Hacking away North/Bocas del Toro

After Portobelo, I returned to Panama City by bus to avoid paying the 22 dollars it would have cost to take the train back down, and from there I caught another bus headed north to Bocas del Toro. Regrettably I don’t have any pictures from this segment of the trip because the memory card in my camera was full, and I had been unable to locate an internet cafe that would allow me to download the program necessary to transfer the images to my ipod.

In Bocas del Toro I was scheduled to meet Stewart, who had skipped Portobelo to save some dough, and we would spend the next 5 or 6 days on this gorgeous Caribbean beach town.

Bocas del Toro is located on the Caribbean coast of Panama, in the far North West corner of this wide and flat country, and is one of the most popular destinations for Panama City folk. Literally it stands for "mouth of the bull" and the best I can figure is that this is reference to the way the Bay looks which opens to the sea. We decided to spend more than a few days here in an effort to get to know a city a little better than the 2-3 day a city schedule we had been on previously. The capital of the Bocas del Toro region is an Island called Isla de Colon, a direct reference to when Christopher Columbus landed here in the 15th century. The region remained largely undisturbed, too far north of Spanish influence and too far south to have any remnant Mayan civilizations for the next 300 years. In the mid 19th century, three American brothers and businessmen chose this area to start a massive series of Banana plantations which would later be bought out by the United Fruit Company, and later Chiquita. The Banana reality of the region becomes obvious as the water taxi from Changuinola takes you through a 15 mile canal built in the 19th century to haul bananas up and down the giant coastal banana plantations. The bananas are hauled along in giant 30 foot long, 4 foot wide dugout canoes, whose drivers seem to be perpetually bailing with buckets.

My childhood beach vacations were always taken to familiar places such as Orange Beach, Gulf Shores, and maybe occasionally Destin, Seaside, or Rosemary Beach. At these meccas of tourism, giant 200 feet deep beaches had the prettiest whitest sand you could have imagined. It is from this small segment of experience that I based my belief that all Gulf of Mexico/Caribbean coastlines must have beautiful white sand with more room than you knew what to do with. This turns out not to be true... Both Portobelo and Bocas del Toro are located in the midst of Mangrove infested rocky shore lines. While there are pretty beaches, they can take up to 45 minutes to get to, involve hikes through jungles, and only be 30 feet deep.

I read about Bocas del Toro as being one of the principal Caribbean tourism destinations for both Nationals and Extrañeros alike, so I imagined something at least akin to the beach destinations I was familiar with from my childhood, minus airbrushed tank top wearing red necks in big crappy trucks waving confederate flags, a sticker of some kid pissing on something, reeking of Hawaiian Tropic, and parked in front of the sharks mouth at Souvenir City. While I could not find any of these color figures here, Bocas wasn’t exactly the Mecca I thought it would be.

Bocas del Toro is about 3 blocks wide, 8 blocks long, and mixes together 1 part gringo to 2 parts Panamanian, with a dash of poverty and a dab of foreign wealth. There was not a single building over 3 stories, while most averaged 2, and the wide dirt road that serves as Main Street was full of people just walking around with not much to. Small booths and blankets were laid out with dirty hippies selling island wear jewelry, just trying to soak up the Caribbean vibes for a few more days until money ran out. You were just as likely to find a dog, moped, four-wheeler, bike, or person in the middle of the road as you were a car. The foreign investment provided amenities like a gourmet grocery store akin to V Richards in Birmingham selling the latest California wines, while the rest of us ate at 2 dollar hole in the walls called sodas. Realty offices dotted the street trying to cash in on a potential boom, with signs completely in English aimed towards an obvious target audience of vacationing Americans.

At night we partied at the Mondo Taitu, one of two hostels here started by the same guys that owned Luna's Castle in Panama City, 3 guys who graduated in 2004 from San Francisco. They had weekly 80's parties where they had compiled about 60 different 1980's music videos, and you had to take a shot of beer every time the music video changed, which was about every minute for an hour. It turns out that the Beefeater's society at Sewanee actually came in hand to teach me something! Other hit theme parties that week were Friday Pink Pajama Punk Party, or Martini Monday.

Bocas del Toro may be a beach destination for many, but it sure felt like a small town compared to beach destinations I’ve been to in the states, more analogous to Apalachicola, Florida. Also as a beach destination it lacked a key component: beaches.

The first beach we ventured to while we were there was a beach called wilderness beach, a name that should have proved ominous for us both. A 2 dollar water taxi took us to the nearby island of Bastimentos, where we were supposed to take a 30 minute hike across the island to these secluded Caribbean beaches. We were given vague directions but assured that it was close and we would have no trouble finding it. After a short hike through a hillside graveyard on the way to the beach, we took the wrong trail... 3 hours later Stewart and I had hiked through just about every small trail we could find, gotten stuck in 2 foot deep mud, almost run into spiders 8 inches across, climbed more barbwire than I care to count, and certifiably gotten lost trying to find the ocean. Finally we ran into a house and paid the 7 year old son one dollar to show us the way to the beaches, he took us back to where we started and showed us how the very first turn we had taken was wrong... Lesson learned: when in doubt, always trust the 7 year olds.

Wilderness beach proved to live up to every inch of its name. 200 foot hills surround this protected cove of palm trees and coconuts and a 60 foot deep white sand beach. 12 foot swells violently pounded the sandy shore on a gorgeous blue-bird day. A light breeze coming off the ocean helped to cool you down from the beaming sun, and I found a stream where I could sit, flowing with cool fresh water right into the ocean. The 12 foot swells were great for surfing, but gave this region some really nasty rip-tide. One girl had drowned several months prior, and I saw a girl from California get sucked out while were sitting on the beach.

We found beaches of varying quality scattered in neighboring Isla Careña (named as such because this is where Christopher Columbus Careened his ships to clean them on the beaches 500 years ago) and on the main island of Isla Colon. However none would be as memorable as Wilderness beach.

The next day I paid 15 dollars and took a Sea Kayak out into the Mangrove forests surrounding Bocas del Toro and got some good exercise for about 6 hours. I really wanted to show off my kayaking skills in an authentic Sea Kayak with skirt, but unfortunately this was a sit on top tourist version that was painted bright pink. Not exactly the sexy kayaker image I was looking for. I did get to check out some stunning sailboats docked at the nearby harbor, which made me want to take up sailing when I can afford to, and buy a sailboat to tour the Caribbean.

One of the other incredible things we did while we were in Bocas Del Toro was a 20 minute taxi ride into the middle of the island to a place called El Gruto. El Gruto, which I am guessing means grotto, is a 2 mile long open ended cave that is half full of water, catfish, mud, and lots and lots of Bats! Stewart and I led a crew of 10 American travelers through this attraction buried deep within the jungle of Isla Colon. I had lost my flashlight the week before, and so I went next door to our hostel and bought a 3 dollar LED flashlight and 1 dollar worth of batteries. I should have known that the quality of my 1 dollar batteries would leave something to be desired, because when I pushed them into my flashlight the batteries actually bent in half in my fingers! I was still able to make it work despite the battery acid now exposed, but I had lost my faith in Costa Rican manufacturing.

About half of our crew that ventured into El Gruto had flashlights, no water, some had shoes, and others were decked out in swimsuits ready for the beach. This was by no means a Boy Scout approved trek, and yet we all still made it out alive, something I love about traveling in Latin America. I have seen women scale hard mountains in high heels, 8 hour jungle bushwhacking in flip flops, and now caves without flashlights; we really tend to overprepare / overgear ourselves in the United States.

By the way, I just discovered a hilarious new site this past week that talks about similar funny misguided elements of US culture: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

I have seen bats before fly out of caves, but the caves were generally large with huge openings and at a distance above or far away from me. This was not the case as we ventured into El Gruto right at dusk when the bats are leaving to feed. For a little over 2 hours we waded through waist deep water, only a foot or two to either side of the walls and a ceiling 3 to 4 feet above your head. We prayed it wouldn’t rain and send a flash flood hurtling through the remaining air we had. As you shined your light up to the ceiling you could see a sea of little black creatures clinging to the roof interspersed between the stalactites. As they slept they rocked back and forth with quick motions, giving these groups of hundreds of bats a kind of shimmering appearance, and only a few feet away from your head. Then they slowly loosened their grasp and started to fly out of the cave. We quickly learned that our flashlights, while providing crucial illumination, were also attracting little insects, which in turn attracted bats. Unable to turn the lights off, we had to slowly move forward step by step as bats were swarming all around your body. You could feel them grace your head with their bodies, and the wind from their wing beats made the hair on the back of your neck stand on end and crawl. At times you would have to just close your eyes and try not to think about the possibility of these creatures flying through the darkness around your face. Finally we emerged in one piece and triumphant 2 hours later just as the last bit of day slipped between the leaves in the jungle.

I am now beginning to loose the initial steam that I started this trip with as we travel from country to country. The idea of such a long journey is exciting from the get go, but as the reality sets in, you begin to miss home a little. A sense of place and normalcy is underrated. However I think about the time I am going to spend working this upcoming fall, and that provides me with the motivation to keep going and exploring these new places. To travel this long successfully requires a reorientation of purpose, you have to stop traveling like all previous trips you have taken throughout your life as a vacation, and travel as work, travel to live. This goes beyond the simple and obvious monetary aspect, and requires an acceptance that the road is now your home.

I am looking forward to putting some more stories from San Jose, La Fortuna, and Jaco, Costa Rica, and the past few days I have spent with Stewart's friend Craig Hey. I also have cleaned out my memory card and uploaded all pictures to Ipod, so there are some good photos to come.

Later
M3