Panama City, Casco Viejo
(This was taken from the flight to David)
(This was the entrance to one restaurant.)
(This is the view from our jungalow out to another island. The fig tree is on the left.)
(A gecko on our mosquito net)
(These little frogs were about a centimeter long!)
(I wouldn't have gone up against this little guy!)
See both crabs above?
(Notice the leaf-cutter ant in the foreground)
We began our week in Panama in Casco Viejo, the old part of Panama City. Casco Viejo is situated on a prominence on the coast, and it is quite charming with its colonial architecture and squares shaded by large old trees. It features the presidential palace as well as a number of upscale restaurants and trendy bars, but also some crumbling facades and a hint of the poverty that remains as the city still works to restore the historic area. We happened to be there on Palm Sunday and watched a few elderly women in their Sunday dresses carrying palms. In the square in front of one church were a few religious sand paintings. Along some walkways are vendors and many people selling lottery tickets--Rough Guides says there are more than 10,000 lottery ticket stands around the country.
We stayed in a beautiful apartment just across the avenue from a 17th-century convent and church, crumbling brick with a bell tower. Nearby, at the point, we walked along a pathway (partly canopied with bougainvilleas) atop a defensive wall.
(Our apartment was in the building straight ahead, behind the convent.)
But not far, over just a few blocks, the town took a steep turn into poverty, with trash on the streets, blaring music, and a distinctly different energy. Jeff spotted a fire in the street. An older man stopped us on the street, "Do you live here? You shouldn't be walking here." It probably wasn't long, but felt like ages, before we made it through the slums and finally made it to a sweaty hike up Cerro Ancon. Cerro Ancon is a hill with a 360-degree (very hazy) view of the city, including skyscrapers along the winding coast, Casco Viejo, and the mouth of the Panama Canal. After our hike back down (circumventing the slums) we lounged for a long while outside a bar near the ramparts, under an umbrella, very much enjoying some ceviche and drinks.
(Above is Casco Viejo)
From multiple vantage points in the city we were able to see water craft of various sizes waiting to pass through the canal, but we didn't see any action. I was told that the wait for passage can last up to a week.
Bastimentos
From Panama City we flew west to David. I've seen quite a few inefficiencies at airports, and David's luggage system ranks high on the list. Two men carried the bags inside, calling out the numbers on the tags, and as we were behind another flight, the whole process took about 40 minutes. Mine was the last bag.
Luggage in hand, we drove a few hours north through the cloud forest. Our destination was the town of Old Bank on Isla Bastimentos, an island in the archipelago of Bocas del Toro on the northwest coast. Scuba diving was the draw, and I finished up my open water certification there.
To get to Bastimentos, we parked our car in Almirante. Neither our map nor the GPS was helpful in finding the dock, but one at a time, a small cadre of young men on bikes began to ride beside us, gesturing for us to follow them and laughing when we didn't. We finally caught on that they were trying to lead us to the dock, and they rode just ahead, their gangly legs a little too long for their bikes, pointing continuously and still laughing. The young men sported shirts from the ferry companies, and they clearly spent their days this way, redirecting lost tourists. We finally parked, waited an hour for a 30-minute boat ride to Bocas, and then took one more short jaunt on a small powerboat to Bastimentos.
(Above are photos from Almirante)
We hit Bocas del Toro during its driest month (March), with 188 mm of rain on average (we felt fortunate in our timing, in part because the steep paths were quite slick each time it did rain). The heaviest rain is in December, averaging 485 mm. The temperature varies little: through the year the average high ranges from 88 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and the low between 68 and 72.
We spent four nights in Old Bank. Bastimentos is carless and full of character, though on the character front I think we only scratched the surface. There are about 900 inhabitants in Old Bank, mostly an Afro-Antillean fishing community, but also a number of ex-pats like Michelle, our Australian host at Coco Hill. Homes and other structures are raised up off the ground, and they reach out over the water on stilts. Much is in disrepair, and some structures are a little precarious. We joked a number of times about the obvious lack of any sort of building codes, and Jeff swears there isn't a right angle on the island. There's a mix of languages, but the island is known for Guari-Guari, which Rough Guides describes as "English patois embellished with Spanish and Ngabere." Voodoo is said to be practiced on Bastimentos, and Michelle said she expected to see a few people visiting the giant fig tree on her forested property on Good Friday, to sell their souls to the devil. She told of one man who had sold his soul to be able to build a canoe in a day rather than the usual week. Michelle added that she figures if you're going to sell your soul to the devil you could probably ask for something a bit more valuable, and I tend to agree. We left Bastimentos on the morning of Good Friday and didn't notice any visitors to the fig tree.
Our Coco Hill jungalow, named after Coco the dog, was a 10-minute walk up a steep hill, past many homes, a small church, and a school. One side of our jungalow was only screened--no doors, glass, or curtains--and gave us a small view to the ocean past the abundant vegetation (including banana trees and the grand fig tree). For the most part it didn't rain during the day, but each night we got at least one short burst of rain beating down on our metal roof. Jeff was rather talented at mimicking the various animal noises we heard through the night. Michelle also runs a vegetarian restaurant, using much of the produce from her garden. We enjoyed breakfast there each morning, always starting with a big plate of local fruit, and with the same jungle-ocean view we had from our hut. (Michelle's son makes rum and sells it at the restaurant. There's a sign: "Drinking rum before 10 a.m. makes you a pirate, not an alcoholic.") We made a visit to Michelle's goats, mother Hilly and daughter Penny, who hung out with the small flock of chickens.
I always appreciated getting back to the jungalow toilet, as it was the only toilet on the island I used that flushed without a walk to the water with a bucket (and I should mention that the jungalows were well-constructed, with plenty of right angles). There was no way to get cash on Bastimentos, and water, power, wifi, and credit card machines were all unreliable and weather-dependent. (Coco Hill used rain water.)
We didn't use the mud boots that were available should we need them, but we did need flashlights at night. On the trail at night were crabs, up to 8-9 inches wide, that skittered sideways into their holes, enormous toads, the size of Jeff's fist, that froze and seemed to think they were camouflaged. I delighted in seeing them until we came right upon one massive toad that was dark in color, his eyes disconcertingly glowing red in my light. Two nights we spotted a tarantula that waited motionless in one of the cement block-steps of the path. During the day we spotted a number of strawberry poison dart frogs, who are known for their number of varieties on the island. They are no bigger than a thumbnail, most are red with black spots, and one we saw was only about half a centimeter long. One morph is the "blue-jeans" variety, with blue legs. Geckos and other small lizards skittered around. In a web on one trail we saw a goofy-looking spiny orb weaver spider (black and white and round and spiny).
(This guy was giant!)
Below are a few photos from a walk down the hill to the beach through the jungle, sort of the back side from our jungalow.
(There is a tiny red frog just below center sitting in this tree)
Humans on the trail into town were just as interesting, and the small old one-story homes sat right off the path. Among my favorites were a half a dozen kids, ranging from early elementary age to teenagers, skipping rope on the path. Two of the older kids held the ends of the rope, and all of the kids screeched with laughter when they failed. The smell of dinner often wafted onto the walkway, laundry dried on lines, and we could see and hear televisions at night. Local men were often on the path or sitting out on their old porches.
Further up the hill from our jungalow was a cocoa farm, Up on the Hill, which had a little outdoor patio and shop full of all sorts of things to peruse, like locally made jewelry, soaps, and cocoa products in unrefined form. Twice we gulped down chocolate in coconut milk after hiking up to the store. Taking that path further, down the other side of the hill, we reached Wizard Beach, a pretty beach strewn with coconuts and not too many people. The surf was rough, known for its rip tides. The path was sometimes steep and slippery, and we ventured upon a long line of industrious leaf-cutter ants making their own trail across ours. A few varieties of butterflies fluttered around. We didn't make the journey further along to the famous Red Frog Beach, as we learned that it was a bit more touristy (and an unlikely place to find red frogs).
The Argentinian owner of the cocoa farm recommended Firefly, a restaurant. So after a fantastic day of diving, hiking to Wizard Beach, and drinking chocolate coconut water, we headed west along the main, slightly hilly main drag, until it wasn't the main drag any longer, and we needed our flashlights to follow signs along a path out to the ambiently lit outdoor restaurant. The tables were widely spaced, and there were only a few others dining. Small white lights on palm trees, gently crashing waves, and a delicious menu of tapas made our meal idyllic.
I drank mostly papaya juice or Balboa, the primary and often only beer choice, which we often bought for $1.50 a bottle. To our slight dismay, we learned that Panama does not allow the sale of alcohol from Thursday at 5 p.m. through Saturday at noon during Holy Week. We had our lunches in Alvin and Roots, restaurants over the water in town (neither of which had flushing toilets). Service varied widely, but dipped as low as having a young waitress who just raised an eyebrow at me and continued to talk on her cell phone when I asked for the check. One day while we ate we watched a few vultures hop around on a dock, staring longingly at fish scraps in the water.
Walking that main drag by the dilapidated buildings on the water, music played at night, and often radios during the day. Plenty of dogs and roosters hung out, and some chickens perched on wires.
Any time we walked by the small dock at the center of the drag, a dozen or so people would be hanging out, and men called to see if we were looking for a boat ride to Bocas. One day as we sat out at Tio Tom's, a hostel and restaurant where our scuba shop was located, a handful of kids leaning over a dock nearby started screeching, as they'd caught an octopus with a hook. It escaped, but not for long, and the triumphant lot soon trotted off with it.
We dove with Scuba 6 Eco Diving. We learned about the formation of the Panama isthmus and how it helped to shape the variety of marine life on either coast. On the Caribbean side, where we were, the marine life is small and diverse. The diving was pretty shallow, and the water temperature was in the low 80s. We saw a couple of wrecks, and among the creatures we saw were arrowhead crabs, stingrays, pufferfish, lobster, and starfish.
When we did finally catch a couple of boats to get back off the islands, we drove a few hours to Boquete. To get there we drove back through the winding road in the clouded, lush mountains and over a ridge, overlooking a dry valley. We dropped through that valley, down a very steep and winding road, and over a couple of very narrow bridges. We looked back toward the ridge, and an ominous bank of clouds loomed over the mountains, appearing as if it was a tsunami soon to overtake us.
Boquete
We didn't get as much time in Boquete as we'd originally planned, but we did get a good view of Volcan Baru, the country's highest point, at 3,475 meters. We also got some pretty glimpses of an orchid festival.
Panama City
It was quite a shift, flying back to Panama City, and we stayed in the shinier side of the city this time, amongst the skyscrapers and casinos and the famous Trump Tower (curved, in the bottom left below). We enjoyed the night-time view of the city from the top floor of the Hard Rock Cafe, but skipped the $40 cover to get into the club. We did enjoy the people-watching around the entrance to the club.
(This is engineer Jeff pretending to try to figure out the wires.)
And then an early-morning flight home.
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