Since I am in Panama now, here is a picture I took a few days ago in cloudy Panama City (it’s the end of the rainy season). This is my first time in Panama and I am blown away by the amount of construction going on in this city. The obsession with highrises reminds me of Shanghai; so do the slums with the view of the “good life.”
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One of the coolest things I´ve seen in Panama so far is the crazy bus-art. Now, it´s not uncommon to see buses painted wild colors all over Latin America, but Panamanians have this stuff down to fine art.
Just about every local public bus is in the style of an old American school bus, but painted the craziest colors, festooned with religious sayings and multiple chromed horns. And, if the bus is lacking two large chromed rear exhaust pipes running up the rear corners of the bus, pumping diesel fumes into the sky, it just won´t do. I can´t think of a cooler thing to look at while stuck in Panama City´s insane traffic jams. The detail of the paintings will take your breath away… even more than the horrific exhaust fumes blanketing this modern city.
They call them “red devils,” but the government is banishing the devil. This blog reprints a story from the Miami Herald saying that the buses will soon start disappearing, this year.
Sorry I have been incommunicado for a while. My trip to Costa Rica and Panama has turned out to be a lot more remote than even I expected. I am finally back to civilization–or whatever you want to call a place with an internet connection and hot water–in Bocas del Toro, Panama. I already miss Costa Rica though.
I am still adjusting to this whole civilization thing. My last week, in the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica, was bliss. So remote that the eco-lodge where my brother-in-law and I stayed was 3 miles away from the end of a road, which itself was accessible only by four-wheel drive. We had to walk to the lodge along the beach. No visual pollution, no sound pollution, just the sound of monkeys, frogs and the waves breaking over the shore….
Arriving in Panama after time spent in Osa was, honestly, a shock. My expectation was that this was going to be like Costa Rica, but less developed. Not so. So far, I don´t see how Panama can be compared to Costa Rica. Bocas is light years away from eco-tourism, for example. It is already over-developed in many ways (other than the ridiculously slow internet cafe I´m using right now). Lodges charging $200-350 per night. Loud backpackers everywhere, music blasting from all directions, hammers on construction sites, motorboats criss-crossing the ocean from island to island…There was even a massive Club Med cruise ship docked here last night (with everyone wearing matching white shorts, white boat shoes, medium blue monogrammed polo shirts).
It feels like Myrtle Beach more than ‘Costa Rica 15 years ago.’ Am I missing something here?
Well done to Beverly Blass for identifying these kids as coming from the Kuna people who inhabit the San Blas Islands off the northern coast of Panama. This shot was taken on Achutupu Island, just a short boat ride from a great eco-friendly place called Dolphin Lodge. The fabric is a mola, one of the finely appliqued textiles which the Kuna are renowned for.
It is not easy to be a backpacker these days.
I was buying air tickets from New York to Costa Rica (but out of Panama City) over the phone yesterday, using a free voucher. I am glad that I did it over the phone, otherwise I would have been spared this brilliant conversation.
After booking, the Continental operator informed me that a yellow fever vaccine was recommended and that I should have access to $500 in cash. OK, I think I can manage that.
Then, she said I will not be allowed on the plane in New York unless I can prove how I’m getting from Costa Rica to Panama. What? Isn’t the fact that you have no idea how you’ll travel around the entire point of backpacking?
To take it even further, she recited that in Costa Rica “entry is denied to gypsies or those with hippy appearance.” I kid you not.
Are they for real?
