July 24

Tom and I can't believe what a long time it's been since the last post...was that a mis-date? Sorry about that. I can't use the excuse that we've been busy. This has been the most relaxed part of our trip so far. We had ambitions of going up to Bocas del Toro, but we fell in love with Boquete because it's so beautiful and laid-back.

We found a great deal on a hotel and stuck with it. After a couple of days we moved to a room with a private patio, with a hammock and a couple of comfortable chairs. We have been doing a whole LOT of reading and working on our pet projects for the trip. Mine is a translation of my entire senior thesis into Spanish, and I'm kicking myself for writing some of the most convoluted sentences I've ever seen. Tom's building an e-book library, and trying to master lock-picking and blackjack with books from said library.

In the last couple of days I found a great anthology of Panamanian and well-known Spanish American literature and I'm setting about reading that from cover to cover as far as I can till my brain goes numb...it has a lot in common with the anthology I used for a survey course in Spanish American literature, but offers an interesting perspective. It makes Hernan Cortes sound like the world's greatest hero. That wasn't my understanding of him to begin with.

I also developed an incredible fondness for cooking shows in Spanish, they are a great way to learn the language. There's a madwoman on the local equivalent of the food network (often featuring shows seen on the American food network, but not all of them). There's a show with a madwoman who talks a mile a minute; it's good practice to deal with some of the more rapid speakers we run into. I haven't seen much improvement in my ability to understand Spanish but it's probably growing piece by piece without my noticing, I guess that's the way that learning things goes normally.

I'm trying to get Tom to feel the same way about the cooking shows as a way to learn Spanish. We're making a tandem effort for him to learn as much Spanish as possible while spending as little on materials and such as possible, which isn't easy because my teaching skills are minimal even on a good day. I've been writing him lessons and he's been going through them diligently. Fortunately, he's having an easy enough time picking up vocabulary in social situations, but it seems that proper grammar has to be book learned. Maybe things will really take off when we're back in Colombia on Tuesday and every other person can't supply the Spanish words we can't come up with.

We have sketched out an itinerary for the last three weeks of our trip: we want to go back to Taganga for a while, because it's beautiful and we really liked the people who ran the hostel we stayed at. Then we think we'll spend some time in Medellin, check out Villa de Leyva (a preserved colonial town three hours north of Bogota) for a few days, then go back to Bogota for a few days by popular request (by Tom, who wants to go back to the Botero/Casa de la Moneda museum, he's become a real art critic on this trip...I guess he's gathering ideas for some art projects he has in mind, and telling me that I must think they're kitsch, which is only sometimes true). I'm not as eager to go back to Bogota as him, but I'm interested to see how I feel about it after having not so good feelings about it when we first arrived...not sure if that was just culture shock or something, or I really didn't like it. I'm pretty sure I'll savor our last few days wherever we spend them.

So at this point, I personally really prefer being in Colombia to Panama, it's just that Panama has so much that's in America as well (especially Americans). Some things about the sheer differentness of Colombia to us were really irritating, like when we were trying to shop for a camera and couldn't find a single one for five weeks, even in a shopping mall. Otherwise though it's been an adventure and a fun exploration. Tom says he doesn't know which country he prefers, but of course Tom is content wherever he goes.

P.S. Just in case you haven't figured out the trick, you can see our photos by clicking on the current photo in the "Slideshow" in the upper right corner of the main page of our blog. That will take you to a new page with all of our nearly 500 photos so far sorted out into different albums (very, very roughly so far, and with only a few of the photos captioned...we are working on it).

Off the grid

Due to incredibly popular demand, it is Tom who is posting today.
Unfortunately, today also marks our the end of our constant Internet access. We have come across an amazing deal.
We took a long walk to an animal refuge on Tuesday. It was quite a hike to the far side of town, and we were once again reminded that Panamanians are not very keen on sidewalks.
The animal refuge was quite neat, though, as you will see in the pictures. You'll see tamarins and leopards, cheeky monkeys and macaws, a toucan that likes to chase visitors, and a squirrel-like-whatchamacallit that steals food from the birds. The refuge was indeed worth the trek.
And because every mention of the animal refuge mentioned going to Fresas Mary after, we decided it must be a good idea. There we had the only good milkshakes we've been able to find in this city (the rest taste like cream cheese a bit), and a fairly delicious hamburger, before we headed back to town.
We made a stop at the tourist information hut to try to find some better deals on hostels, and that is where we came across our amazing deal. $12 a night for a private room with two twin beds, cable, and a private bathroom. This is our best deal by far on this trip so far. One thing, as I said, was sacrificed: easy wireless Internet access. We took advantage of it when we had it, though, so I think we'll weather through. For example, I managed to completely legally and legitimately acquire over a thousand science fiction and fantasy books, and I'll have a grand old time renaming the files into a consistent and easy organizationed pattern (I've settled on Author Name - Series title (if applicable) - Number in series (if applicable) - Title) (you can probably skip anything in parenthesis). I am finishing Kiln People by David Brin, and I am enjoying it quite a bit (drop an email if you want the full text). I've also been busy reading the Shadowrun (a dice-based RPG) player's handbook, trying to learn a format other than D&D. If anyone is interested in having a gaming group when I get home, you just let me know (looking at you, Uncle Kraig).
Well wasn't that an adventurous aside. Thank goodness, because there isn't much else to say. Yesterday we moved hostels, and it has been raining since.
I'm glad I have my files to organize.

July 15

Last week Thursday we went to see the Panama canal...we ended up enjoying it, though we arrived too close to the end of visitors' hours. We went to the Miraflores locks, where there is an observation deck four stories up and we saw a couple of ships pass through. The series of lock chambers was interesting though it made us wonder why it was preferred to a less complex, probably less expensive, and also possibly not effective ordinary trench. They never really explained that. Then we went into a little movie theater inside the visitors' center where the screen showed us an image of the ships we'd just been watching. We hoped we didn't pay extra for the full tour just for that. As it turned out they showed a pretty interesting survey of the canal's history. One guy swam the canal shortly after it was constructed, now they don't let people swim the thing anymore, he didn't die, but I guess it's too dangerous. Some ships pay hundreds of thousands of dollars as toll to pass through. There are two sets of locks and they are working on a third set. Panama has had full control of the canal since December 1999, the result of a treaty that was signed in 1977, and despite the 1989 invasion of Panama by the U.S., but the U.S. still has control over their money. I read this a Spanish-language guidebook for Panama - "They even made Panamanian coins the same exact size as U.S. coins so they could be used in machines - they thought of everything!" Cute and a little bit of a different attitude than we see in English-language guidebooks, or in Panamanians.

On Thursday last week we set out for Boquete. We intended it as a stepping stone for Bocas del Toro, but we really, really like Boquete (most of the retirees and gated communities are in the "suburbs" of the place, preferring to stick to themselves I guess, I don't think I've seen a gated community yet, just signs for them), so we might stick around for a long time. We still have to hit the hiking trails and do a coffee tour. If anyone wants to have coffee as a souvenir, let us know now, because here is supposedly the best coffee in Panama. There are just about as many foreigners as Panamanians here - they can be hard to tell apart, really, last night we were at a restaurant with some kids from our hostel, one asked a white guy at another table a question in English, and he remained confused until she translated it into Spanish. Originally the area was settled by North Americans or something so that explains it.

Anyway, the weather is perfect - spring in the morning, summer in the afternoon, fall in the evening, as one person described the pattern to us - though it is awfully rainy. We're kind of up in the mountains so it's all to be expected. There are gardens everywhere. We trekked up to a huge elaborate mansion called Mi Jardin Es Su Jardin - my garden is your garden - a few days ago, and it had tons of beautiful flowers and all kinds of crazy crap in it as well. I've never seen so many restaurants in one place, and they're relatively international, Mexican and Peruvian and so forth, lots of expensive options run by foreigners and lots of cheap ones run by Panamanians too; we prefer the latter. There are all kinds of super expensive tours offered, the only one we're really considering, aside from a coffee tour, is a private trip to a hot springs.

We're staying in a really nice looking place with an eccentric owner, long story short she seems to pick and choose who she likes almost at random and we're pretty sure she didn't like us since we walked in the door. There are two big dorm rooms with several beds in here and the first night she directed me to one of the rooms, which had five or more beds open, and Tom to the other. We're sharing toiletries, and besides we're traveling together, so that was a little bothersome, but I assumed it was sex-segregated until I woke up with a boy in the bed next to mine. We asked a different employee the next day and her face filled up with confusion and she said we could move into the same room. Today we're planning to move to move to a different hostel with the most amazing rate we've found thus far - $6 per night per person, discounted because we happened across a tourist information office and the lady was very nice and called around and looked for bargains for us. All we did was stop in and ask where a certain hostel was because we wanted to check it out. The new place looks really nice and we haven't seen it in any of the guidebooks. It's owned by a Panamanian family, which lives on the premises, we like that because it always gives a homier feel to a place and feels more like a homestay, without the "program fees", and gives us readily available chances to practice speaking.

July 8

We've cut our itinerary for Panama City down by a few days. There is a lot to do here but it's not a very pretty place to stay. We are getting kind of sick from all the fast food that's too often our only options and have eaten at McDonald's more times than we care to admit (it's often the only nearby place open on Sundays). Panama City is in complete contrast to anywhere in Colombia in that any chain was hard to find even in the capital of Colombia, here, you name the chain and there's one of them, even a Popeye's Chicken, I had no idea that Popeye's was popular enough to go international. Anyway, we have pleasant memories of Taganga in our heads and our next destination was chosen in search of a similar scene. We're heading to Boquete tomorrow, yes, one of AARP magazine's top places to retire 2001, as I understand it's semi-destroyed by the influx of gated communities that followed that ranking, but it's still a pretty cool place to be, famous for coffee and oranges with lots of good opportunities for hiking. If we don't like it we'll treat it as a stepping stone to Bocas del Toro, we've been told by people our age it's great.

Anyway, about the last few days, on Sunday we visited the Panama City Baha'i temple. The architecture was really interesting. All Baha'i temples have nine sides and a dome and a lot of gardens surrounding. The temple was built on top of a really high hill and the front desk told us when we asked that if we took a bus there we'd have to take a taxi from the base of the hill to the top. We figured we'd walk it since the guidebook we consulted (from the communal shelf...we still haven't bought one) said it was possible. We ended up taking a taxi the whole way and we were really grateful we did...it's a massive, winding hill. The view was really gorgeous though. Everyone is welcome inside the temple, the inside is very simple and rather small and it's designed just for individual prayer and reflection. We caught the tail end of a service, which consists of reading Baha'i writings and listening to sung Baha'i writings, that part's also very simple. We're not sure why, after the service, some guy took the stand in front and started to shout, by that time we were strolling around the grounds and we couldn't make out what he was saying, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't a planned thing. Tom called it a "performance piece". As we walked around the grounds we admired the view and the architecture; someone handed us some information about the temple that said it was designed by an English architect and built with Italian marble flakes and Japanese tiles and it was designed to mimic patterns found in indigenous artwork. I'm not sure why so many international resources were tapped to produce something pseudo-local, but it was really beautiful.

The next day we FINALLY bought a camera with a rechargeable battery. The prices here are a lot lower than U.S. prices it seems; I looked at some prices for the same model on the internet, and it looks like I saved about $60. Supposedly the battery lasts for 390 pictures so you're going to start seeing a lot more. Once we upload them.

We broke in the camera with a visit to the Hindu temple yesterday, that had potential to be a lot of fun, and it was interesting, but there was absolutely no one there to explain anything to us. We were the only visitors. It was a really pretty building from the outside, on top of a hill (familiarly); the cone shapes on top reminded me of what I've seen of Thai architecture a little bit. The structure was really open and airy and had pretty tile floors and a series of Hindu gods on one wall, dressed elaborately and with offerings of fruit and flowers placed near them. In one nook there was a statue of Guru Nanak, who founded Sikhism, and I'm pretty sure they Sikhism is a distinct religion so that was confusing. Maybe it was just a gesture of respect to another religion of India. In the opposite corner was a goddess with five heads and eight arms, more than I've ever seen. To go inside you have to remove your shoes, and there was a set of thick mats in a corner, I think they were meant for sitting on for individual prayer or meditation. Too bad we didn't have anyone to help us understand, I tried looking it up but I didn't find a lot of straightforward information, I guess that's not a surprise since Hinduism is not a very cohesive religious tradition.

Today we are planning to go to the canal - we've heard more mixed reviews about the canal than any other attraction. Surprisingly, mostly young people have told us they found it interesting, and mostly older people have said that it was boring. In any case, there is supposedly a park nearby. It'll be cool to see a little bit of grass again.

July 4

I've been thinking that if nations want to draw tourists to them, they should put more money into making their capitals nice, since tourists will more than likely at least have to pass through, and besides so much money tends to be pumped into attractions in them. Bogota was a frustrating place for its many homeless and its run-down appearance. We like Panama City, but it could use some major improvements. There is a lot of pollution and while it's better in the sidewalk department - facilitating thus the cheapest way to get around, good old bipedalism - than most of the cities we've seen so far, it has not mastered the art of the crosswalk. When I thought about it I could not really think of a nice national capital - D.C. is known for crime, I've even heard some pretty negative reviews of Paris, attractions aside. Anyway, so we're thinking we'll hit the attraction in the city and then move on to a nice small city or town, once we figure out which one it should be.

A couple of pretty interesting things have happened since we arrived. Wednesday was a national holiday and everything was closed. It turned out our crazy taxi driver was right - Panama did inaugurate a new president, Ricardo Martinelli (not Monticelli). I looked him up and he got his secondary and post-secondary education in the states, owns a chain of supermarkets, and belongs to the Democratic Change (whatever that is, naturally...I could not find any real information about it) party. So we had a day to explore the city and not feel like roadkill-to-be crossing the streets, because the city was pretty dead.

Also, last night I woke up to my bed shaking. That was pretty crazy, I've never been in an earthquake unless you count the ice quake I survived a year ago, it was a mild jolt, my friend asked me if I'd noticed that anything just happened and I said no and she said the ground moved. I even missed the earthquake in Madison two years ago because I was in Africa, busy not living through earthquakes.

Anyway, the quake went on for several seconds but it was mild enough that I didn't worry and went right back to sleep. There were some tremors later, enough to wake me up again but milder than the first ones. I looked it up this morning and found this article. If I were a heavier sleeper I think I might not have noticed it either, actually.

In other news, yesterday we visited the museum of contemporary art in Panama City and saw some really impressive pieces, including an exhibit by Gustavo Acosta, a Cuban artist who changed the way I think about the uses of spray bottles. I also became a fan of one Aristedes Urena.

We had to take a taxi there so we tried to make the most of our time in the area by walking around afterwards...we'd understood that it was in the area of Cerro Ancon (a big hill with a Panamanian flag on top) which is a place with a lot of sites of interest. Our taxi driver on the way back pointed to the street we'd walked and said "Don't walk there, very dangerous" and made a sign of a knife or gun with his hand, I can't remember which. So that was great, I guess we'll have to be more careful where we tread. Panama City feels safer than Colombia in some ways - e.g., the hostel recommends just hailing a taxi instead of having them call for one. In other ways it doesn't, in large part I think because our money doesn't take us as far here. That's not to say I think we feel unsafe, we just need to get a feel for the place, and any big city is going to require an extra level of caution. In any case, taxis are cheap - the one to the museum yesterday was only $4 round trip total - so when in doubt we'll just take a taxi.

We have some pretty exciting destinations coming up so keep your ears to the ground.

July 1

Yesterday we had a relatively problem free bus trip to Barranquilla and a quick flight to Panama City, Panama. If anyone is wondering why we had to fly to Panama, it's really a short distance, we didn't necessarily have to. We could have sailed, but fun as that would be, it would have been a lot more expensive. Though Colombia has a really good bus system with buses to Ecuador and Venezuela, none of Colombia's borders is as safe as can be. At the Colombia-Panama border is found the one gap in the Pan-American highway which stretches from the north of Alaska to the tip of Argentina. There, there are apparently indigenous groups that do not have contact with the outside world, FARC and other Colombian rebel group members hanging out just across the border, and, so I'm told, a death rate of 66.6%. So we skipped that adventure.

When we arrived in Panama City I felt like we'd been redirected to Florida. It is much more modern and developed than Colombia, I guess that's what happens when your country is a USA retirees' hotspot. I had Costa Rica stereotyped as the retirement palace of Latin America, but now I'm rethinking that. Still I think we made a great choice in coming here because it allows us to see how different Latin American countries can be; I don't think we'll make the mistake of saying when we get home, "This is the way things are in South America" when we really mean Colombia.

It only helped the strange feeling of being in the U.S. that the ATM at the airport gave me American dollars. We have yet to figure it all out but although the currency here is the American dollar, I think it's also called the Balboa in Panama and it has its own coins which are worth the same as American coins here (but the same is not true for Panamanian Balboas in America).

The taxi ride to our hostel was really long, and really expensive, and really strange. A guy near the ATM asked us if we were looking for a taxi, naturally we said yes because that's just what we were doing. He looked like an airport employee by his dress. He gave us a price estimate (that was close to what our hostel web site said to expect) and directed us upstairs. We were carrying a lot of heavy stuff but for some reason he darted up the stairs to the taxi waiting area and didn't really seem to care that we were struggling to keep up and we were pretty sure another taxi would come eventually. He and Tom loaded up the trunk and when we got inside the taxi he asked us for a tip.

There is no reason this man deserved a tip, he tricked us, he rushed us and most importantly, he didn't really even help us. People tried to trick us and everyone into giving them services they didn't need or want in other cities, too, by the way, in Taganga there was a guy who acted as a completely needless "parker" and he would get mad and start shouting if drivers wouldn't let him park them. All this beats what a guy at our last place told us about his trip to Thailand: people would literally throw poor monkeys onto tourists, the monkeys would dart around scared all over the person's body sometimes and then the monkey-thrower would demand payment for "getting to pet the monkey". (Once, he said, he got fed up and threw the monkey back.)

Anyway, the man and the taxi driver had a quick exchange and I gathered that the maletero (bellhop, for lack of a better translation) would receive a tip from what we paid the driver. I asked the driver about this when we were on our way, and he replied, "Hotel?" I asked again and he asked for the hotel again, so I gave up, thinking that maybe my accent was too tough for him to understand. But about five minutes later (in Spanish):

Taxista: "New president! Tomorrow!"
Me: "New president?"
Taxista: "Yes, new president. Ricardo Monticelli. Many presidents here tomorrow. Bolivia, Guatemala, Cuba, Argentina...."
Me: "A new president of Panama?"
Taxista: "New president. Many presidents are coming...to...Panama]."
Tom: "Why?"
Me: "Why are they coming?"
Taxista: "Yes. Many presidents."
Me: "Yes but why? What is the purpose of their visit?"
Taxista: "Yes...presidents."

Sadly, it went on like that for a little while. We could not extract any more information from him. Tom asked me later, "Was he...broken?" "Why" is a pretty simple question. We gave up talking to him until we came upon downtown Panama City.

Wow. It's skyscraperland. That was totally unexpected. I can't remember if Bogota even had a distinct skyline. Maybe it would have had something like it if it were not drowned out by the mountains. I do remember one super tall, super anomalous building.

Anyway, as were were approaching the driver pointed to the Pacific ocean to our left and the Atlantic way out to our right, and he indicated a couple of other things too. We decided to tip him for acting the part of tour guide a little bit and at least trying to make friendly conversation with us (even though he was sneaky and asked us if we had change for a toll, we said we didn't and he paid it), and he said, this tip is for the bellhop. We said no, it's for you. He said for the bellhop. We said for you, the bellhop didn't help us. He insisted. We didn't care if he chose to give up money meant for him in the end, and just let it go. How weird.

That's a better and faster story told aloud than written down. Sorry about that.

So today we are going to explore the city, we'll be here 28 days. I don't know if we'll be tempted to venture into rural Panama, but that would safer than if we tried it in Colombia. Housing and transportation and much more expensive here as opposed to Colombia, but fortunately food seems to be about the same price - we paid $0.45 for a bottle of soda last night. So we don't have to revise our budget completely. I think we'll end up really liking this place, I guess we'll find out. We really loved Tanganga and it was hard to leave, our hostel there was also the home of the local family who owned it, and we got to know and like the owner and her husband and brother and many cute kids.

Also, if I can manage it, I'll post in photos a map I drew of our route so far. It's kind of tough to make out because the colors reversed on me, but you'll get the idea.