|
| We arrived at the Purple House, a hostel in David where everything is purple (down to the hand soap and toilet scrubber). It was a new business, but very busy. An American Peace Corps volunteer and her Panamanian fiancée had started it and were having a lot of fun. A tough job, though, to keep costs low and motivate the guests to clean up after themselves. We made a nice dinner and watched high clouds turn orange and pink through the power lines. The next morning we headed for the Caribbean coast at Bocas Del Toro. We curved up perfect asphalt roads up to the crest of the mountains. It began to rain. The gulf side of Central America is much moister. We stopped for lunch and watched misty clouds mingle with the jungle and flagged trees on the pass. We descended into dark jungle. Silhouettes of toucans passed overhead. This is the realm of the Chiquri Land Company, owners of the Chiquita Fruit Company. Banana plantations and children without shoes were everywhere. We arrived in the port town of Almirante and stopped at a grocery. Friendly people directed us to a cheap hotel, Hospedaje San Francisco. The banana train, decorated with the Chiquita trade mark, rumbled up and down the street one block away. We made dinner of rice noodles, garlic, onion, black bean soup mix, tomato sauce, and a whole mackerel, and shared it with Iris, the hotel care taker. She is a poor native woman. She has 5 daughters ages 8-20, her husband drives taxis and busses. She was hit by a moped a few years back and has suffered back pain ever since. She wanted to take one of her daughters out to the islands the weekend before but could not afford it. Though it exists throughout all of Latin America, I noticed social stratification more here in Panama. Those of Spanish descent are the most affluent. The Chinese work hard and do well running shops. The blacks and native people have poor jobs and little money. We got up slowly the next morning. It rained and rained and rained! From the second story balcony of the Hotel San Francisco I watched people go about their lives in the rain. They are used to it here. Rain suits are common. 3 girls passed on one bike. One pedaled, one rode on the top tube, and the smallest girl sat on the handlebars and held an umbrella. Crazy, isn't it, that 2, 3, or even 4 people ride on one bike to get around down here, while 70 percent of Americans commute alone in their cars (or SUV's)! Around noon we left for the islands with the aid of a boy we'd met the day before. He'd been waiting around for us all morning. His name is Rigoberto and he is 14. We agreed to leave the car in the back store room of the hotel for a reasonable daily storage fee. Rigoberto took us to the ferry and came with us on the half hour speed boat ride. We followed buoys over a gray and rainy but calm sea. Rigoberto took us around to find a place to stay and offered to take us on a tour the next day. The next morning it poured rain and the tour was off. I had an ear infection brewing (I think from getting rolled up on the beach at Manuel Antonio) and went to the hospital. The doctor decided I had swelling, but no infection, and prescribed me an anti-inflammatory medication. It worked (for a while). Rigoberto found us the next morning. We chartered a small motor boat and a driver and shoved off for a tour of the islands. We headed out into calm water as the morning rain cleared. Mangroves lined the shore and formed islands here and there. Rainforest rose inland and made the islands look higher than they really were. Tin and thatched roof shacks appeared here and there and around them some forest was cleared. First we went to Dolphin Bay, were fish like to school and dolphins are common. After some searching we found some dolphins and they swam circles around the boat and occasionally turned on their sides to get a look at us. Next we went to lunch at a restaurant on piers in 5 foot deep water. The place was 7 years old and there hadn't been any fishing there since it was built. Large schools of fish swarmed under the piers. We placed our lunch order and snorkeled until it was ready. As lunch was served, a four foot barracuda arrived. They insisted he was friendly and that they had watched him grow up with the other fish over the years. He just showed up at lunch for table scraps. On to Red Frog Beach for the afternoon. Here a small beach-side marsh is the only home to a species of Poison Dart frog. A Panamanian family owns the land and charges a minimal fee to see them. It had just rained and the thumbnail-sized frogs were all out singing, looking for mates. Pineapples had been planted along side the trail and the frogs liked to hang out in the yucca-like leaves. They were oblivious to our observations, continuing to sing and snap up flies as we watched them. Then we went out to the beach, which fronted the open Caribbean Sea. Large waves rolled in and we all went for a swim. After a cool nap in the shade of the encroaching jungle we motored back to Bocas. We said good bye to our friends and went to Don Chichos, a cafeteria-style restaurant favored by the local people, for a cheap dinner of fried chicken, rice, beans, and beer. Took it easy the next morning. Rigoberto showed up late in the morning. We invited him up to our balcony and chatted it up for a while. He doesn't attend school because he says he was too late when he tried to register last year and there wasn't room. Class size is 100 students. I think schools aren't that good and Rigoberto was more interested in working than getting an education he doesn't think will ever serve him. We encouraged him to return to school. He lives with his aunt in Almirante while his parents work in another town. He says he sees them on weekends sometimes. He and Leah played cards for a while and I played a game of checkers with him. Rigoberto plays a lot with his grandfather and he quickly took control of the game. We went grocery shopping and bought fish (Rigoberto doesn't like chicken because his aunt cooks it all the time), pasta, onion, garlic, tomatoes, and a large, dark brown root. Back at the hostel we cooked up a large lunch. Rigoberto isn't much for cooking, but he helped peel a few cloves of garlic. We peeled and boiled the root which has white meat and tastes like a potato. We talked to a Canadian girl who'd gone to see sea turtles lay their eggs in the sand the night before. A volunteer organization was managing and protecting the turtle's nesting beaches and taking tourists out to see them to help fund their efforts. Rigoberto wanted to go--he'd lived here his whole life and never seen a sea turtle. I went to the library to sigh us up. The librarian told me to return later that afternoon to talk to Mario, the leader of the organization. We rented bicycles for a couple of hours and pedaled out on muddy roads following the beaches. Rigoberto lost his sandals in one particularly muddy spot. I took Rigoberto to the cyber cafe and taught him how to use e-mail. The manager told him he could pay with a chocolate bar to use the computers, instead of paying the hourly fee. I went back to the library and met Mario. He is a retired school teacher in his 50's who has been helping the turtles for 8 years now. He agreed to take us out at 11 pm. The turtles like it dark and the moon was waxing. It wouldn't get really dark 'til around midnight. We made dinner relaxed a while. When we returned to the library Mario was ready, with a large machete in a sling around his neck and resting on his Buda belly. Looked to me like he was ready to make turtle soup! We waited as a large group of young and boisterous men assembled. Six of us loaded up in the cab of a truck as it started to rain. We rallied behind two vans on a narrow, potholed and muddy road out to the beach. The defrost fan did not work in the truck and the windshield was a greasy mess. I do not know how our driver saw anything, but he continued to try to pass the other vans. They swerved to block his every attempt. We finally made it to the beach. The group was split in two, each half heading opposite directions on the beach. The leaders signaled back and forth with red flashlights. We soon got a signal from the other group that they'd found a turtle. We scrambled down the beach to find a 7 foot long Leatherback turtle filling a hole with her eggs. I got to put my hand on her massive, polished black and white shell; I made contact with a being from another world. Of the 80 eggs laid, only 40 hatchlings reach the water. Of those, only 1 or two reach maturity. They live in the reefs and mangroves as young turtles, and as adults swim every ocean of the world. When the females are ready to lay their eggs, at around age 50, they return to the beach where they were born. The turtle we were watching buried her eggs, then plowed around in circles and dug and filled several decoy holes. She finally headed back down to the surf. Our guides now allowed us photographs, but only from behind so we would not flash the turtle’s eyes. The waves engulfed her, and she threw up one last flipper 30 yards out. I had a powerful urge to swim out to sea. I wanted to become a sea turtle! We walked back to the vehicles in the rain, and then made the same mad blind rally back to town with our exuberant guides. We crashed in our beds at 3:30 am. Rigoberto slept on the balcony. The next day we went on a sea kayaking adventure from Isla Bastimentos with Henry, a Peruvian American we'd made friends with. He stayed at the same hostel as us and came turtle watching with us the night before. He was exploring the area hoping to buy some remote, unspoiled land where he and his fiancée could open a back woods hostel where guests could explore the wonders of the tropical forest and ocean in an unspoiled setting. We took a long, skinny motor boat with a bunch of other tourists over to the island. The boat driver gave us recommendations for several hotels and we made arrangements for the night at one of them. Henry took us to the house of an American couple who were trying to make a go of it down here renting kayaks. They figured they could make it another year before having to return to America to make some real money. We paddled around for several hours. Lots of fun once Leah and I figured out how to paddle our tamed kayak efficiently (when we returned that evening, the guy we rented it from told us he and his wife almost got a divorce learning to paddle it!). We pulled into a mangrove for lunch. Later in the afternoon a storm began brewing on the horizon so we headed back. Got back at twighlight. We stopped for a seafood dinner and then went looking for a Reggae party we'd heard about. Wandering around trying to find the party, a large black man called down from a balcony offering to help us (the population of Bastimentos is mostly black). A friend of his passed and was on his way to the party. He showed us the way. They don't speak Spanish here, but rather a language that is a combination of Spanish, English, and Indian words, with a heavy Caribbean accent. They could understand my Spanish and English, but only with an effort to feel as much as listen to what they said could I understand them. Reggae is in their blood here. They are friendly, peaceful people who believe in treating others well. We packed up the next morning and headed for the mainland. Rigoberto helped us back to the Hotel San Francisco to get Mo out of lockdown. We exchanged hugs and handshakes and were on our way, out through the endless fields of bananas... |
|
|
|
|
|