I'm guessing the two will go hand in hand.
Thus, as much as happened in the past 2 months, I will- as per usual- give you a fleeting overview of the hectic goings-on in my life in Panama.
I think it might actually be easier if I list the things that have happened in the best chronological order that I can manage (aided by the fact that my OCD brain puts pretty much everything into Google Calendar so I don't forget things).
-I had my first Carnival. Carnival is a massive celebration and holiday in many Latin American (and other Catholic) countries leading up to Ash Wednesday. It is essently 4 days of pure chaos (read: street parties, giant trucks with fire hoses spraying people en masse, concerts, music blaring, street food, and water fights). I have zero pictures from my time at Carnival in Panama City because my phone is not waterproof, which means there was no way it would survive. Fun fact about Carnival: people will spray you with water guns/water bottles/ buckets, etc. And you're not allowed to get mad. (Mostly because of the celebration, but also because it's so bloody hot, that you're kind of relieved when you become a target... kind of). This leads me to another point: if you are a person of pale complexion, expect to be the target of everyone carrying a water propulsion instrument. I swear that parents pick out the obvious foreigners from a crowd and then send all the children in the area to bombard you with water. Final fact to survive Carnival if you fall into this category: don't retaliate. This is not something that comes easily to me... in fact, I always retaliated. It got to the point that I had AT LEAST 7, if not more, Panamanian children chasing me with water guns. It was a lot of fun... but exhausting as all heck. I mean, I can handle my own, but when you're getting chased by that many kids with ice water and sheer determination... you get a little worn out. Oh yes, and you lose friends very quickly once they realise they become targets by association. I have no regrets, but these are definitely things to keep in mind.
Oh, one more thing. If you like to dance, and you are also of pale complexion... you will probably have people taking videos of you. You are a rarity, particularly because, in general, Panamanians don't dance much. Anyways, those are your survival tips- prepare to be soaked!
-I went to San Blas (locally known as Guna Yala or Kuna Yala) with a group of friends from STRI a couple weeks after Carnival. This large group of islands is owned and managed by the local indigenous people, the Kunas. We stayed there for 2 nights, and met people from all over the world. We also got to go snorkelling around a shipwreck, which was beautiful! Unforunately, Scott's GoPro died on Day 1, so we didn't get any underwater photos, and most of the rest of us had our phones/cameras die on Day 1 as well and there wasn't any electricity.. but Nick managed to get some great shots (here's his Flickr).
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| Actually, I took this one of our cabin.. you can tell because the photo quality sucks compared to Nick's. |
-I finally got to visit my study site for my Master's research in Changuinola, Bocas del Toro. It was a very intensive 3 days of tours and being on a boat with my two supervisors, but it was incredible to finally see a place that I've been reading and writing about for months. I am really excited to be working on my project and to be going back there at the end of April for some field work. I also got to see the nose of a manatee, which was beyond cool. The water is quite turbid, so unlike Florida, you can't see the manatees unless they are surfacing. I also broke my sunglasses in my excitement to see a manatee, but it was definitely worth it. No, I don't have any pictures of manatees, because it was very difficult to tell where or when they would surface, but I did take some photos of the river.
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| Our trusty boat (well not ours, technically, but the trusty boat that took us around) |
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| Changuinola River |
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| The typical thickness of the vegetation in the lagoons in Changuinola |
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| Manatee food! |
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| See those circles of bubbles? That's where a manatee was just moments before, breathing out! |
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| This is a bus that has been converted into a boat... I can't say much more than that |
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| AAMVECONA is an organization that helps with sea turtle conservation on the San San River (neighbouring the Changuinola River); they also help us out with our work as well! |
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| Pollution from the banana plantations :( |
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| We were fortunate enough to see rainbows over the San San River |
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| Can you see the double rainbow here? |
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| Attention! Manatee crossing |
-The week after we got back from Changuinola, Major Lazer held a concert in Panama City. For anyone familiar with me- or with dancehall music as a whole- you know this is pretty exciting. It was a fantastic concert, and true to dancehall artist form, they didn't actually start playing until after midnight, when the concert was scheduled to begin at 9pm. Fortunately, this was not my first dancehall concert, so I knew the drill. We still got there super early to make sure we got a reasonable view (we were actually some of the first people in the venue- which is an outdoor concert area, called the Figali Convention Centre). Anyways, we got a couple of photos of us all, but because it was dark, not a lot turned out.
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| This is my excited face... Scott got the memo to look ridiculous (in back).. the other two actually wanted a nice picture, oops. |
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| I love this girl! Lynette was the second person I met in Panama, and we became fast friends. |
-The next phase of my March marked something I am really excited about: learning how to scuba dive. On the second weekend in March, I took a trip to Portobelo with Rut Gomez, a scuba diving instructor, and some other soon-to-be divers. The water was quite wavey and visibility was quite poor, but it was a fantastic experience. The ability to breathe underwater is something most, if not all, biologists dream of. You literally feel like you're flying through the water. We were especially lucky because that weekend in Portobelo happened to coincide with the Congos Festival, a celebration of the African descendents in the area. This was like a very intense version of Carnival with the music, dancing and street meat... but without the water. It was a great thing to see, though a little intimidating being around so many people! I finished off the weekend achieving my PADI Open Water Diver certification.
-The following weekend I was given the opportunity to complete my PADI Advanced Open Water Diver certification in Coiba (close to Santa Catalina). It could not have been more different than Portobelo- much less wavey, visibility was amazing, and we saw so many animals! Sharks, rays, sponges, fish, turtles- it was unbelievable! Fortunately, we do have some photos from this weekend, and a video that Rut put together (please check out her Facebook page to see more of what she's doing!).
-The next weekend, a group of us made our way to Taboga, which is an island about a 45-minute ferry ride from Panama City. It's pretty much the go-to beach spot, since it's so easy to get to. I spent most of the day rotating from swimming, to playing beach soccer and volleyball with some people who had brought a soccer ball along (yes, we used the soccer ball as a volleyball... and yes, my arms hurt afterwards, but it was worth it!). Here are a couple of photos from that day! Photo credit to Nishant, cuz he had a bada** camera and knew how to take good pictures.
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| By this point, we were playing vollelball, cuz running on the sand playing soccer is super tiring. Fun fact: not a lot of Panamanian women play sports, so I was reppin' for the ladies that day. |
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| I had to post a bunch of these panoramic shots, because the beach is so pretty! |
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| The only one of our group that joined me in the soccer and volleyball playing shenanigans.. somehow he didn't end up half as sandy as I did... |
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| The group! Minus David, who refuses to get his picture taken unless he's making a really grumpy face... or unless he's helping me with a prank. More to come on that later... |
-The first weekend in April was Easter. I can promise you that after weeks of being constantly on the go, I took a much-needed weekend in. Nothing of great consequence occurred, apart from a lovely Easter brunch where all of us who couldn't be with family, came together and brought delicious food and drinks to share.
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| There were actually a lot more people than this, but this is a snap of some of us! |
-The weekend of the 10th, 11th and 12th of April was the Summit of the Americas in Panama City. The Summit was a congregation of all the world leaders of North, Central and South America to discuss significant issues of the day. What this translated to was a city-wide lockdown on all major roadways, and the closure of quite a few stores. Occurring concurrently with the Summit of the Americas, was a summit for all the indigenous groups in the Americas. David, Celestino, Javier, Crystal and I went to an event they were hosting at a local pub, where a live band from Guna Yala played a sort of cultural-rock fusion, and they featured indigenous-made films on environmental and political issues in different areas in Central America. It was a great experience, and I really appreciated feeling like a) I learned some things and b) I was just as welcome there as the next person.
-That weekend, sadly, coincided with David's last weekend in Panama (David and I both lived in the same house, and him and I have basically been an old married couple the entire time we've been here. We both go to McGill and worked together in the fall, so our friendship is a pretty solid one). We tried to go surfing on Saturday, but unfortunately, the waves weren't working for us (they were breaking far too close to the shore to be surf-able), so we packed it in.
-The next day I finally made it out to Panama Viejo ("Old Panama"). This is a part of the city that was totally destroyed by Captain Morgan (yes, the pirate) in the 1600s, in the attempts of finding the supposed Spanish gold that was being kept there- reportedly, they did not find as much as was expected. Panama City was re-built a few kilometres away, but the old city ruins still remain. It was really amazing to walk through, and mind-boggling how much was destroyed.
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| Salsa buddies exploring! |
-And now, for David's last night in Panama. We were a small group, because David doesn't like big goodbye parties, but being us, we showed up at the restaurant about half an hour before everyone else (they were running on Panama time- basically anything plus or minus 15 minutes of the time you agreed upon, is totally acceptable). So we had a little time to kill. Now, a background story to this tidbit is that I had recently bought a fake engagement ring to deter persistent taxi drivers from asking me if I was married.. and then proceeding to look for the ring on my hand. (I have some more tips for Panama living coming up in another post, but as a woman traveling alone, a fake wedding band is worth considering). David and I decided to try to take a photo of the two of us together with the ring, as a joke to everyone who calls us an old married couple, given how much we bicker. In the midst of our terrible selfie attempts, a British tourist took pity on us, and offered to take some photos for us. After looking at the photos she took, I couldn't help but notice that, rearranged a certain way, they looked like engagement photos...
You can probably see where this is going. I decided to post these photos on Facebook, in reversed order, with the caption "Got hitched in Panama, have a safe trip home hubbie!". Well, within 5 minutes I clarified that the post was a prank... but not many people read that. It was pretty hilarious. (Yes, I know I'm a terrible person, and yes, I did recant more formally to anyone that might have still had any confusion). Here are the photos (in the reorganized order), for your amusement:
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| My partner in crime! Actually, if you look closely at the photos above, you can see that I'm already wearing the ring, but that's definitely not the first thing you see, which is probably why the prank still worked |
-Now, here's a good tip for life in general, but especially when you're traveling: whenever someone begins a sentence with "Hey, do you want to go to [insert place here], this weekend?". Your answer should be "Yes", unless you have other plans or really don't want to go. Otherwise, do it. The last-minute spontaneous plans are often the best times you will have. That's what happened the weekend of April 18th. A group of us wanted to go to El Valle de Anton... and so, last-minute plans were literally made Friday night, and we hopped on a bus on Saturday afternoon! We went swimming in a little waterfall, and did lots of hiking, and made it to the summit of a cloud forest. It was beautiful. We stayed in a fantastic hostel called "Bodhi Hostel and Lounge", and if you ever go to El Valle (which you should!), I would highly recommend going there. The owners are such lovely people, and the hostel is very clean, open concept, comfortable. Here's their Facebook page. And no, I'm not getting any sort of kickback from recommending them, they're just awesome. Also, we were only in El Valle for one night... I would recommend staying for 2-3 nights, because there were a lot more trails we didn't get to hike!
-The following weekend, we decided to take a trip back to Taboga, because sadly, my stay here is drawing to a close, and I want to get in as much beach time as possible. We found some beach soccer buddies again (I brought my soccer ball, which was a solid investment, given my fondness for soccer and beaches and "friendly" competition)... Unfortunately, I only have one photo from that day, which was a candid shot I took of everyone in our group, basically comatose on the beach... Here's fun fact number 87... I love going to the beach and laying in the sun as much as the next person... but after an hour of blissfully reading my book, I need to do something apart from alternating between swimming and cooking on the beach. So if you're a beach person, and you're looking for a beach buddy, only consider me if you want some roasting time, but a lot more swimming, soccer/volleyball or beach dancing time. For future reference!
Now, no travel story is complete without a story of a parasite infection. I can say with a great degree of certainty that I think I picked something up at the beach that day, because by 9pm that night, I was a comatose blob in my bed, and couldn't hardly get out of bed for a good 36 hours. This exhaustion was paired with intermittent violent stomach pains and the joyous visits to the bathroom that accompany a parasite visit to your digestive system. Monday and Tuesday were still dicey, but I was able to get up and move about, and prepare for our field work trip last week.
-This brings me to last week... where my entire lab packed up shop, and drove 11 hours to Changuinola to begin the field work that will be a part of my Master's research. Without going into too much detail, we spent 4 days in a boat, and thoroughly explored all reaches of the lagoon system created by the banana plantations off of the Changuinola River. It was great to get out of the lab, and spend some time taking samples and really getting familiar with my study site. I got to see another manatee nose too!!
And that, my friends, brings us up to date! We drove back 11 hours yesterday, and now I have just under 2 weeks to get my final things wrapped up before going back to Montreal on May 15th. Wow, time flies.
Happy May the Fourth!
