Panama

Reading about a local artisan’s market in El Valle de Anton, Panama, a few years back, I had the desire to visit the place. Opportunity showed up this October 2013, as I had a free week-end in Panama. Taking the public bus from the Albrook Mall, it took just a little more than two hours to get there. The market was smaller than I imagined  (the Ecuadorian markets of Otavalo and Cotacachi were still fresh in my mind) but it had colorful and nice hand made things by Kuna Yala Indians and local craftsmen. The nice surprise was the green and luscious  nature, the mountains and rivers, hot springs, pre-Columbian rocks and a few other things to do and visit (geological museum, zoo,  serpentarium, orchids conservation center etc.) . Since I love to walk I took a map from the small Tourist Information Center by the main road and headed up towards  “La Piedra Pintada“, the pre-Colombian “painted” rocks. The picture here is the map and information at the entrance gate: all in Spanish. 🙁 The entrance fee was $2.00. A young guide can accompany you for a fee. All information in Spanish, again. 🙂 I was impressed by these young children and their ability to do the job of a tour guide. There are a few options regarding what to see and how far to go on this trail. Rain took me by surprise, again. Why is that, when it is the rainy season and I know it can last 8-9 months? Anyway, I got soaked and decided that I have no more reason to hide or stop. I kept going and walked up to see a few waterfalls and two pre-Colombian rocks. At the base of one of the waterfalls there is a nice pool of water and people can swim. On the way back to town I enjoyed watching kids playing and swimming under a bridge. I was so soaked by then that joining them fully clothed would have not made a difference for me. Yet, I was older and had a backpack that I was not willing to leave unattended.  I had to be content just taking pictures of their delightful play. You can see more pictures of El Valle de Anton during my rainy visit in the gallery below.    

There is not much to say about the Panama Canal, as everyone knows about it. After all, this is what the country of Panama is well known for. The Canal is what brings the big money to the country and thanks to it, Panama can afford to attract foreign investments with no tax added, and in this way bring more employment to their people. There are a lot of tax benefits in this country in order to attract foreign investment. The best place to watch the ships go through the canal is the Miraflores Locks. You can get there by taxi (about $10 from the city-one way) or by public bus ($0.85 each way, plus $3.00 for the two “tarjetas”/bus cards).  If the latter is your choice you have to get to the Albrook Mall with the city bus and take another bus from there. The entrance fee is $5.00 if you just sit on the deck watching the ships pass by and listen to the information given trough the speakers in both Spanish and English. If you want to see the museum and watch a video about the canal the entrance fee is $8.00. Next year, 2014, the old locks will be 100 years old and the new ones in their infancy but much larger. How right is that? The baby bigger than the parent? Heavy and expensive but small wagons pull the boats trough the locks. Click here to watch the process via a live webcam. For a visual step by step on how the locks work, see the photos below. Watch the water level and the locks/gates opening, as well as the six small but super heavy wagons pulling the boat. The Panamax (currently the largest ship that can go through the canal) passes through with a total of only one meter clearance (half of a meter clearance on each side):

Each time I came to Panama City these old and colorful buses were very much a part of the city’s picture. They are unique and for visitors they came to be a symbol for this country. Should we be sad or happy to see them gone? People here say that the government is buying them for $25,000 each and sends them for scrap metal as they replace them with the modern Metrobus. They say the Diablo Rojo is unsafe to ride and some are glad to see them off the roads. Old, with narrow seats,  no A/C and seemingly hard to navigate, they have been replaced almost completely within the city limits. Some are  still running outside of the city, on different routes, from the Albrook Mall. Yet, a lot of the colored ones I had seen last year seem to be gone already. I see a lot of plain looking ones now, and just a few fully colored. Naked girl advertisements on the front of some are hard to miss. As color and art goes, I feel sad to see them gone and certainly the idea to have them go for scrap metal bothers me. I would have chosen the best colored ones for an open air museum or for making some kind of a funky hotel. Since I am talking about buses in Panama City, this might be a good time to give some information on how the new bus system works.  The “Metrobus” is the modern addition to the public transportation of Panama City.  The new orange and white buses have air conditioning and are way more spacious for the same price of $.25 one way. Except that you have to get a “tarjeta” (card) in advance and it will cost $2.00 before you get to add any funds on it. On the “Diablo Rojo” it was an all cash deal. The “tarjeta” (an orange and white card) can always get recharged. The main bus terminal of the city is in the Albrook Mall. For using one of the out of city buses, besides paying for the ticket, you also have to get another “tarjeta” for $1.00. This one is mostly white and green, with a newspaper look. You will need it to enter the bus waiting area. Each time you enter you need an extra $0.10 credit on it. Most tourist do not understand this and if not Spanish speakers they feel like they have to pay too many times for the bus or that they are being asked for a tip, or being tricked. Bus drivers and bus station attendants do not speak English, so it hard to get informed in there.  

To get to this hidden fisherman’s paradise the bus ride is not the easiest one. From David the bus goes to Horconcitos but not too often. From Horconcitos apparently there is another bus to Boca Chica, but this is one bus I never got to see. Luckily a taxi showed up in the bus station and the driver was willing to take all of us for the same price as the bus. If you are not alone it makes sense to take any bus that goes along the David – Santiago route and to ask to be dropped of at the intersection towards Boca Chica. From there you can take the taxi the rest of the way. The small town of Boca Chica is not a commercial town,  and there is not much to do or see if you do not have a boat. If you make it all the way to Boca Chica your best and least expensive option for overnight lodging will be on the nearby island called Boca Brava. The water-taxi will take you across for $3.00 and the hotel/hostel Boca Brava is located right on the top of the hill from the dock. It has a restaurant with a wonderful view and a variety of accommodations. From sleeping under a roof in a hammock, in a bed in a dormitory or in a standard, deluxe or suite room, it is all there to choose from. The island is home to a variety of wildlife, including howler monkeys. If you walk around you will not miss their loud cry. There are a lot of trails to walk, however the beaches are not the best as the ocean is usually murky. Yet, it could be a quiet and restful time if you do not want crowds for a while, as the island is almost totally uninhabited.

I will try to guide all the “save a buck” adventurers to the places I hiked with no guide or group. Common sense and good care is needed, as ill intended people can be found in any country you travel, and the forests are full of life that includes spiders and snakes. If you would like to hike to the waterfalls on your own, take the bus from the main street in Boquete. You will see the buses in front of the grocery store located on a corner, the one with the big red and white sign with beer bottles on top. The bus will say Alto Quiel and Bajo Mono on the front window. Take it to the last stop and ask when they return and what time the last one is running. When you exit the bus, the road in front splits three ways. To the left: The unpaved road to the left will take you to a waterfall with an entrance fee of $3.00. Soon you will see a metal gate and the sign on it will say “Familia Landau”. Their house is to the left of that gate and someone will approach you for the fee. The road to the waterfall is the one past the gates. This hike is mostly in the shade of the forests and you will cross a few mountain springs, some over metal bridges. The time to get there can be anywhere from 30 minutes up, depending on your speed and number of stops. It certainly is not a flat terrain but it is shaded and rich with vegetation. The waterfall at the end is high and if you want to refresh you can stay under its fall but there is no pool to swim in at the bottom.     Straight ahead: The road ahead from where the bus stops will take you to three waterfalls with a $5.00 entrance fee. It is still a paved road for about another 1.5 km. You will see a big blue and white sign on the right when the road splits again and you will have to take the unpaved road to the right. The wooden smaller signs will guide you. After you cross the river on the hanging bridge there is another arrow pointing uphill. You will follow the path up, through an iron gate at some point and up even more. You will reach two wooden homes on the right. One is painted blue now and this is where you will be approached for the entrance fee. You will still have to go higher. It is a harder climb if, like me, you are not used walking up mountains. It took me 30-40 minutes from the point the paved road ended up to the first waterfall. I did not stop at all, even as the climb was making me sound like a tractor with a noisy engine. Yet, the view is beautiful. In the beginning it is out in the open, not much in the way of forests, and being less covered you have a wonderful open view of the surrounding mountains and valleys.   The first waterfall you will reach you can view from across, sitting on the benches specially positioned there.       To the second and third waterfall you will have to walk 10 minutes more (for each) through forests and on upward stairs. If it rains the path becomes muddy and slippery and the forest dark. I had that luck after the second waterfall and I had to walk in the rain all the way back. To the right: That might be for you to discover. If you do, please post your comments here so others will know what is found there, too. It is a paved road and someone told me a free waterfall is 10 minutes away. I walked a bit, found one small waterfall and kept going as I did not believe that could have been it. Fifteen minutes away there was still nothing else and I turned back. The walk was nice but since I did all of this in one day I decided to give up on this last new direction. I met two people going that way. They were told the free waterfall was 3 km away. If you venture that way please take pictures of the fall you find and share them with the rest of us. Another one of the rare free things left to do in Boquete is the garden called “Mi Jardin Es Tu Jardin”. It is within walking distance from town and has a gorgeous view of the surrounding mountains. Donations are appreciated but not asked for and the person in charge is funny.  He can tell you the story of the garden if you speak Spanish. If all my understanding was correct then he said that the present owner lives in David and works or worked in road construction. His father was a well traveled businessman (“negocio”) and stock market investor (“bursa”). He was born in 1910 and passed away in 2010, leaving the garden to his son from David. He was inspired by places he had seen in his travels and different magazines and made requests to add one thing or another by showing pictures to his crew of gardeners. Since coffee plantations are abundant in the region I asked if he drank coffee to live 100 years or just water. I was told vodka and coffee. The longevity secret is now yours. LOL Also, if you will be in Boquete on a Tuesday, there is a local market before noon. Might be fun to see. It is on the first right after the bridge.

Surrounded by mountains with lots of rivers and waterfalls, lush vegetation, rich in animal and bird life, the growing town of Boquete (in the Chiriquí Province of Panama) has attracted many foreigners in the past years. Its climate, its beauty, as well as the inexpensive cost of living have made it a haven for many. Unfortunately this is precisely why land and property prices have become exaggeratedly high compared with most places in other areas of the country. I learned quickly my first day here that not much can be done anymore for free. The hikes and walks that I usually enjoy on my own are sold here as guided tours and the information to get to the trails, waterfalls and hot springs with no organized tour, it is hard to find. Even to get to most of the waterfalls you will have to pay a fee. I will try to guide all the “save a buck” adventurers to the places I hiked with no guide or group. Common sense and good care is needed as people with mal intentions can be found in any country you travel and the forests are full of life that includes spiders and snakes. Another word of advice is to pay the one or two dollars extra per night for a hostel in which you will feel good and welcomed in order to avoid frustration and bad attitudes, especially when the money you save on the room price will be added to your bill somewhere else (some hostels charge over a dollar per day for each bag you leave with them after 11am, the check out time; or they charge double the price that a laundry in town would cost if you gave them your clothes to take there for you, a short walk you can do in 5 minutes). Staying at the right place will make your adventure more enjoyable. You will meet more like minded travelers and you will not be affected by an “all for the money” attitude of owners that try to sell you tours but will have no time to give information. Located near a park, in a central but noisy spot, Hostel Mamallena had a nice atmosphere and made me feel at home. I moved there after spending three nights in a hostel where I felt like I was walking on egg shells around an unfriendly owner, and where I was met with excuses to some of my requests. The last straw was, when after three nights on a hard to climb in to upper bed I asked to move to a bottom bed after all the other people in the dorm had left. I was allowed to, but the linen was not changed and when I questioned it I was told it was changed the night before last. Problem was, if that was true, there was still one night of someone else sleeping on it. I decided to move and I was not sorry. I should have done it earlier but they had a “no refund” policy. Another couple decided to move even though they would forfeit their money. So try not to pay for too many nights in advance at Hostel Nomba. Now for the fun things to do: the hot spring in Caldera. The bus to Caldera leaves from the center of the town, near the central park, but there are not too many going that direction. The one at 7am leaves from the street close to the Mamallena Hostel while the one at 9:30am leaves from the street across the park from Mamallena. Before you get dropped off also ask when they will return and when the last run is. The road to Caldera follows the road towards David for a while and later it will turn east. Ask for the entrance to the Aguas Termales or Los Posos Termales. The bus ride will take about 40 minutes. Follow the road to the right and if you chose the Los Posos Termales you will be there in 30-40 minutes. The road will take you over a dam and a river. After the bridge over the river the road splits. The blue and white sign indicates the hot springs of Los Pozos, 500m to the left. The sign to the right indicates 4km to the “Aguas Termales La Abuela”. The gate to Los Posos has a small and maybe inconspicuous wooden sign. Some people missed it. The entrance fee is $2.00 per person now, July 2012. No worry, the care taker will find you. There are three or four pools of hot water surrounded by walls made of piled up rocks. The “crazy monkey” that hangs around the place can put on a good show but it might not be too funny if it grabs something of value to you. I saw the monkey when I first entered the area after the gate. A local guy going the other way told me “Crazy monkey” and indicated to me to put my camera away. Memories of the monkeys in South Africa came to mind and I recalled they were always looking for food and smelling if you had any with you. Want to guess what the single item of food in my backpack was? A banana! Of all foods available that is what I chose to take with me today. So my fast thinking was: “Better to lose the banana than lose the camera.” I offered the banana to the monkey in return for taking pictures of it. So in the region of Boquete even the monkeys will to be paid. The “mono loco” ate the banana following along my side and at times holding it on its tail. It even threw a good part of it away. I picked it up and the monkey took it back out of my hand later. It sure was used to people more then we were used to it. At some point it stopped following and I did not

“Santa Fe??? Hee!Hee!Hee! What is there, in Santa Fe?” asked my Panamanian friends from the capital city when I announced my intention to visit the small town of Santa Fe. “There are no tourists” they complain, not a “touristy place”. If that was the only problem, there is no problem at all I was thinking. I heard there are beautiful mountains and I miss them living in Florida. I am looking forward to green views of majestic peaks, waterfalls, lush vegetation and clean air. So on a Tuesday morning in July, 2012, I rolled my bag to the “Metrobus”, the modern new addition to the public transportation of Panama City. Just one year earlier the only transportation options within the city were either taking a taxi or taking the colorfully painted but crowded, hot and narrow seated “Diablo Rojo”. The Metrobus has air conditioning and it is way more spacious for the same price of $.25 one way, except that you have to get a “tarjeta” in advance and it will cost you $2.00 before you get to add funds on it. I find that to be a great idea as this way it will always get recharged and not thrown away. From the main bus terminal at Albrook Mall I took the bus to Santiago. It was a comfortable ride and we even got to watch a movie on the flat screen TV mounted in the front the bus. About three hours later I had to change the bus in Santiago’s main  terminal. I was rushed into another bus, much smaller, which was filled to maximum capacity. By that I do not mean “each seat taken” but rather each seat, space on the aisle and stairs. From my lucky spot on a seat I could see people hanging out the door like a cluster of grapes, while the little vehicle was moving away with open doors. At each stop the situation on the aisle would shift and remodel into a different enchilada, with yet more people coming in and different ones hanging out the door. I could not stop thinking of the song we sang just a few weeks ago, in Brazil, the one that stated “we are one”. I was beginning to feel that oneness in this pitiful little bus moving away at normal speed but slowing down and sounding like it will give up on us all at each uphill part of the road. While the bus would sound like an exhausted creature ready to die, my mind was creating passing images of all  these people having to unload, and of myself with my rolling bag on the side of the street waiting for the next ride towards Santa Fe. But no, the bus miraculously made it and by the last station in Santa Fe it got much lighter, as first the grapes on the door disappeared, the aisle cleared soon after and by the end there were even vacant seats. What a nice ride! Once in Santa Fe I parked my bag under the bed in a hostel with one dorm and a few private rooms. The place was beautiful, rustic and with a magnificent garden with lots of plants and colorful flowers. Called La Quia, it is owned by a couple that moved to Panama ten years ago. Built of a mixture of stone, brick, wood and bamboo walls, with red roofs and bamboo doors, the two separate buildings constantly exchange inside and outside air as the bamboo parts of the walls have gaps in them. Not bad, as the weather is nice enough all year round and the bamboo walls are strategically located so the rain does not hit them. Santa Fe is a quiet city apart from its roosters, that can put out quite a concert beginning early morning. You can hear their voices clear, some confident and loud, others strangled and guttural and yet others more timid, the sounds coming from near and far. I wondered if they communicate with each other this way, over the hills and the vegetation of the town. Surrounded by rivers and high mountains, and located at the end of this bus ride, Panama’s Santa Fe has a lot of hiking to offer. A few different waterfalls one could hike to would take between 6 and 8 hours time round trip. The tube ride on the river would be less than 30 minutes to get to and a wet few kilometers long. I chose to hike to Las Cascadas Del Salto and I enjoyed the gorgeous views of the countryside and river valleys, unobstructed by any clouds. I crossed several streams and picked mangoes from the road, making my way up the mountain with my breath sounding in my ears like a mythological dragon. I was happy not to see or smell any fire or smoke. It meant that my body was still functioning well and it had not overloaded just yet. Right before the waterfalls I passed through the village of El Salto. The people here have embraced organic agriculture for over 15 years and they are proud to show you their farms. One of the farmers, Egberto Soto, showed me the way to the waterfalls and moved away a young tree that had fallen on the road. I took a minute to study the little white beads like flowers, while my guide said something with the Spanish word “pica”, a word I did not understand before I touched the white pretty beads. They stung and I retracted my fingers as fast as I learned a new Spanish word. LOL While I enjoyed the waterfalls Egberto prepared a meal for me. It was a dish of spinach and eggs with rice and green peas cooked over a wood fire, and a tomato and onion salad. All the ingredients where from his organic farm and while I was enjoying my meal I found out that he is 25 years older than he looks and has ten