A lot of Panamá

And there goes Panamá. A 3-month adventure stuffed and packed with, well… a lot. A lot of new unforgettable people and moments, to start with. Tons of monkeys and sloths hanging about in hostel gardens. A true gem for animal watching, hiking and exploring natural wonders. Slightly less pleasant were the days of non-stop, fierce showers. The fact that I actually believed I didn’t need a rain coat or bag cover, as I would 'just avoid going outside' during the wet season, was a bit of a beginner’s mistake.

Lots of wildlife

The upside of that, in togetherness with Otto, the latest tropical November storm ever, waterfalls grew and colours exploded. An unreal kind of green took my breath away many times, making me having to stop, stare and sigh. A green so bright and vivid that made me feel like starring in a 3D computer game.

Healthy and blossoming conditions for animals of all sorts, so the little vampires that need human blood had me as their main piece of Christmas haute cuisine. Mosquitos, lice and mites feasted on me way before the holidays started. Newest member of the stinging, itching or burning kind are a mean type of algae and the ‘chitra’ (sand fly or flea).

Upsides are; many people love to hang out with the perfect bait, and in comparison to chitra horror, mosquito bites became peanuts. 

Lots of islands

Stubborn me almost missed out on the beautiful islands of Bocas del Toro, trying to stay away from crowded party heavens & expensive tourist traps. But the weeks spent there, moving between islands on little boats, enjoying jungle hikes and crazy bike rides to secluded beaches, tiny red frogs jumping around my legs, knee-high into the mud, turned out to be lovely in many ways.

Hearing Guari Guari, a mix of Spanish, English and maybe Jamaican-ish, makes for a true Caribbean feel. Bioluminescent water worms with a circular motion (don’t have any other way to describe them), fire flies, flying fish and friendly caimans probably make many foreigners decide to buy one of the many tropical islands that are for sale. The yummy coconut bread makes you (or at least me) forget about the numerous tourists that are being robbed on the desolated beaches. 

Lots of trash

‘A lot’ also relates to the amount of trash and plastic waste. It’s everywhere. It’s been a common sight: me in my bikinis, speeding after plastic cups that got picked up by the wind, carelessly dropped, thrown or left behind by ‘Sunday Funday’ locals on the beach. Carrying a bunch of empty beer cans that I picked up from the road while doing a little run to the beach and back, has raised an eyebrow here and there.

Panamá is still a new country and economy and with that it seems to be slightly behind on how things have developed in Western countries and especially neighbouring Costa Rica. Trash, how much harm it does to our Pachamama ('Mother Earth') and the possibilities of recycling are not yet on the awareness and priority list of Panameños.
Luckily there are initiatives and places where good work is being started. Bocas del Toro in general is trying harder than most other places I've seen. And then there are things going on already for a while in projects such as ‘The Plastic Bottle Village’, where a small village is being formed by houses constructed by the use of empty and otherwise unusable, plastic drinking bottles, all collected from the Bocas islands.

A relief to come across this positive and hopeful project at the end of my stay in Panamá. It was not that long ago that packaging was all still organic here, so often people have no clue that plastic does not dissolve when you throw it into the ocean or the woods. Even worse: every piece of plastic ever produced, still exists..

To be continued!