Back to the Spanish 'loin.

Is this what guys really look like in Panama?

From the Causeway

Who would win in a fight- Caribbean Lobster or Maine Lobsta?

Lion fish

Unfinished museum that we wanted to go to and had read it was to be finished in 2011-no such luck.

 

Friday, April 27 2012

Today it was sunny when we woke up and the sun continued to shine for our boat ride with El Presidente and the Caba’dup Crew back from the San Blas Island of Narranjo Chico to mainland Panama.  Before we left I dutifully had to report to the main man at Caba’dup about the state of the ladies’ bathroom.  Yesterday some Israeli girls who were staying at Robinson’s, not Caba’dup, walked over and used the bathrooms here.  Not cool.  Even less cool was the fact that these two dirty cows took big nasty dumps and then they even put the toilet paper in the toilet bowl clogging the flow.  In Central America you never, unless it’s a really nice western style hotel, put the paper in the bowl, always in the trash.  I know this is gross and I don’t really like to do it, but I like clogged toilets even less.  I didn’t want the proprietor to think it was us so I had to let him noh it was the inconsiderate Israelis.  Altho I had no opinion of Israelis when I started this trip I’m starting to form one based on a lot of accumulating negative experiences. 

Once we were back on the Panamanian mainland we got picked up by the Land Cruiser taxi for the 2.5 hour ride thru the jungle and then back to Panama City.  We got dropped off at Luna’s Castle in Casco Viejo again.  Marcie went in to check if they had a private room available but unfortunately they only had dorm beds.  The prospect of sharing a dorm with a bunch of rude Israelis did not appeal to us so we walked back thru Casco into the down and out area on the fringes of the old town and back to our Colombian hotel that we stayed at last week.  As soon as we approached the building thru the steaming stinking streets we spotted the religious nut who sells homemade rice pudding.  I decided to buy one not because I wanted some of his pudding, altho it is good, but to see him do his Jesus freakout that he does after he makes a sale.  This time he got even crazier then the first time that he prayed for us in the Chinese laundry.  He grabbed my hand and started bowing repeatedly to touch his forehead to my hand while he bestowed a bevy of blessings on Marcie and I.  He was speaking really fast but I cot the words Sangre and Fuego (Blood and Fire) so I guess it was a pretty good blessing. 

Soon however we were above the craziness of the streets taking care of some business on the computer in our air conditioned room.  Later we walked back down to Casco and had dinner at a very nice tapas place.  First we had a drink on the rooftop bar overlooking the harbor and the city skyline behind it.  It’s seems strange that a classy restaurant like this is rite next to some of the dirtiest slums that I have ever seen, but like I mentioned a few blogs ago this area is a reclamation work in progress for Panama City. 

Saturday, April 28 2012

I got up early this morning and while Marcie got her beauty rest I went for a walk out of the beat up barrio where our hotel is and across the hi-way to Cerro Ancon.  This is an urban national park on a hill on the outskirts of the city that used to be used as a US military base.  Now abandoned by the US it’s protected from development as a park with a road that winds around it on it’s way up to the summit.  It is not a huge mountain but the climb to the top in the humid early morning heat is a good workout and views from the peak of Panama City to the east, Casco to the south, the Amador Causway to the west and the Panama Canal to the north are really comprehensive.

On my way back down I decided to take a different street back to our hotel room and wake Marcie up for breakfast.  As I headed that way a Hispanic lady stopped me and said No camino alli (don’t walk there).  I replied Por que no (Why not)?  Es pelegroso (It’s dangerous).  Esta Bien, no problemo, I said and kept on walking.  This nay-borhood was particularly decrepit and a couple blocks later two military officers armed to the teeth motioned for me to come over to talk with them.   They told me that I was not allow to walk in El Chorillo because I’m a gringo and it’s too dangerous.  They asked me if I had any money and I lied and said no because I thot it was potentially a shake down.  One of them then pulled 25 cents out of his pocket, gave it to me, hailed a cab and told me to get in.  I obeyed and got a really cheap cab ride back to my hotel.  It was only 9 am at this point and I didn’t think that I was in any danger but I didn’t seem to have any choice in the matter so I just went with the flow.  I’ve never got a cab ride less then $2 in this city but I don’t carry around a big shotgun either.

We went out to breakfast at this French crepe place in Casco that was waaaay too expensive so I only got a juice.  They must think that they’re in Paris or something because there is no way that a crepe with apples, walnuts and cheese is worth $10 US in Panama City. 

Later we took a cab to the Balboa section of town and checked into a private room at the same Amador Hostel that we stayed in last week.  We have to kill a couple of days until our flite to Miami and this hotel is cheaper, has free breakfast, laundry and a kitchen where we can cook our own meals. 

In the afternoon we got a cab out to the Amador causeway where we rented 2 bicycles.  The 2 kilometer causeway starts on the mainland at the mouth of the Panama Canal’s Pacific entrance and connects with a few off shore islands.  We rode bikes around here for the afternoon, visited a nice nature center run by the US’s Smithsonian Institute and had some gelato. 

Back in Balboa at our hotel we cooked a scrumptious dinner (I figured out the secret for how to get hash browns nice and crispy) and watched “Contraband” starring Mark Walberg, on my brother Will’s recommendation because it has a lot of smuggling scenes set in Panama City.  The movie actually shows a realistic version of the city and the port.  You can tell the Panama scenes were shot on location and not just on a set in LA.

~Jon

Isla Naranjo Chico, Kuna Culture and a wonderful place to stay!

Kuna Ladies

The Lizards!

Lizard loves the Pirate

Kuna Boat

Our room at Cabana Narasgandup

 

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Last night has become the worst night of sleep that I’ve ever had surpassing the really hot night we spent in Granada, Nicaragua.  I decided to sleep in our hammock in the main house because I couldn't stand the smell in our cabana and it was flooded anyway.  My super powerful sniffer can be a burden sometimes. Jon put up the hammock for me and it was pretty comfortable.  He couldn’t smell anything in our cabana so he slept in our bed.  Sometime in the middle of the night I started to feel water dripping on my head inside the hammock under the roof.  The roof wasn’t leaking in this spot but it was pouring rain and the wind was blowing the water in the side of the house and getting it on me. Eventually, it became too wet for me to stay there.  I tried to move the hammock to another more interior pole but the hammock was too wet to sleep in at that point.  The rain slowed down a little so I trudged through the pond to ask Jon if it was dry in our room.  He was sleeping peacefully so I decided to come back to the room even though it smelled very musty.  We slept through the rest of the night without any problems. 

I awoke to something weird moving around by my feet.  This turned out to be a cat that wanted to make its bed on my bed.  I gave it a little shove onto the floor but it came back again and again.  Apparently, we were sleeping in his bed, but because humans take precedence over other animals we won the battle for the bed.  Jon had done a little scouting yesterday around the island and found another place for us to stay.  They had wood floors! So, after breakfast at Ina’s we quickly carried our bags over to our new accommodations before it started raining.  Cabanas Narasgandup was a big upgrade.  They have wood floors, clean sheets & pillows, and a light in our room.  Their bathrooms were also quite nice as they actually have a toilet with a seat and all you have to do to flush is push the handle.  (Back at Ina’s the toilets were seatless and if you wanted to flush you had to fill up a bucket of water, dump it in the upper deck, and then use your hand to pull the plug)-UGH!!!  I was much happier at Cabana Narasgandup.  That's a really long name so I’ll just call it Caba’dup now.

The rain held out for a bit and we were even able to go snorkeling for a little while before lunch.  The snorkeling in the area was, like Portobello, very nice for non-fish life.  We saw a couple schools of fish swimming around but mainly it was really interesting little anemones and corals. Lunch was really good with a local pescado called Bonita, platacones (plantains), enselada (salad), and pina (pineapple).  It was a huge lunch and I had to give my leftover fish to Jon and we couldn’t eat all the plantains.  We thought that the fish might have been caught just earlier today because when we were snorkeling Jon saw a native Kuna zoom by him underneath the water with a 2-pronged spear, flippers and a snorkel.  He gave Jon the thumbs up and went after a school of fish.  After lunch we walked around the island, which is very small.

After returning from our walk, Jon bought a couple cans of coke for us.  We played dominoes (I beat him twice - I’m on a roll) and drank our cokes. While sitting there playing dominoes in our cabana lizards just started showing up left and right.  Before this, we had commented that it seemed like there weren’t many animals on this island except birds.  So, for these guys to show up in such multitudes right then it was a little weird.  They were probably about an inch to two inches long and seemed to be some sort of gecko.  There were six or so of them and they weren’t scared of us at all.  They seemed to be admiring our stuff, which I thought was a little weird.  They even let us pick them up.  Several of them had tried to climb into my coke but since I was still drinking it I shooed them away.  After I finished I let them have it just to see what would happen and they went crazy.  They swarmed the can of coke and started licking the residual sweetness off of the outside of the can.  Then a brave soul hooked his tail to the lip of the can and dangled himself in to get the pot of gold still left in the can.  After this it was kind of like King of the Hill (the altitude supremacy game not the tv show) because only the largest of the lizards was allowed to stay on the top of the can.  If another smaller one would try to steal a lick the largest one would run him off with a couple displays of dominance that included tail whacking and putting his head on the other one's head.  All in all it was not very aggressive but each one seemed to know who was in charge.  At one time I had 3 lizards on my coke can!  (See pics)

For dinner we asked the guy to give us smaller portions because lunch was so big and we aren’t use to eating so much but something got lost in translation because we received a very good but very large dinner of rice, fish, lentils and salad.  Jon shared his rum with the guys who work at the cabanas and we had a nice conversation with the jefe (boss) in Spanish which is neither of ours' native language.   I also bought a Mola (Kuna quilted fabric squares depicting wildlife) for mi madre and hope to make it into a pillow when I get home because they only sell the fabric squares.  I guess some people might frame them as well.  We’ll probably spend the evening reading and playing dominoes.  Muy tranquillo.

~Marcie

* Marcie’s Ponderings

Lately, during our travels we have been meeting and hearing a lot about Israelis.  We met one the other night at Luna’s who has family in Moncks Corner, SC, which is very close to Charleston.  We also met a nice couple that is also staying at Ina’s.  Several times though we have heard from other travelers (including other Israelis) that we might not want to go or stay someplace because there are lots of Israelis there.  We became curious as to why we should avoid them.  Some folks mentioned that they could be a little defensive and aggressive when it came to conversations and that big groups of them together could be very overwhelming.  After talking to the nice couple at Ina’s last night I found out that all Israelis (men and women) have to go through the Army when they graduate high school.  This sounds horrible.  I would never want to be forced to do something like that.  I can’t even imagine going through a process or organization that controls what you do every minute.  I can see why a lot of the Israeli travelers who are only recently released from the Army when they begin their traveling seem so defensive when you speak with them that they become offensive. 

 Thursday, April 26 2012

After a day and night at Caba’dup, I was very glad we switched accommodations.  Our room was breezy and dry, with a wooden floor (piso madera), table and chairs and even a solar powered light that is activated from 6-11pm.  We switched places around 10am yesterday and I was a little concerned that maybe we hurt Ina’s feelings.  Jon mentioned though that it was completely rain related and had nothing to do with whether we liked Ina or not and he was a nice guy and his wife cooked us great meals.  So I thought we would give him a nice review, but recently I have changed my mind.  Ina is quite childish.

Let me recap.  Getting to the islands is a little difficult.  We had to book Ina’s Cabanas through Luna’s Castle hostel in Panama City.  Most cabanas in the San Blas were booked so they kind of steered us to Ina’s through Lam Tours, the company arranging the 4x4 jeep ride out there.  Our current lodgings here at Caba’dup are not part of the Lam Tour deal I suppose because they are one price step up from budget.  The next morning Lam took us out to the port to meet the boat.  Then the boat, which is Kuna owned and lodging affiliated brings us to the island.  It's also the boat we're supposed to take back to the mainland when we leave.  We're supposed to tell guys at our cabana the day before we want to go so they can call the boat guy who brings us back to the mainland where we meet the 4 x 4 jeep guy from Lam who brings us back to Panama City.  We're currently on an island that is off the grid and we don’t have any access to phones or internet to take care of this ourselves.  We've already paid for the 4 x4 ride but have to pay for the boat when it happens.  No big deal.  However, since our new lodging is not affiliated with the budget Lam Tour deal (Ina and his cousin Robinson, the only other places to stay on the island, are) they also aren’t part of the boat deal so our guy at Caba’dup said we should go ask Robinson (Ina’s cousin) to call the boat for us. 

We went to do this today and were coldly told by Robinson that we had to talk to Ina.  At this point I started to smell something fishy (figuratively).  We then walked to Ina and let him know we needed a ride back tomorrow.  A guy from the boat ride over was also standing next to Ina.  Ina then proceeds to tell us that it’s not his problem because we don’t stay with him anymore.  So, I said to the other guy, “What about you?”  He just shrugs.  Jon told Ina that we didn’t have any problem with him and we only wanted a room with a wooden floor because it had been raining so much.  He then says he doesn’t have any minutes on his phone.  Very childish.  I’m shooting them both dirty looks by now.

So we walk back and tell our guy at Caba'dup.  He says “no problemo” and calls the tour company for us.  Apparently everything is worked out and we are going to leave tomorrow at 9am.  We hope.  Ina doesn’t know who he is messing with though because when I get back to the mainland I’m going to blow up the backpacker websites with bad reviews about Ina’s Cabanas on Isla Naranjo Chico. 

After lunch we paid our guys at Caba’dup to take us by boat to Isla Perro, which is about 30 minutes from our island and is great for snorkeling.  The snorkeling was nice because there’s a shipwreck from 1959 and we were able to snorkel around that but the current was really strong and made it a little difficult.  We had about a half an hour of some really nice sunshine over on Isla Perro and it's easy to see why the San Blas islands are considered to be so beautiful. 

A few of days ago we had asked a couple from Robinson’s Cabanas who rode over with us on the boat from the mainland if they wanted to go on this snorkel trip and they accepted.  They're a nice couple from Ireland (Nick) and Sweden (Malin) and now I’m a little concerned that they might get blacklisted from Robinson’s and Ina’s now that they came to our side of the island. 

Our side of the island seems to have an issue with the other side of the island.  It must be some long-standing tribal dispute but when we decided to switch to a room with a floor we were put smack dab in the middle of that Kuna Indian feud.  Our side of the island is very clean and as I’ve said already it’s considered a step up from budget.  But for the differences in quality I'll gladly pay the extra $15/person.  It was mainly because of all the rain we’ve had that we moved but after the move I am very impressed with the way Caba’dup’s place is run.  It’s a business and not just someone’s house.  I enjoy staying with families but you need to have a bit of professionalism when you have people staying at your place and Ina’s does not have that.  Ok, I think I’ve done enough ranting about Ina.

After our trip out to Isla Perro we returned back to Caba’dup on Isla Naranjo Chico and enjoyed some of the only sunny weather we’ve seen in the last week or so.  We read books in the hammock that we strung up between two palm trees and had a nice dinner prepared by the Caba’dup Crew including El Presidente, of fried bonita fish, french fries, cole slaw and baked beans.  We also finalized our boat transportation back to mainland Panama for tomorrow morning.  Since we're blacklisted from the Ina/Robinson boat that we were originally supposed to take we're now going with the Caba’dup Crew for only $5 per person (Ina charges $10). Watch out INA!!!!

~Marcie