Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Joshy

Last weekend someone dropped off a sick little puppy in a small plastic grocery bag, hoping that some compassionate beach-goer would be able to care for it. Unfortunately, by Monday morning, no one had taken him home, and I could no longer let him wander the streets alone seeking food, water, and shelter from the hot sun and the bugs, with no one left to feed him scraps. I took him in and we promptly caught a ride straight to the vet in Coronado, with a nice Canadian named Chris who'd been surfing Palmar for the weekend but had to catch his flight back home. I've decided to call the sick puppy Josh for now, until he finds an owner and/or a proper doggie name. Joshy received a check-up, a flea bath, and his first series of vaccinations. We were sent home with a bottle of vitamins to be dropped in Josh's mouth every day in order to help replenish his sick and frail little body, and to help him grow his fur back on his drastically bare body full of ticks, fleas and mosquito bites. We also bought the appropriate puppy food for Josh, which he's been eating happily. I've checked with every one I know in town to see if they know of a family who could adopt him, or even a shelter. The replies have been a unanimous 'no', unfortunately, as I'm told that people do not like sick puppies here, however Josh and I rode the bus to the vet's office this morning with a woman who told me that Panamanians do like male dogs, so that's a plus for him! I told the vet of my situation, and is going to try contacting another fellow animal lover who lives in the City to see if she can care for him and help to find him a family. Anyway, I'm headed to Playa Venao once we find a safe place for Josh to live - I'm hoping for this weekend at the very latest. I've been told time and again how wonderful Playa Venao is for surfing, and I'm excited to go, yet sad to leave my casita, the garden of fresh fruits, Josh, and those I've become close to here in El Palmar during my perfect stay.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Empty Beautiful Waves Everywhere!

Last week I set out for an adventure with my new board. I called a taxi to squeeze me and my board inside his tiny little sedan, and drop me off at a beach called Punta Barco - a.k.a. Playa Tetas. There was no one else in the water and only one other car at the deserted beach when the driver dropped me off, looking concerned he told me "be careful" as we exchanged the large sum of money to tote me down bad dirt roads to this deserted land and said our goodbyes. I walked the beach thoroughly, having been told that the rocks are jagged and dangerous, and not knowing where to catch the break without breaking any bones. Luckily, another fellow surfer (Jorge) with his girl (Monica) showed up and he signaled the universal 'surf on' to me as he passed me heading out to the waves. Yay, I grabbed my board and followed his same pathway to the wave. Jorge turned out to be a great surf partner, telling me which waves to go for, and letting me have most of them. Unfortunately, my little arms can only paddle for so long and we both went in after chatting it up on the waves for some time. On the beach they asked me if I was alone, and when I replied "yes", they both looked concerned. They asked how I got here, and I told them a taxi. They then asked if I'd like to join them at another difficult-to-get-to surf spot called Playa Esmiralda and I said 'sure'! We crammed three boards and three bodies into Monica's very new compact car, and all surfed Esmiralda together. They offered to drop me at the highway so that I could avoid the outrageous taxi fee and catch a bus back to El Palmar. I amazingly caught one that had a seat and a boy willing to hold my board jammed into his body the entire ride. From there, I walked home, feeling satisfied from good, solitary surf the entire day, tired arms, and incredible luck in meeting new Panamanian friends who were willing to show me around their beautiful, deserted surf spots.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

El Valle de Anton Visit no. 2

Yesterday I was in desperate need to escape the intense heat of the playa, and so decided to head back up to El Valle, with my sights set on finding the golden frog. I headed straight for my favorite breakfast spot on the main street where they serve incredibly small portions of food, but very yummy so that you order more and more. This tricky scheme works on me and many others too apparently. The carrot-orange juice is amazing, and the man who tends the tables is refreshingly happy and friendly all the time. I also like this place because I meet lots of interesting people there. Yesterday, however, an eccentric man, I’d guess in his 50’s, approached me in an odd sort of way. I had my Spanish dictionary and a map of El Valle I’d been studying on the table, and he said, "Oh, you don’t speak Spanish either". I looked at him in a strange way and he then said "Well isn’t that why you have your dictionary there?" I sat in amazement still, wondering how to reply to this very clueless and so far a little annoying man whose look reminded me of Kramer from Seinfeld. Then I said, “I have this dictionary that I refer to constantly when I don’t know a word so that I can learn Spanish, Silly, since I definitely don’t know every word in this compact little dictionary." He then went on to tell me how he’d be dead in the water without a woman that he pointed to next door. He explained that without her, he would not be able to do anything here in Panama. I asked, “Why don’t you learn Spanish then?” He quickly replied “I’ve only lived here for five months, I can’t have a conversation in Spanish, can you?” I answered “I always try to have conversations with anyone and everyone – it's the best way to learn” He then replied, “Well I’ve only been here for five months and she does all of my translating for me.” I don’t get it. You deliberately move to a Spanish speaking country, and don’t bother to learn the language with every intention of staying here. The woman, by the way, was a delightful 30-something year old with two kids (she proudly stated), from Argentina. What better way to learn than from a bilingual person at your side every day to teach? Enough of him, I had a wonderful conversation with her about places we both loved in both Argentina and Panama for as long as the crazy Kramer-like man allowed, and he then said that they were off to do mud facials at the hot springs, and invited me along. My little ears perked up, but I knew that I could not take another five minutes with the guy, and so as they ran off to do their facials, I ran off to an internet cafĂ©, and to buy fresh fruits and veggies from the farmer’s market. After an hour or so, I myself headed up to the hot springs, ran into them as they were leaving (perfect timing), paid my $1.00 entrance fee and coated my face with mud. Not having a bathing suit, I was not permitted to enter the natural mineral pools, but was allowed to soak my feet and legs in a different pool while the mud dried on my face. Again, for the sole purpose of entertaining, I may decide to post my self-taken photo with mud packed and dried tightly to my face, but right now I'm not that brave. What fun! The mud facial was awesome and the grounds were relaxing, although I still haven't seen that inconspicuous golden frog.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Life in El Palmar, Panama

I'm not sure what made me do it - perhaps the waves, the pueblo, or the cozy feel of the place, but I decided to rent a little guest house which is about a two minute walk to the beach from my front door, and made the enormous jump of purchasing my very own surfboard yesterday. I love waking up, walking out to the Mango tree to find the best fallen fruit, and then slicing them up for my breakfast. I love slowly swinging in my hammock in the garden with my new book, 'The Life of Pi', and waking up to the sound of wind chimes and lots of active birdies chirping and singing their happy morning songs. The surf board was an adventure for sure. A friend from town accompanied me into Panama City to help me look for a good used board (being the town board repair expert). We started out at the Albook Mall, where the Albrook bus terminal is located and the bus dropped us. There were three surf shops that we successfully found in the Mall after much searching, but with no suitable board for me. We then took a taxi to another shop, about a 30-minute drive in traffic, to another board shop that was supposed to have used boards. They had used boards, but none that our town expert felt were worthy of the money asked, and that would suit my needs. During our search, Tomaso had been placing calls to his friend Bruno, who runs the panama surf web site and has tons of surf contacts. He received a call from Bruno saying that he was not able to find any used 'fun boards' after making several calls around, but found a good priced new board at a shop we then promptly took another taxi to. Bruno met us there, and indeed there was a brand new beautiful seven-foot board with red flowers calling my name, and not just softly, it was screaming my name. After walking to the bank for a major cash withdrawal, and purchasing a lottery ticket for a guy from the town who insists that the lucky lotto tickets are found only in the City, we returned to the board shop to walk out with my new board. The next obstacle was transporting the 7-foot brand new board back to El Palmar (1 1/2 hours by bus, with a 15 - 20 minute walk down to the town from the bus stop) without scratching it. Tomaso, without my knowledge, had already started to call around in search of rides from friends who also 'happened' to be in the City. The stars were aligned correctly I suppose, because sure enough, some of his friends happened to be heading back in the right direction, and were happy to tote the both of us, along with my new board back to their house (also having a board rack and straps to safely carry it). Once we got to the house in Gorgona (a different surf beach about 15 miles from El Palmar), there happened to be two guys there from the house/hostel I stayed in when I first arrived, who were willing to take us back to El Palmar with them. Yippee! We both agreed that we had 'mucha suerte', much luck, in our mission accomplished, as we rode down the street leading to our beach, crammed into the back of a tiny little 4x4 with five people and a brand new red flowery surf board I couldn't wait to play on!

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

El Valle de Anton, Panama

El Valle, a refreshing and cool mountain town where people are about as friendly as I've ever experienced in my travels, and artisans are plentiful. On Sunday I took a little jaunt up the mountain to the town of El Valle, to escape the heat of the lowlands and to explore more beauties that the country has to offer in the higher elevations. There are waterfalls, hot springs, canopy tours, rock paintings, square-trunked trees, and golden frogs. Sounds a bit like a fairy tale doesn't it? Having left my swim suit at home, and hearing that the golden frogs were difficult to spot and the square trees are not all THAT, I started walking in the direction of the rock paintings (la Piedra Pintada). As usual, I became a little disoriented and unsure of my direction, however a nice man driving by asked where I was headed and then told his son, Manuel to guide me to the rock paintings. Manuel is nine (if I remember correctly) and very cute! Although he was on his bike, he walked along side of me and told me the story of the Sleeping Indian (La India Dormida) whose profile made of peaks and legends one can see from almost anywhere in town. The story goes like this:
There was once a beautiful native princess who vell very much in love with one of the Spanish Conquisadors, when the Spanish arrived in the valle. They shared a very brief but intense romance, and the princess then asked permission from her father to marry the Spaniard. Her father absolutely refused, as she was meant to marry someone of royal blood, and not one who was trying to claim her people's land.
Upon being forbidden to marry her one true love, the princess took her own life. She was buried in the hills, earth and dust gradually covered here body, giving shape to the mountain that rises over the valley. Legend insists that the princess in only sleeping and awaiting the day when her forbidden love can be pursued. The story now serves as a parable by the locals for never denying the love that two people share.
After Manuel guided me through the writing on the rock in Spanish (I caught about 35% of it), I hiked up the mountain looking for a cave but didn't find it. Instead I found a beautiful mountain brooke and a steep trail that wore me out!
I recommend at least a night and two days in El Valle in order to partake of all that the area has to offer.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Hard Sun, Crystal Blue Water, and the San Blas Islands

I am back to the luxuries of Wi-Fi, real coffee, and bathrooms that are plumbed into a sewer system after returning yesterday from the San Blas Islands, which are still completely undeveloped and controlled by the Kuna Indians - at least for now (I'm totally cheering for the Kunas!). On Sunday afternoon I decided to book a flight to El Porvenir from Panama City leaving at 6 am Monday morning. I was staying in a hostel that night, and luckily everyone and their dog had an early flight scheduled to somewhere, so getting up wasn't a problem. Upon arriving on the island of El Porvenir, I did not have a place to stay even though I was forewarned by the Lonely Planet guidebook to make sure that all accomodations and flights on the islands were booked in advance since there are no phones on most of the islands, no electricity, and certainly no internet for any type of communication between islands or to the mainland. There are some 400 islands that compose the San Blas Archipielago, but being the 'fly by the seat of my pantalones' type of gal that I am, I had no place to stay upon arrival, nor did I have a flight back to the main land - I prefer to leave my options open you know. I find that the Universe always has a way of working things out anyway, so I figure why not just go with the flow? On the short 35 minute flight to the island, I quickly searched my lonely planet guide and found a recommended 'hotel'. Luckily Luchin, the 'hotel's' boatman happened to be at the airport and transported me via cayuco, a dugout canoe made from enourmous hollowed out tree trunks, to my new found paradise and 'hotel'.
There were eight of us staying at the 'Hotel San Blas' for the week, located on the island of Nalunega, population 500. In company were a German Family, Nina, Dirk, and their 5-year old son Roco, and 2-year old daughter Nola (they too, will be traveling north through Central America from Panama); a British couple, Adam and Kate (traveling south through South America, began in Guatemala), another German named Dietmar (on holiday for a month in Panama and Costa Rica), and myself (wandering about the tropics aimlessly). I found it refreshing and exhilarating to hang out with a house full of travelers, having no exact agenda - only places on the map to visit - like myself. It's always nice to hang with other travelers and exchange info. on places to add to the list of travels, places to stay, and things to avoid.
From our island, we were motored to at least one new island each day to swim, snorkel, and browse the islands different molas which are made of brightly colored shapes of layered fabric material sewn together. Molas originated from transfering the designs used for body painting to cloth, when the Panamanian government tried modernizing this traditional Kuna culture, and prohibiting them from wearing traditional dress. This was back when the Panamanian government took over for a spell.
Photo credit: galenfrysinger.com. Feel free to visit the website for more incredible photos of the Kuna women and the their amazing molas.
The Kuna are a proud culture, who have fought to keep the Panamanian government from taking both their culture and their land away. They do not allow foreigners to live on their land, and foreigners must pay the chief of each island in order to step onto the island regardless of whether that is for 5-minutes or the entire day. Photo Credit: glenfrysinger.com The Kuna people live simply, tightly packed into their island with homes constructed next to one another and rooftops nearly touching, living as one body, sharing everything from every inch of space on the island, common bathrooms (built out over the ocean where everything drops straight down into the ocean), space, supplies, and food. They keep no secrets and are honest in their dealings with everyone. I have decided after spending time amongst this tightly knit group of people, that from now on, I choose to keep only friends who are honest, keep no secrets from one another, and are open in every way. This, I believe, is what I'd like to take away from the islands with me. Thank you Kuna Yala for teaching me how life is meant to be lived, for inspiring me to keep better company and to be better company in life.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Jarabacoa Adventures

After getting a ride from a pastor from Cabarete to Sosua, where I needed to catch the bus to La Vega, I landed in La Vega at about 9:30 pm and had missed all buses going to Jarabacoa until the next morning at 8:30 am. Since I had a reservation in Jarabacoa which I´d already postponed one night, and being bombarded with guys hustling rides, I negotiated a fair price up the canyon with a guy who was nice (even though he tried to charge me double of what I ended up paying him), but he was not blessed with a full deck of cards. After picking up his entire family to ride along, we had no idea where the hotel was located other than the vague address I pulled out of an old guide book. None of us knowing the town, he had to stop at least twelve times (no exaggeration) to ask for directions and still managed to drop me at the wrong hotel, even after picking up a very inebriated local just to guide us directly to the hotel. Turns out, there are two Las Brisas del Yacque hotels in town, and no one seems to know about the one I stayed at even though it's been operating the longest. No wonder the directions people were giving were not jiving with the guide book. Anyway, after being dropped at Las Brisas no. 2, walking with all my bags unsuccessfully and returning to Las Brisas no. 1, the concierge then had to call another taxi for me to drop me three blocks away at the Las Brisas del Yacque (no. 1) where my reservation was and a room less than half the price of LB no 1. Next day I decided to take a horseback guide up to the waterfalls from a ranch just outside of town. The falls were beautiful, and my two 11-year old guides were great, except that they absolutely refused to go at a pace where my bootie was not being hammered against the not-so-great saddle without a horn to hold on to. Oh yeah, and the little guy wanted to ride behind me on my horse, Chocolate, since it was really his horse. OK fine, I thought, until about ten minutes into the ride I could tell that I was going to have a major bruise on my tailbone for days and I was correct. We galloped and trotted our way to two beautiful waterfalls, but I could go the rest of my life without riding another horse....or at least until I have an appropriate saddle and a slower horse. The serendipitous portion of the waterfall tour, was that at the entrance to one of the falls, right before you have to cross a series of suspension bridges (I loved them), I spoke to four other tourists while Joselito and William were tying up the horses. The group was in their late 50's I´d say, and the two men told me about a bed and breakfast that their friend, John, runs in the Colonial Zone of Santo Domingo. When I expressed interest, they called him on the spot and I reserved a room for three nights. Great - since I would be there the next day and didn't have anything else confirmed. The gentlemen then stopped by each morning to visit and check up on me to ensure that I was enjoying my stay, and I became very fond of them both - Stanley and Terry, who were Jewish and loved to tease me about Utah and the Mormon religion. All in good fun of course. They told me a funny story about their visit to Jarabacoa: apparently, the two women that I met at the falls with them were not their wives. They had met these two women the day before in Santo Domingo and invited them for a day trip up to the falls, however on the scenic way back to SD, they had to be pushed out of the mud twice, and were almost stranded in the mountains by a rock slide covering the road for hours. When they told me this story, they said that they were becoming worried because it was late, and they didn't know how to explain to their wives how they were forced to spend the night in Constanza with two strange women they'd just met! In the end, I enjoyed my visit to Jarabacoa, and the feel of the refreshing cool mountain air again.

Panama City

Yippee! I made it to Central America yesterday from the DR. The Panamanians I've met here have been awesome, as well as other travelers. Today I plan to go see the Canal and Casco Viejo, with some Salsa tonight (if I can stay awake - the late nights in Santo Domingo and traveling have made me quite exhausted). Tomorrow I plan to head to Isla Grande by boat via the Canal! From there to San Blas Islands, or at least that´s the current plan, then up to David and on to Costa Rica! So far, I love Panama. The currency is the dollar, so there is no crazy conversion I have to do in my head every time someone throws out a price - yippee, I don´t have to think! More later hopefully with some photos. Also, if you are needing a vacation, come meet me for a week anywhere - I´m missing everyone and would love to see you!