Advertisement
Published: March 6th 2008
Edit Blog Post
The next stop on my intinerary was the San Blas islands on the Carribean side. To get there you need to leave from Panama City. I called Jota to let hime know that I would be coming through and he told me that Cole was flying in for the weekend. Cole is a friend that I went to school with in New Orleans and haven't seen for close to five years. He also told me that his house was full and that he was sick. So basically it was on me to entertain Cole for a few days.
I really hadn't planned on staying in the city for mare than a day or two, but it was really great to see Cole. We stayed at Pascal's house for a few nights and had a great time. It was nice to be able to cook my own food and have access to grocery stores with a few more options. But it is ridiculously hot in Panama City. You just can't get away from it. But I was able to use the time to get my trip to San Blas in line and also rearrange my travel plans for coming home.
On Sunday the 17th we dropped Cole off at the airport early in the morning and headed north to the Chagres National Park. It was Pascal, his son Olivier, his Tai Chi techer Andy, Andy's girlfriend Yenna, and I. The Chagres is another mountainous jungle type of terrain, but lower elevation than Boquete. I guess lower elevation means more snakes and things like that to watch out for. The hike was great and I was really impressed by Olivier (he's only 8 years old). We did an eight hour loop that started with a steep decline down to the river. We walked about 2 or 3 km through the river and came upon a little camp where and old man was living by himself. There are a few houses scattered throughout the national park that were grandfathered in. These people have little or no access to there houses other than horse - and during the rainy season even that can be impossible.
This man (I never learned his name) was living on a beautiful bend in the river. He had a decent size area cleared with a few thatched-roof huts. He is blind and lives out there alone in
the company of a little dog and a handful of chickens. He really doesn't have much out there at all, but still offered to cook us some rice. We turned him down because we still had about 4 hours to go. This is the type of hospitality that I ran into everywhere. We visited with him for about twenty minutes and moved on, wading through the river.
On our ascent back up from the river we came upon another little house and stopped to buy some coconuts from the woman living there. She had a long pole - maybe 40ft - that Andy used to knock down some cocos. Pascal hacked them open with his machete and we sat there in her yard enjoying the sweet water. We also found a guaiabana (not sure if the spelling is correct) and ate that as well. The guaiabana is new to me, but it is a really sweet fruit whose flesh kind of resembles that of a flaky white fish. I had never seen the fruit in the market, but it is popular for making ice cream. The woman living there mostly stayed in her hut, but she offered us these
strange variety of bananas before we left. She said they were Chinese bananas, but a think many of people down there call anything that is a little different Chinese. Regardless, they were delicious. She also gave us some tangerine lemons from one of her trees. A tangerine lemon looks just like a tangerine but is as acidic as a lemon. Not bad either.
The trail brought us back down to river where we crossed once more before it led us straight up a hill for the next few miles back to car. After a long day, this hill seemed never ending. But it was mostly overcast all day, so the weather was nice. And we took lots of breaks because Olivier was finally getting tired. It was a beautiful hike and so close to the city. But no one goes out there. Panamanians are evidently afraid of the jungle as well. We didn't run into anyone else except for the natives.
I finished the weekend with another great meal and went to bed early. I had to be at the airport for my flight San Blas by 6:30am.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.154s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 47; dbt: 0.0988s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb