Caribbean winter 2014-2015, part 1: Panamá

Panamá City skyline as seen from the metropolitan park.

Once again, I have found myself in Boston in the dead of winter. My job situation is great, my living situation is still lovely (though fast becoming unsustainable, I will definitely move again in August… time will tell if that move will be to a different apartment or different state), and personally, well, it could be worse.  But I still can’t resign myself to staying straight through the winter here, and I had a month off for the holiday break (did I mention the job situation is great?). 

The decision of where to go this time was heavily influenced by an invitation from one of my best friends, Bri, who is studying to become a veterinarian in St. Kitts. Once I decided to go there and started setting up dates, I threw around ideas with other pockets of friends until some details started to stick and “maybe”s turned into “here’s our flight info”. It worked out magically!

Note: you’ll notice that for this trip I did not travel alone, and I didn’t couchsurf.  The former is because I am still being a big baby and didn’t want to be alone yet. The latter is because while it is easy to find a couch for one person, only professional hosts can deal with hosting 6 people.

Exhibit A: only the bold attempt hosting large numbers of surfers. 

Here, I hosted 5 - 2 from Colombia, 1 from Denmark, 2 from Germany.

Here I hosted seven (yes. seven.). 5 from South Korea, 2 from Brazil.

It is also hard to sell people on the concept of couchsurfing, especially when one’s friends are late-twenties/early-thirties professionals who would rather have the privacy and dependability of an Air BnB. I will say that it was fabulous to travel with friends and Air BnB’s are pretty nice. But I know I’ll come crawling back to couchsurfing when I next travel alone, just because I love that feeling you get when staying somewhere isn’t a business, but rather a cultural exchange full of stories and camaraderie and, yeah, a few awkward moments (For instance, when I couchsurfed in Montreal, I thought I was being helpful by bringing my own toilet paper so as not to use up all of my host's. However, Canadian toilets are not equipped to handle plush American 2-ply, and I unwittingly clogged up his toilet. He tried to use his plunger, which broke. He then borrowed his neighbor's plunger, which also broke. He ended up buying 2 new plungers and peeing in his back yard because I was so "helpful". That Amanda, needless to say, died of embarrassment. I am simply a new reincarnation of her.).

For those who are curious, before I go anywhere I usually type up a plan and keep it with me. This plan is meant to facilitate seamless transitions when I travel, and includes information such as directions to airports, notes about tipping, highly recommended activities in an area (hiking, snorkeling, etc.), and cultural anomalies to be aware of. The plan’s actual purpose, however, usually turns out to be a napkin for the tea I spill on myself before I even leave the Boston airport. Seriously though, it’s great to have a place to keep track of what you’ve done and what you want to do. I’ll show you mine.

So we went! 

Getting off the plane in Panama, I was hit by the most comforting brick wall of heat and humidity that I could have asked for. It’s kind of like leaving a frigid movie theater after drinking an iced drink, shivering and numb, and getting into your car that has been roasting in the Texas sun – except you don’t even get burned by your seatbelt buckle. Your skin is just like, “THANK YOU! I’m not even mad you had me in the freezer, I just want to keep feeling this solar hug.” So of course I was in a great mood going through the huge customs line with my travel buddy, CC. CC is from Lebanon and is disturbingly intelligent, well-travelled and up for anything, a fantastic travel buddy. Once through, we waited on the other side of the customs line for our other travel buddies: my gorgeous Azeri friend, Suad (follow her on twitter), and her adorable, animal-loving Italian boyfriend, Nicola. Little known fact, Suad has the cutest cat in the world (yes, I fully admit that Pip comes in 2^nd here). His name is Pinky, and he has WON AWARDS in Azerbaijan for being fluffy and wonderful.

Is this not the best thing that's happened to you ever?

Runner-up: Max

Runner-up: Pip

So there we are, CC and I waiting for Suad/Nicola’s flight to get in – a scheduled wait time of about 1 hour. We don’t have any signal with our US phones, so we had agreed beforehand to meet in the relatively small customs area. An hour goes by, and CC and I are calmly playing cards. 1.5 hours goes by, and the customs area has completely cleared out. We approach some employees and confirm that the flight in question landed ages ago.  Could they have walked by us and assumed we left? We were on our way out when a bedraggled Suad and Nicola come out of a door that no one else came out of. Poor Suad had had to spend all that time trying to explain to the customs officials where Azerbaijan was. They didn’t believe her until they googled it. Say what you will about America, but at least people don’t suspect us of making our country up.

For you, Suad.

We took a taxi (~$50 split 4 ways) from the airport to our Air BnB. The taxis in Panama are mostly dirt cheap, except for to/from the airport and to/from the canal, because Duh. Tourists. This taxi ride was very educational though, for instance we learned that some taxi drivers are very opinionated on the state of capitalism in their country. Here's a video of one vociferating on just that topic, with the Tornillo (screw) building in frame:

We also learned then and there that the currency of Panama was Balboas. The Balboa-Dollar ratio is exactly 1-1, yet American money is still preferred. Also, if you pay with American money, you’ll most likely get your change in Balboas. As everyone knows, Vasco Nuñez de Balboa was a Spanish conquistador who explored Panama in the 16^th century.

Our first full day, we hiked in the Parque Metropolitano, a large park very close to the city. When we paid our entry fees (~$5 each), we asked the employee if there were monkeys to be seen. He furtively looked around and said simply, “yes,” without making eye contact. We hiked for a while and then came back out. I had seen a small lizard and was rather satisfied, but apparently the insatiable thirst for monkeys among the rest of the group led us to the Parque Soberanía for another outing.

This park has amazing reviews online, rife with references to howler monkey sightings. We paid our $5 to a man who showed up pretty much out of nowhere and asked for it. Ever the wary traveler, I asked for a receipt. He held up an empty pad with rather convincing traces of paper along the top where, ostensibly, receipts had been ripped off (god knows how long ago) and said he was fresh out of receipts. 

A few hours and several small lizards later, we came to the end of the trail, monkey-less. We asked the man what we did wrong, and at that point he said “Ooooh you want to see the animals? You have to take a taxi to another entrance to the park, waaaaay over there.” The fact that this particular man made a living off charging people who thought they were going into the legitimate entrance to the park, even though he knew that was not the case, was quite apparent.

So of course we go to the other entrance, and the employee there is not swayed by our story of already having paid because of course we had no receipt. So we paid again (these $5 are starting to add up), asked for a receipt, and were once again shown the “fresh-out” empty receipt pad. I think I saw the guy smirk as he brandished it, knowing that we were powerless to demand a receipt when there were simply no receipts left, regardless of the fact that they probably ran out of receipts in 1975 when they discovered that instead of spending money on receipt paper, they could instead make dividends by equipping employees with the empty pads and stationing them at intervals around the gigantic park.

I should also mention that the other 3 members of our group apparently saw a majestic toucan in this last forest. I saw a flash of yellow disappear into the trees and had no idea what it was, but it was indeed majestic, and we were all quite contented when all was said and done.

Forsaken by the monkeys but ecstatic to be in Panama all the same, we planned our beach day. Isla Taboga is a sight for sore Boston eyes: colorful houses on a hillside spilling toward sun-soaked beaches and turquoise water.

According to our guides, Taboga is the home to the second oldest church in the western hemisphere, San Pedro church. Then the guide goes on to talk about hiking and beaches and such, with NO regard whatsoever to the fact that anyone who reads that entry is clearly dying to know what the first oldest church in the Western Hemisphere is. I am not so cruel as the Lonely Planet, I will tell you that the oldest church in the western hemisphere is St. Peter’s church in Bermuda. Anyway, we stayed on the beach all day (slathered in sunscreen, we won’t be reliving Thailand SunburnGate again anytime soon) and didn’t even look at the church.

The next day, we explored Panamá Viejo, or Old Panamá. This was the original site of the city, but it was burned and pillaged by England’s out of control pirate, Captain Henry Morgan, in 1671. From Wikipedia: “Because the sack of Panama violated the 1670 peace treaty between England and Spain, Morgan was arrested and conducted to the Kingdom of England in 1672. He proved he had no knowledge of the treaty. When Spanish and English relations deteriorated, Morgan was knighted in 1674 before returning to Jamaica the following year to take up the post of Lieutenant Governor.” When he fell out of favor with England, he became fat and boisterous and prone to drinking, thereby sealing forever his beloved status as an American frat boy the namesake of a brand of so-so rum.*

*Disclaimer: in the author’s opinion, all rum is so-so. The only respectable alcoholic drink is Moscato so sweet that it gives you instant cavities and diabetes.

The dowager countess knows what I'm about.

The four of us had a great time visiting the ruins of Panama Viejo and imagining the lives of Spanish settlers before Morgan and his men disembarked and caused pandemonium. In retrospect, this sweet nostalgic thought is probably more accurately described as CC, Suad and Nicola striding along the path, reading informational plaques in a dignified manner, interrupted at intervals by me clawing at a nondescript stone and squawking out to anyone who would listen, “You GUYS! I bet a villager stood RIGHT HERE and touched this stone 400 YEARS AGO!” and then lapsing into enraptured silence as my companions weighed the risk/benefit analysis of dumping me in the swamp.

After a while, though, it was time to leave the park, because we had an eerie hunch that it was closing soon (the origin of this hunch was probably a sign that I read on the way in, stating the closing time as 5:00pm. It was 5:15). We came to the gate at the end of the old city and, through a bit of quick detective work, concluded that it was indeed closed and locked with a large padlock. After a few minutes of hushed discussion (“Should we go back the way we came? Do you think there’s an exit somewhere else? Can we climb this fence?”), we saw some cops in the distance (on the other side of the fence) and waved them over. After gently scolding us for staying too late, they looked at the lock and confirmed that they didn’t have the key. Eyeing the 2 boys and then the 2 girls in their skirts, they dubiously suggested that we could climb over.

I am proud to say that if there were an award for “tourists who flashed the most Panamanian cops on December 27, 2014,” I am confident that Suad and I would be contenders. The cops were giggling at our shrieks of displeasure at climbing high pointy fences in skirts and flip flops.

Oh, we also saw the Panama Canal. Did you know that dozens of ships go through each day, and each one pays AT LEAST $300,000 in fees to pass through?!?!?!

Our last night in Panama City, we were joined by Carolina, my awesome friend/neighbor from Boston. Carolina was already in Colombia visiting her family for Christmas, so she came up one country to join us in the city, which was our departure point for the next destination: the islands of San Blas.

Handstand in Panama City: