We got off the Tica Bus in Panama City at about 5am, tired and half frozen - the bus had the air conditioner on high the whole way - and excited for the new adventures to come. It was unfortunate that we had to skip all of Costa Rica (spent about 18 hours in San Jose but didn't get to explore much while waiting for our next bus) - we'll leave that part of Central America for the next trip! We spent about an hour getting our bike and gear off the bus and ready, it was still dark and we were trying to decide if we should sit and wait until daybreak to ride the 30 km to Alex's house or take a bus. The decision was made for us: there were no buses to Gamboa that could take our bikes, so we rode.
It was a nice ride, quick and scenic along the east side of the canal to Gamboa - a small town populated mainly by researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and their families. It was a special gift to be able to stay here as very few tourists are allowed to come, and then at a high price. We moved into Alex's house, glad to be able to unpack and relax, enjoy a nice house with a bed, a shower, a full equipped kitchen, and most of all the company of Swen's old university and outdoor-action friend Alex, with whom we spent many nights in long animated talks about science, politics, ecology, the world and our future till long past midnight, accompanied by our old friends rum and coke who we haven't enjoyed for a long time.
Alex took us on some beautiful hikes through the tropical jungle and we saw some great wildlife: howler monkeys, cappuchin monkeys, spider monkeys, poisonous dart frogs, toucans, rodent type animals called agoutis, crocodiles, lots of cool birds, a deer, cool lizards and iguanas.... and not to mention ticks. Kat found out the hard way what a "tick bomb" is: an invasion-explosion of clusters of ticks crawling and hiding all over you, biting and itching. We found them on us several days afterwards too! We also got a very special opportunity to go to the research island Barro Colorado - from Gamboa we rode about 5 minutes on the bikes to a dock and took a boat 45 minutes to the island which is full of about 70 phd students, researchers, and a few staff doing studies on soil and rainfall, water flows, bats, ants, and other things regarding tropical rainforests. A fascinating talk and slide show was given by one of the researchers - a photographer doing photo expositions on exotic, ecologically fragile and endangered communities of monkeys, bats, orchids. He has won many awards and had his photos published in magazines such as National Geographic, Geo, and many others.
We walked all around Panama City - easily the most developed city we have been to since we began this trip. The downtown has a huge financial district with dozens of huge skyscrapers and super super fancy malls with Armani stores, etc. It isn't a very pretty place but everyone here has been really very nice and the Spanish spoken here is the most clear and easily understood we have heard in a while. However, it is about 90 degrees F (30 C) and 70% humidity - the rainy season is just about to start - so we have mostly been a couple of sweating, melted, sticky heaps of soggy clothes zig-zagging across the city from one shady spot to the next, occasionaly finding an air conditioned patch to refresh in for a few minutes before darting out again to the next spot.
Panama has so much to explore, but we can't stay long because we only have a 1 month visa and extending it requires way too much work (including a letter from a Panamanian who will sponsor us and afterward you must make a special request to leave the country) so when we return someday to Costa Rica we also include the west of Panama that we were unable to visit.
But we did visit the Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal, and its museum that was a really nice exhibition on the planning, history, construction and future of the canal. They are currently expanding the canal a lot, building a second set of locks all along it, which will allow bigger ships and thus increase the income (the Canal is the major income source of the country), as they pay per weight. The fascinating museum with its view point over Miraflores locks kept us there for a whole morning.
It was a close call being able to leave "on time": it turned out that the brake problem on Kat's bike wasn't really a brake problem but a rim problem. We ran all over Panama City for almost a whole day to find a replacement, had to fit the spokes and do all the adjustments ourselves, but in the end it worked fine, Kat learned more about bike repairs, and now we don't have to delay the adventure any longer. So, having filled up on stimulating, intellectual conversation and the comforts of a home, tomorrow we cycle to the Caribbean coast where we will look for boats to take us through the many islands in the San Blas Archipelago and work our way over to Columbia.
It may take us 2 weeks to get to Cartagena in Colombia and until then most likely there will be no electricity or anything besides small villages of indigenous people - essentially a huge reservation where the indigenous people are in complete control and have total authority and autonomy for what goes on in their territory - a huge difference in the rights of indigenous peoples in Latin America as well as much of the world! They even have refused the US military as well as the Panamanian coast guard and military from coming into their waters - making the area a bit of a heaven for the drug traffickers. We have heard of the wonders of these islands and hopefully will fill the days drinking coconut milk, snorkeling (dolphins and manatees are some wildlife we may see if we are lucky!) and relaxing on these beautiful Caribbean beaches - while trying to avoid the above-mentioned drug lords. Read about it in our next blog!
Best wishes to you all and happy springtime (or fall as the case may be for our friends in the southern hemisphere). Thanks for your comments and emails! Keep them coming!
Until next time, kat and swen
It was a nice ride, quick and scenic along the east side of the canal to Gamboa - a small town populated mainly by researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and their families. It was a special gift to be able to stay here as very few tourists are allowed to come, and then at a high price. We moved into Alex's house, glad to be able to unpack and relax, enjoy a nice house with a bed, a shower, a full equipped kitchen, and most of all the company of Swen's old university and outdoor-action friend Alex, with whom we spent many nights in long animated talks about science, politics, ecology, the world and our future till long past midnight, accompanied by our old friends rum and coke who we haven't enjoyed for a long time.
Alex took us on some beautiful hikes through the tropical jungle and we saw some great wildlife: howler monkeys, cappuchin monkeys, spider monkeys, poisonous dart frogs, toucans, rodent type animals called agoutis, crocodiles, lots of cool birds, a deer, cool lizards and iguanas.... and not to mention ticks. Kat found out the hard way what a "tick bomb" is: an invasion-explosion of clusters of ticks crawling and hiding all over you, biting and itching. We found them on us several days afterwards too! We also got a very special opportunity to go to the research island Barro Colorado - from Gamboa we rode about 5 minutes on the bikes to a dock and took a boat 45 minutes to the island which is full of about 70 phd students, researchers, and a few staff doing studies on soil and rainfall, water flows, bats, ants, and other things regarding tropical rainforests. A fascinating talk and slide show was given by one of the researchers - a photographer doing photo expositions on exotic, ecologically fragile and endangered communities of monkeys, bats, orchids. He has won many awards and had his photos published in magazines such as National Geographic, Geo, and many others.
We walked all around Panama City - easily the most developed city we have been to since we began this trip. The downtown has a huge financial district with dozens of huge skyscrapers and super super fancy malls with Armani stores, etc. It isn't a very pretty place but everyone here has been really very nice and the Spanish spoken here is the most clear and easily understood we have heard in a while. However, it is about 90 degrees F (30 C) and 70% humidity - the rainy season is just about to start - so we have mostly been a couple of sweating, melted, sticky heaps of soggy clothes zig-zagging across the city from one shady spot to the next, occasionaly finding an air conditioned patch to refresh in for a few minutes before darting out again to the next spot.Panama has so much to explore, but we can't stay long because we only have a 1 month visa and extending it requires way too much work (including a letter from a Panamanian who will sponsor us and afterward you must make a special request to leave the country) so when we return someday to Costa Rica we also include the west of Panama that we were unable to visit.But we did visit the Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal, and its museum that was a really nice exhibition on the planning, history, construction and future of the canal. They are currently expanding the canal a lot, building a second set of locks all along it, which will allow bigger ships and thus increase the income (the Canal is the major income source of the country), as they pay per weight. The fascinating museum with its view point over Miraflores locks kept us there for a whole morning.
It was a close call being able to leave "on time": it turned out that the brake problem on Kat's bike wasn't really a brake problem but a rim problem. We ran all over Panama City for almost a whole day to find a replacement, had to fit the spokes and do all the adjustments ourselves, but in the end it worked fine, Kat learned more about bike repairs, and now we don't have to delay the adventure any longer. So, having filled up on stimulating, intellectual conversation and the comforts of a home, tomorrow we cycle to the Caribbean coast where we will look for boats to take us through the many islands in the San Blas Archipelago and work our way over to Columbia.
It may take us 2 weeks to get to Cartagena in Colombia and until then most likely there will be no electricity or anything besides small villages of indigenous people - essentially a huge reservation where the indigenous people are in complete control and have total authority and autonomy for what goes on in their territory - a huge difference in the rights of indigenous peoples in Latin America as well as much of the world! They even have refused the US military as well as the Panamanian coast guard and military from coming into their waters - making the area a bit of a heaven for the drug traffickers. We have heard of the wonders of these islands and hopefully will fill the days drinking coconut milk, snorkeling (dolphins and manatees are some wildlife we may see if we are lucky!) and relaxing on these beautiful Caribbean beaches - while trying to avoid the above-mentioned drug lords. Read about it in our next blog!
Best wishes to you all and happy springtime (or fall as the case may be for our friends in the southern hemisphere). Thanks for your comments and emails! Keep them coming!
Until next time, kat and swen
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