Gardeners Blog

Will Giles' Blog on his Central American Adventure

I've recently returned from co-hosting a tour around Central America for cruise.co.uk and Gardeners World Magazine with Matt Biggs of Gardeners Question Time R4. After the doom and gloom of the month past, I snapped at the offer and one week later found myself hurtling towards the small port of Puerto Caldera on the coast of Costa Rica with 76 avid plantoholics. I was in a state of extreme tiredness arriving at the cruise ship Braemar after 24 hours of travel via Dublin and Orlando.  Of course we were all lily white (apart from the serial cruisers) and unready for temperatures in the 30s C. I do love the tropics…

Over the next two weeks, we covered several thousand miles, visiting a wealth of fabulously exotic countries through jungles and tropical gardens dripping with ridiculously proportioned plants, often with 100% humidity and the sweet scent of the tropics pervading our jaded nostrils.  During the voyage we had five days at sea, interspersed with visits to several Central American countries. On the – at sea days – Matt and I would entertain our gardening group with lectures and a gardener’s question time. Of course this had to be interspersed with eating vast amounts of sumptuous food and wading through a sea of sun bathers on the deck, though Matt and I were not averse ourselves to the British occupation of getting a tan that you can’t show anybody when you get back as it’s so cold!

entering the first lock (Mira Flores) on the Panama Canal at night at the front of the ship...

Our travels took us from Costa Rica to El Salvador, then onwards to Guatemala. These were all ludicrously beautiful countries with far too many plants to write about here. The height of the tour for most was going to be our transit thorough the Panama Canal – one of the wonders of the world completed in 1914. We were supposed to go through in daylight but due to a backlog of heavy cargo (I counted about 50 ships) we unfortunately didn’t enter the first of the great locks until after dark. Day or night didn’t bother me though as just being there at all was the main thing. Luckily, I had read a book about the history of the canal and the huge task of cutting through 51 miles of jungle, swamp and mountain beset by malaria and yellow fever with the death of 25,000 workers during its construction.

local plant centre in a small Guatemalan town

After another day at sea we arrived at the port of Cartagena in Colombia – South America. Our group was transported for about 45 minutes inland to a Botanic Garden at Turbaco cut out of deepest jungle with towering tress with an understory of Alocasias, Alpinias and countless tropical plants dripping with insects and moisture. Colombian police were everywhere to make sure we were not kidnapped! Cartagena old town is an architectural paradise of stunning Spanish colonial buildings, I just wish we had had more than a short handful of hours there…

Now in the Caribbean the ship sailed onwards across the coast of Northern South America to the Dutch Antilles islands where we called in at the port of Willemstad – Curacao. Having been there several times before on previous trips, Matt and I did what good gardeners like to do – we looked for local plant emporiums to see what local people buy for their gardens. Poor Matt was staving of a bug, so in the afternoon, after hearing a rumour that there might be a carnival somewhere close by, I hired a taxi with a couple of new found friends on the ship. We were whisked out of town to a village about four miles away bustling with activity, right at the beginning of the procession. We were bedazzled by ridiculous bright colours and ludicrously loud Salsa and Reggae with the largest bass speakers I have ever seen!

 ... the parade lasted several hours and was accompanied by Reggae and Salsa bands with the biggest bass speakers I have ever seen ...

The next day it was onwards to the blisteringly hot desert Island of Aruba, which I found a tad Americanised for my liking and very expensive. The penultimate day was spent at sea where Matt gave his final talk where we both bid farewell to our illustrious group of gardeners. Our arrival in Barbados meant the inevitable return that evening on an overnight flight back to Blighty where during my four hour drive back home I was greeted by a beautiful sparklingly sunny morning and everything was covered in fresh snow…

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