August 25
We got a slow start this morning. In part because we were lazy bums and stayed in our boring room as long as possible, and in part because our door wouldn’t lock and we had to change “hotel” rooms. By the time we negotiated that and the city bus, it was almost 11:30 before we were cruisin’ on the red double decker bus. A touristy but appreciated feature is that they give every rider a pair of earbuds, and at each seat there is a plug where you can select a language. It was nice because we could actually hear the informative information about what was to our right and to our left (instead of that teacher-in-a-Peanut’s-cartoon scene that inevitably results when a bored human repeats his script in a moving, open air, commercial vehicle). Ernie and I both got our history lessons yesterday, so today we just enjoyed the ride. We watched the people and looked for details in the buildings. The hats and shoes of tourists and locals. The colorful clothes hung out to dry or the graffitti.
By about 1 pm we got off at the Biomuseum, which is a new natural history museum (of sorts). I took a deep breath and swallowed my pride and we asked to use a wheelchair… sigh. Ernie was sweet and pushed me around. Most of the exhibits were very well done; they had good proportions of text vs visuals, real/natural objects vs. computer touch screens, etc. Grandma & Grandpa didn’t take advantage of the “selfie stations” as much as others, but they are probably good carrots to keep the next generation interested (which to clw, you are welcome for my Keene/wheelchair selfie). Neither the exhibits overall nor the individual pieces of the exhibits were over done. In fact, one of my favorite exhibits was this animal bridge/arch that had life sized animals of North and South America before Panama connected the two continents. Northern animals on one half, southern on the other, and then placards or mini-videos about what did/didn’t happen when these critters met each other evolutionarily. Anyway, they didn’t paint the animals. They left them a pleasant neutral gray, and I hope it had the same imaginative effect on everyone else as it had on me.
The worst part of the museum was the staff. As soon as you entered an exhibit hall they gave you a personal and thorough tour of that hall. No thank you! We want to read the placards ourselves. We want to process the information you have presented to us. They were all young and sweet college kids just doing their job, but we felt patronized being guided through a place that was designed to be self-guiding.
Fun fact: the extinct giant sloth was bigger than mammoths. Someone please invent a time machine.
Fun fact that if I knew I forgot: before Panama existed ocean currents came through N and S America. After Panama, water was forced up the North Atlantic. If not for that movement of water (and the effects of that new circulation pattern) there would not have been an ice age. Panama keeps advertising itself as the country that changed the world. Check.
On the bus ride home we approach the first stop after the ~15km highway stretch to get out of the city. As the bus slows, a well dressed man (40-45 years old) makes his way to the back door of the bus. At his feet are a crumpled Coke can and an empty granola bar wrapper. They are sort of tucked in the corner behind the automatic door. The man shoos them toward his right foot with his left foot, making a little pile. He was pretty agile about it too, as if he was an old soccer player. I nudge Ernie to watch, but he is already watching and sadly we both look at eachother as if we know where this is going. As soon as the bus stopped and the door opened, he kicked the garbage out onto the street. Ernie and I look at eachother with disgust. He says “he wanted to keep the bus clean”. I laugh! But ugh. We talk about it the whole way back. We conclude the man believed he had good intentions; it is probable he thought his actions were “good” in that he was “cleaning up” the garbage someone else left behind. He was being a good citizen, saying to himself “I can take care of this trash”. Based on his dress and shoes and computer case, I am confident this man is not homeless, which in Panama, means he has a garbage service. So when he makes garbage at his home, he puts it somewhere and a sanitation company deals with it. He likely even recycles. He has also probably made trash in a mall, gas station, movie theater, restroom, etc., where there is also a sanitation company that deals with the waste. Does he think all the waste goes to the street? Does he not understand the difference between landfills and litter? If he has taken this bus more than once, does he not see the the garbage on the banks of the mud flat? If he does see the garbage in his city, is he not bothered by it? What has gone awry in this man’s path? Yes, I am privileged so it is easy for me to ask this question, but so is he. Ernie says it is funny in a disturbing way.
Speaking of garbage and that 15 km stretch getting out of the city… the giant mud flat of Panama City. It is striking. And huge; it must be 2-3 km across. A bridge crosses over it, and it is not high off the water. There is a thick layer of mangroves that protect the flat from the city (and vice versa), and at low tide the mangroves are decorated with thousands (yes, thousands) of pelicans. At high tide the pelicans feed off both sides of the bridge. Splashes upon splashes - even riding in a bus at 50 km/h dozens can be seen diving at the same time. The sad part is the outer edges of the flat where there are no mangroves, just rocks and jetties (i.e., a mix of natural and man-made “stuff” to deal with where the city meets the sea). So much garbage… It washes in from three different sources and gets trapped, so the banks are piled high.
August 26
Today was our final and most fun day in Panama City. After sleeping in and sipping our own french pressed coffee, we headed to Avenida Central. It is a main, pedestrian-only drag that runs from old town to a major bus hub, and is full of shops. If you need a watch, lottery tickets, a cell phone cover, a knock-off designer bag, or over-ripe fruit, Avenida Central is the place for you. We walked the whole thing and I don’t think we saw a single other gringo. We didn’t blend in by any means, but without vehicle traffic it was nice to have a break from the taxi honking. There were a few traditional Panamanian shops selling clothes, shoes, and fabrics. And wow the traditional Panamanian woman’s dress is very stunning. The fabrics were shades of yellow, orange, red, or green on a black background, and they all wore some type of fabric on their head as well as beaded “leg warmers” (for lack of a bettter descriptor, see pic I snuck of a woman in her cephalopod skirt). We bought our second souvenier; a beaded bracelet for Tara that says “Ernesto”. Sooooo corny but I heart it dearly. The man that made it for us was very short, very quick on his feet, and only had one eye. He only smiled AFTER being smiled at, but it was a very nice smile. He and his friend or brother had a little table on the sidewalk. When we asked how much for a custom bracelet he said “$2.50, with a $1.00 deposit”. I told him the colors I wanted and he didn’t listen, and it is so much better the way he made it.
After our walk through Av. Central my foot was a watermelon, so we headed around the corner to the Panama Fish Market. We had seen it from the red double decker, and Tara would never pass up an opportunity to gawk at the day’s (or in some cases, yesterday’s) catch. The beer was cheap, so we may or may not have done a little day-drinking… I ordered some plantains and Ernesto ordered the “filet of the day”. It was dorado, or mahi mahi, and I totally had a few bites. It wasn’t as good as the mahi mahi we had in Mexico, but it was fresh. Afterwards we walked through the fish market itself, which was likely a fraction of the scene that it is in the morning. Most of it seemed ok, but there was clearly some bycatch for sale as well as some two or three day old catches. I got stared at suspiciously as I took pictures, but I made nice and told them it was just because “I wanted one of everything”.
Before we caught the bus back to the hotel I needed to pee (damn day-drinking). Ernie went before me and warned me I might have to pay, but he apparently had a much different experience than I did. There were four port-o-potties manned, or I guess womanned, by three very large women. Two were for caballeros, two were for mujeres. Apparently I snuck past the woman guards, for as soon as I closed the port-o-potty door and slid the plastic lock to “cerrado” I felt an immense knock. The woman was hitting and grabbing the door to the port-o-potty and rocking the entire structure back and forth. I am unbuttoning my pants as I can hear the shit and piss in the blue hole below sloshing around. I dare NOT sneak a pee before this woman gets what she wants! Sure enough, I open the door and there is a 275 lb woman hollering that I owe her $.25 to use the port-o-potty, and that is just for a pee. More if I need “numero dos”. Luckily I had the quarter Ernie gave me “just in case”. I pass her the quarter and then she hands me a beautifully packaged packet of toilet paper, gave me a gigantic smile, and gently closed the door for me.
We keep thinking of the woman from the first day we rode around on the tourist bus. She was savvy. Stylish. Claimed to be a tourist from Chicago, her husband was here on business, etc. But she paid too much attention to us. She gave us a coupon when we were in line for the red double decker, she offered us her map, she checked in with us after each stop. She even seemed to wait for us at the very last stop of the day (as we weren’t sure which of two close stops we were going to get off at). It was all just a little too much, and her phenotype was too put together for her to just be a dumb, lonely American. Was she really a scammer or are Ernie and I incapable of accepting that there are people that try and befriend people like us on a tourist bus?
I finished “Salt” by Mark Kurlansky. It is hard to imagine something that has connected more of culture and history than salt. Even religion - I would argue salt trumps religion in terms of world influences. A shout out to Jeff Brown; if you are in need of a new culinary adventure I can easily envision you salt curing your own meats with sweet and savory JB spices.
Four more random items that shouldn’t be at all connected before we depart Central America… First, the blue hearts on the road. We saw them on day 1 in Panama but just learned what they represent. When there is an accident they paint blue hearts on the highway to commemorate those lost. Large hearts represent adults, and small hearts represent children.
Second, for anyone that wants to play our guessing game… there is a type of bird we have seen every single day since entering Mexico (maybe even since entering California). I’m not sure how many species of this bird there are (maybe a half a dozen?), but it is specific enough. For example, there are lots of species of hummingbirds, but “hummingbird” is still a descriptive enough word/category to count as a guess (and no, the answer is not hummingbird). And again, this is each and every day, with no exceptions, both Ernie and I have seen at least one if not dozens or hundreds of this type of bird. Although when questioned, Ernesto agrees but says “I guess I’ve quit even noticing _____.”
Third, the bicyclist road sign of Panama (see Google map pics). We had a great laugh. Ernie said it looked like a person shitting a bike.
And fourth, the TV’s at the hotel are working again, and Miss Panama is on TV.
So… Adios Panama y Central America! Gracias por todo, el bueno y el malo. Tomorrow we get up early and ride about three hours to the Port of Carti. There they will load our motos on the boat and set sail Monday August 28th. We are not sure of some details… we think we get to Columbia September 1, but we aren’t sure of customs. We also aren’t sure if and when we have wifi again, so unless you hear that the Stahlratte has sunk in the Caribbean sea, all is well. Next stop… South America!
We got a slow start this morning. In part because we were lazy bums and stayed in our boring room as long as possible, and in part because our door wouldn’t lock and we had to change “hotel” rooms. By the time we negotiated that and the city bus, it was almost 11:30 before we were cruisin’ on the red double decker bus. A touristy but appreciated feature is that they give every rider a pair of earbuds, and at each seat there is a plug where you can select a language. It was nice because we could actually hear the informative information about what was to our right and to our left (instead of that teacher-in-a-Peanut’s-cartoon scene that inevitably results when a bored human repeats his script in a moving, open air, commercial vehicle). Ernie and I both got our history lessons yesterday, so today we just enjoyed the ride. We watched the people and looked for details in the buildings. The hats and shoes of tourists and locals. The colorful clothes hung out to dry or the graffitti.
By about 1 pm we got off at the Biomuseum, which is a new natural history museum (of sorts). I took a deep breath and swallowed my pride and we asked to use a wheelchair… sigh. Ernie was sweet and pushed me around. Most of the exhibits were very well done; they had good proportions of text vs visuals, real/natural objects vs. computer touch screens, etc. Grandma & Grandpa didn’t take advantage of the “selfie stations” as much as others, but they are probably good carrots to keep the next generation interested (which to clw, you are welcome for my Keene/wheelchair selfie). Neither the exhibits overall nor the individual pieces of the exhibits were over done. In fact, one of my favorite exhibits was this animal bridge/arch that had life sized animals of North and South America before Panama connected the two continents. Northern animals on one half, southern on the other, and then placards or mini-videos about what did/didn’t happen when these critters met each other evolutionarily. Anyway, they didn’t paint the animals. They left them a pleasant neutral gray, and I hope it had the same imaginative effect on everyone else as it had on me.
The worst part of the museum was the staff. As soon as you entered an exhibit hall they gave you a personal and thorough tour of that hall. No thank you! We want to read the placards ourselves. We want to process the information you have presented to us. They were all young and sweet college kids just doing their job, but we felt patronized being guided through a place that was designed to be self-guiding.
Fun fact: the extinct giant sloth was bigger than mammoths. Someone please invent a time machine.
Fun fact that if I knew I forgot: before Panama existed ocean currents came through N and S America. After Panama, water was forced up the North Atlantic. If not for that movement of water (and the effects of that new circulation pattern) there would not have been an ice age. Panama keeps advertising itself as the country that changed the world. Check.
On the bus ride home we approach the first stop after the ~15km highway stretch to get out of the city. As the bus slows, a well dressed man (40-45 years old) makes his way to the back door of the bus. At his feet are a crumpled Coke can and an empty granola bar wrapper. They are sort of tucked in the corner behind the automatic door. The man shoos them toward his right foot with his left foot, making a little pile. He was pretty agile about it too, as if he was an old soccer player. I nudge Ernie to watch, but he is already watching and sadly we both look at eachother as if we know where this is going. As soon as the bus stopped and the door opened, he kicked the garbage out onto the street. Ernie and I look at eachother with disgust. He says “he wanted to keep the bus clean”. I laugh! But ugh. We talk about it the whole way back. We conclude the man believed he had good intentions; it is probable he thought his actions were “good” in that he was “cleaning up” the garbage someone else left behind. He was being a good citizen, saying to himself “I can take care of this trash”. Based on his dress and shoes and computer case, I am confident this man is not homeless, which in Panama, means he has a garbage service. So when he makes garbage at his home, he puts it somewhere and a sanitation company deals with it. He likely even recycles. He has also probably made trash in a mall, gas station, movie theater, restroom, etc., where there is also a sanitation company that deals with the waste. Does he think all the waste goes to the street? Does he not understand the difference between landfills and litter? If he has taken this bus more than once, does he not see the the garbage on the banks of the mud flat? If he does see the garbage in his city, is he not bothered by it? What has gone awry in this man’s path? Yes, I am privileged so it is easy for me to ask this question, but so is he. Ernie says it is funny in a disturbing way.
Speaking of garbage and that 15 km stretch getting out of the city… the giant mud flat of Panama City. It is striking. And huge; it must be 2-3 km across. A bridge crosses over it, and it is not high off the water. There is a thick layer of mangroves that protect the flat from the city (and vice versa), and at low tide the mangroves are decorated with thousands (yes, thousands) of pelicans. At high tide the pelicans feed off both sides of the bridge. Splashes upon splashes - even riding in a bus at 50 km/h dozens can be seen diving at the same time. The sad part is the outer edges of the flat where there are no mangroves, just rocks and jetties (i.e., a mix of natural and man-made “stuff” to deal with where the city meets the sea). So much garbage… It washes in from three different sources and gets trapped, so the banks are piled high.
August 26
Today was our final and most fun day in Panama City. After sleeping in and sipping our own french pressed coffee, we headed to Avenida Central. It is a main, pedestrian-only drag that runs from old town to a major bus hub, and is full of shops. If you need a watch, lottery tickets, a cell phone cover, a knock-off designer bag, or over-ripe fruit, Avenida Central is the place for you. We walked the whole thing and I don’t think we saw a single other gringo. We didn’t blend in by any means, but without vehicle traffic it was nice to have a break from the taxi honking. There were a few traditional Panamanian shops selling clothes, shoes, and fabrics. And wow the traditional Panamanian woman’s dress is very stunning. The fabrics were shades of yellow, orange, red, or green on a black background, and they all wore some type of fabric on their head as well as beaded “leg warmers” (for lack of a bettter descriptor, see pic I snuck of a woman in her cephalopod skirt). We bought our second souvenier; a beaded bracelet for Tara that says “Ernesto”. Sooooo corny but I heart it dearly. The man that made it for us was very short, very quick on his feet, and only had one eye. He only smiled AFTER being smiled at, but it was a very nice smile. He and his friend or brother had a little table on the sidewalk. When we asked how much for a custom bracelet he said “$2.50, with a $1.00 deposit”. I told him the colors I wanted and he didn’t listen, and it is so much better the way he made it.
After our walk through Av. Central my foot was a watermelon, so we headed around the corner to the Panama Fish Market. We had seen it from the red double decker, and Tara would never pass up an opportunity to gawk at the day’s (or in some cases, yesterday’s) catch. The beer was cheap, so we may or may not have done a little day-drinking… I ordered some plantains and Ernesto ordered the “filet of the day”. It was dorado, or mahi mahi, and I totally had a few bites. It wasn’t as good as the mahi mahi we had in Mexico, but it was fresh. Afterwards we walked through the fish market itself, which was likely a fraction of the scene that it is in the morning. Most of it seemed ok, but there was clearly some bycatch for sale as well as some two or three day old catches. I got stared at suspiciously as I took pictures, but I made nice and told them it was just because “I wanted one of everything”.
Before we caught the bus back to the hotel I needed to pee (damn day-drinking). Ernie went before me and warned me I might have to pay, but he apparently had a much different experience than I did. There were four port-o-potties manned, or I guess womanned, by three very large women. Two were for caballeros, two were for mujeres. Apparently I snuck past the woman guards, for as soon as I closed the port-o-potty door and slid the plastic lock to “cerrado” I felt an immense knock. The woman was hitting and grabbing the door to the port-o-potty and rocking the entire structure back and forth. I am unbuttoning my pants as I can hear the shit and piss in the blue hole below sloshing around. I dare NOT sneak a pee before this woman gets what she wants! Sure enough, I open the door and there is a 275 lb woman hollering that I owe her $.25 to use the port-o-potty, and that is just for a pee. More if I need “numero dos”. Luckily I had the quarter Ernie gave me “just in case”. I pass her the quarter and then she hands me a beautifully packaged packet of toilet paper, gave me a gigantic smile, and gently closed the door for me.
We keep thinking of the woman from the first day we rode around on the tourist bus. She was savvy. Stylish. Claimed to be a tourist from Chicago, her husband was here on business, etc. But she paid too much attention to us. She gave us a coupon when we were in line for the red double decker, she offered us her map, she checked in with us after each stop. She even seemed to wait for us at the very last stop of the day (as we weren’t sure which of two close stops we were going to get off at). It was all just a little too much, and her phenotype was too put together for her to just be a dumb, lonely American. Was she really a scammer or are Ernie and I incapable of accepting that there are people that try and befriend people like us on a tourist bus?
I finished “Salt” by Mark Kurlansky. It is hard to imagine something that has connected more of culture and history than salt. Even religion - I would argue salt trumps religion in terms of world influences. A shout out to Jeff Brown; if you are in need of a new culinary adventure I can easily envision you salt curing your own meats with sweet and savory JB spices.
Four more random items that shouldn’t be at all connected before we depart Central America… First, the blue hearts on the road. We saw them on day 1 in Panama but just learned what they represent. When there is an accident they paint blue hearts on the highway to commemorate those lost. Large hearts represent adults, and small hearts represent children.
Second, for anyone that wants to play our guessing game… there is a type of bird we have seen every single day since entering Mexico (maybe even since entering California). I’m not sure how many species of this bird there are (maybe a half a dozen?), but it is specific enough. For example, there are lots of species of hummingbirds, but “hummingbird” is still a descriptive enough word/category to count as a guess (and no, the answer is not hummingbird). And again, this is each and every day, with no exceptions, both Ernie and I have seen at least one if not dozens or hundreds of this type of bird. Although when questioned, Ernesto agrees but says “I guess I’ve quit even noticing _____.”
Third, the bicyclist road sign of Panama (see Google map pics). We had a great laugh. Ernie said it looked like a person shitting a bike.
And fourth, the TV’s at the hotel are working again, and Miss Panama is on TV.
So… Adios Panama y Central America! Gracias por todo, el bueno y el malo. Tomorrow we get up early and ride about three hours to the Port of Carti. There they will load our motos on the boat and set sail Monday August 28th. We are not sure of some details… we think we get to Columbia September 1, but we aren’t sure of customs. We also aren’t sure if and when we have wifi again, so unless you hear that the Stahlratte has sunk in the Caribbean sea, all is well. Next stop… South America!