How to start your grassroots adventures:
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