Panama...Amazing a second time!

The four day trek down to Panama was definitely one that started to get long. I was super anxious to get off of the ship when we finally arrived in port. A little about Panama, for those that remember I was in Panama last year about this same time with some OSU students and had a blast, so I already sort of knew my way around. Panama is a county that is based mostly on the service industry, from the Canal, to its really liberal banking policies it is a country that has definitely had an impact on me. Panama has three native tribes that are still active and living cultures. The Embera and the Kuna are the two more well known tribes and both have great influence in the art that you find in the country. The skyline of Panama is amazing, and looks very metropolitan as we pulled up on Friday morning. Most of the tall skinny buildings reminded me of Miami and the beach front high rises in that city. I think someone mentioned that the buildings are a lot of new offices and of course new condos as Panama is the new place to come and retire (any takers???). A little about the Canal since it is Panamas main source of income as a country, and is also a engineering marvel. Built almost a 100 years ago, the canal has not been updated or changed since. Each of the locks in the canal are filled by gravity and waters from rivers and lakes in the middle of the Canal. The ships that go through the Canal actually end up being elevated 85 feet about sea level…which is incredible when you think about the weight of these ships! One 8 hour trip through the canal saves a tanker 21 days of travel around South America, which must be expensive, since the average ship pays upwards of 200,000 to pass through!

On Friday I spent the morning trying to help students leave the ship because our tendering process became extremely difficult due to the large swells the ship was in where we had anchored. At one pint the gangway which is basically a platform off the side of the ship was moving up and down at least 10 feet while the tender boat we were trying to get students on was also bobbing up and down that same amount. At one point the tender got caught under the platform and then launched the platform up against the ship. Lets just say that it was stressful and scary for not only the crew who had to do all this, but also the students who had to get on there in order to get into the city! Needless to say many students chose to stay in port the whole time and not return to the ship in order to avoid having to tender! Friday I spent the day at the Gamboa rainforest in the Soberania national park and did a SAS trip going up a tram that was very much like a the sky ride at cedar point or Disneyland…basically a people mover in the forest. I was with a bunch of cool students on this trip and really got a chance to get to know them better. Some of the girls on my floor are really sweet and really interesting to hear there experiences at there schools, the similarities and differences are stark at times. Anyway, the tram took us up the mountain where I was able to see a couple sloth’s, monkeys, toucans, and a lot of bugs. The funny thing is that everyone that took the tram, on three different days all saw the same animals, so it made me think that they had these guys somehow tied to the trees J OK probably not, but it was cool to see that those animals actually still live around this tram and the people of the park. The rest of the night I just spent with the students at dinner…we went downtown Panama and had our first taste of home…Pizza…tasty…Getting home, the only good news was that the tender was definitely smooth.

On Saturday my plan was to head over to the Caribbean side with Tania, Anne, Nate, and Lisa…all student life folks. Lisa and Tania has a trip to the Embera tribe in the morning and thus could not leave until 5pm that night. We met up in the city and all five of us all coming from different places ended up somehow at one place all within 5 minutes of each other…truly amazing! When we all met up, Anne told us that she had talked to some people that recommended not going to Portobelo, the city wanted to head to late at night as that there was nothing to do there at night, nor was there any place to stay that late at night. So we had a change of plans and decided to get a hotel room in Panama City and catch the 7:00 AM train to Colon and then take a Bus to Portobelo and then a boat to Isla Grande, our final destination. After finding a hotel (the room I was in with Anne and Nate had a twin and a double, the double bed was literally the squeakiest bed in the world…you looked at it and it made a noise) we headed out to dinner in Casco Viejo. This area of town is a newly gentrified area that is beautiful! The only thing is that in order to get there you head through a part of Balboa that is not very safe at all. We catch a cab (4 people in the back of a 4 door sedan…always a good time) and the driver recommends dinner at Manolo Caracol…so of course we take it and head there for dinner.

The following is a recap of what was so far one of the most amazing meals of life. The thing to note about this restaurant is that there is no menu, the chef cooks what he has that night and brings food out till he runs out pretty much. The restaurant was decorated in local art, paintings and mosaics that all had a pair of the opposite gender, for example there were a group of mosaics of people, each group had a pair of men and women. Each table was set with wine glasses, bottle of wine, and crisp white linens. As we entered we walked by an amazing wall of wine corks filling this floor to ceiling container at least 3-4 feet wide and 8 feet tall FULL of corks…so cool…When we walked in the restaurant we were the first table of diners to arrive and sat down…I will now try to describe the meal in the order of entrees:

1) Bread: fluffy white bread was brought to us with two spreads, a vibrant tallow spread made with kiri fruit (looked like red balls on a vine) and a fish pate of sort.
2) Sashimi 1: a fish sashimi with a Panamanian twist served a top a pineapple ring and topped with meat from the inside of a passion fruit
3) Inside out Ravioli: Hearts of palm cut into thin strips wrapped in a cold piece of beef topped with olive oil and herbs
4) Sashimi 2: a white fish topped with red onions and a light olive oil vinaigrette…perhaps some lemon in there as well?
5) Salad: A lettuce salad with slightly ripened mango, avocado, carrots and an amazing light and refreshing dressing
6) Mushrooms: Button mushrooms sautéed with herbs and butter…simple but amazing
7) Shrimp: large whole shrimp(head still on) grilled and covered in an orange and panela (sort of brown sugar honey thing) sauce
8) Papas y Pulpo: potatoes and octopus…not much more to say other then delicious!
9) Clams: a large bowl of clams steamed with herbs and butter…tasty shellfish with an amazingly fresh taste.
10) Rice: an Asian inspired rice dish with cabbage and other vegetables.
11) Fish: A white fish cooked on a grill topped with a fruity tropical sauce light enough to want to drink it
12) Beef: a beef filet toped with what appeared to be a think red plum sauce…this was most folks favorite dish
13) Dessert: small cubes of fruit including papaya, watermelon, mango and pineapple next to a coconut ball pressed together with honey and brown sugar.

Well if you are starting to wonder how much this amazing meal cost us…$40-50? More? Nope…all for the low price of $17…gourmet food in Panama! My quote of the night “You can’t even eat out Outback Steakhouse for that much”. All of us thought the same that this meal is going to be hard to beat for the rest of the trip…so many good things! After dinner we headed back to the creaky bed hotel and got up at 5:30 to catch a cab at 6am to make it to the train…and the beginning of our adventure!

Our plan for Sunday and Monday was to make it out to the Caribbean coast and spend the night. We were going on the hope that we would easily make it out to the island and find a place that had an empty room…its Sunday night right? Shouldn’t be to tough! Oh read on! From what we read in all our guidebooks was that we needed to get to Portobelo and then from there boat it out to Isla Grande. In order to maximize our time on this trip we decided that it would be fun to take the Panama Canal train that leaves Panama City every morning at 7am…one way and does not return until 5pm. Basically this train is used as a commuter service train for people that work in the free trade zone in Colon (the largest free trade zone in the western hemisphere 2nd only to hong kong in the world!)

We caught a cab and made it out to the train stop only to learn that the train doesn’t run on Sunday, a fact that at least 4 people we asked and the guide book we read before this didn’t know…something to tell the folks at Lonely Planet and Moon Handbooks…So with no train we were left the option of taking a bus. At the bus station we confirmed that we needed to take a bus from Panama City to Colon, but transfer in Sabanitas to a bus heading to Portobelo. So we were off…we got on an air conditioned coach and relaxed as we started out trek…luckily they were playing the newest Steven Segal movie to entertain us on the hour trek to Sabanitas. When we arrived at our stop we realized we were basically on an over crowded street corner in a small town in front of a grocery store and as each bus for Portobello pulled up is was PACKED and about 500 people tried to squeeze on…Sunday grocery store rush hour? Who knows. So we decided we would take a cab…they decided to charge us 20 bucks for what we were told would be a 20 minute ride. So we got in our 5 passengers in a Toyota corolla, basically Anne sitting between my legs in the back seat for what turned out to be a 35 minute ride to a small boat dock in the middle of a small bay. We got out and asked how much was a ride to Isla Grande…when we were informed it would be $50 a person we all laughed and realized that we needed to burn the guide books that told us it would be only $1.50 to the island. After seeing our reaction the cab driver informed us that there was a small town about another 30 minutes down the road that had said $1.50 boats, La Guiaria. So for another $10 we were off to this other small town in hopes that we would finally make it to this Island.

Once we made it to the boat dock, after a 35 minute car ride on what has to be the WORST rode in all of panama (picture the cab swerving from one side of the rode to the other every 10 seconds to miss the larger pot holes still falling in small and medium size ones) we made it out the island. On the way to the boat dock we read in our trusty guide book (haha) that Bananas resort had a $20 shuttle back to Panama city, check, so we decided to have out boat driver take is directly there. Unknown to us this resort was on the complete other side of isla grande then every other hotel, basically a private beach resort that left nothing to be desired. As we rounded the corner we pulled up to the heaven that we had been awaiting, a small beach with cute little cabins all waiting for us! After getting a couple rooms we headed out to the docks were we were able to snorkel for free! We also had kayaks, a pool, and many other inflatable floating devices we could use. The most amazing part of the resort was that it was Sunday, so the 30 or so people on the island that were there when we arrived ALL LEFT by 3pm and from then till the next day at 2pm when we left the Island was only inhabited by us 5 and the staff! Yup…the trek from hell paid off BIG TIME! Our own Private Island!



I spent the day snorkeling, napping, pool side, tanning, marvelous…a little dream come true! That night at dinner we all got cute and come down to enjoy our meal ocean side only to find that a large thunder storm was rolling in (I mean it is the rainy season in Panama).

We continued to eat as the rain started to come down really hard and the lightening bolts and thunder started to get closer…so close in fact that one hit RIGHT NEXT to were we were eating…the crackle from the lightening bolt and the intense roar of thunder were so intense that it sacred the bejeezus out of us and the staff of the hotel…I was a little jumpy the rest of that night! The best part was that for the ride home we were able to call a friendly van driver, Pedro that Anne had met early in the week. We arranged for Pedro to come get us the next day in hopes that he would find his way to this remote part of Panama and to the right dock on the main land. After our morning of lounging around and beach and pool we headed off the island expecting to have to hunt down Pedro our worse, try to find a new way home. The good karma of all we have done in Panama manifested itself in Pedro literally turning the corner into the boat launching area at the EXACT same time we were walking from the dock, the timing could not have been more perfect…not be a millisecond!

After almost passing out from joy of not having to figure my way back to the pacific side of Panama via public transportation we started our trek home making a few stops at some ruins and at a grocery store (mmmm….passion fruit juice). We pulled up to the docks to tender back to the ship and then started to help the students all tender back as well…to our amazement, every single student made it back on time and was on the ship even with the tendering factor before 9pm, on ship time! Way to go guys…I was so proud! I spent the night chatting with students and enjoying hearing there stories of Panama, so far one of my favorite places to visit in the world…I definitely feel a 3rd time coming up sometime in the near future!