"Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change."
-Brene Brown, shame-researcher turned love and connections expert, author, and motivational speaker
**NOTE** Due to frequent power outages and limited access to electricity, this blog post was backdated to last week. We have finally secured a consistent enough Wifi signal to allow work on the web. (This may happen a lot... Please bear with us!)
Our visit to Panamá has landed us near the city of Colón, exactly opposite of Cuidad de Panamá across the isthmus and canal.
More specifically: We are nestled on the Northern shore, outside the tiny town of Piña, which is a forty minute ATV ride from Colón through dense, valleyed jungle, over locked waterways and around bloated, cattle-speckled swamps.
More specifically: We are nestled on the Northern shore, outside the tiny town of Piña, which is a forty minute ATV ride from Colón through dense, valleyed jungle, over locked waterways and around bloated, cattle-speckled swamps.
Home for the week.
The hyperactive, love-you-to-death perma-puppy, Ash, in a rare moment of calm. This week, while getting a feel for the land, Daniel and I managed to find lodging by volunteering to house-sit a Caribbean-beach side estate, where we are parenting two terribly sweet Rotterman pooches... Bark-worse-than-bite lil' pups named Ash and Sasha. I may call them “cute puppies,” but anyone else would say that are enormous, hulking hounds.
But they ARE undeniably sweet, I promise. Their size is just for scare.
But they ARE undeniably sweet, I promise. Their size is just for scare.
Our view, for a large duration of the rain-soaked stay. Luckily, we Seattleites are no strangers to wet weather. If anything, it has a loveliness all its own. The house sits on a gentle-to-severe slope overlooking the Atlantic side of Central America. The shoreline sits off axis, so looking straight across the waves, further than we can see, would be Nicaragua, and further still (incidentally) Seattle. *sigh*
Since first arriving, daily storms have waged war against the sea's surface and stirred the waters into frothing, tossing waves.
The lightening last night was SPECTACULAR. We watched from our beds, witnessing powerful, fiery tridents spearing an angry ocean's surface every few heartbeats and shaking the surrounding forest with the following forceful booms as the house was doused with torrents of rain.
Weather didn’t stop us, though, and I had my first ever ocean swim... The water was warm and filthy, filled with human rubbish and natural debris from the ferocious winds and stormy weather and black-and-brown-sanded beach was well churned (we only saw blue sky our last day in the country). We couldn't see more than three inches through the water, but chose to be trusting and dismiss Spielberg's stories in lieu of the Atlantic waters' siren call.
I loved it...
Since first arriving, daily storms have waged war against the sea's surface and stirred the waters into frothing, tossing waves.
The lightening last night was SPECTACULAR. We watched from our beds, witnessing powerful, fiery tridents spearing an angry ocean's surface every few heartbeats and shaking the surrounding forest with the following forceful booms as the house was doused with torrents of rain.
Weather didn’t stop us, though, and I had my first ever ocean swim... The water was warm and filthy, filled with human rubbish and natural debris from the ferocious winds and stormy weather and black-and-brown-sanded beach was well churned (we only saw blue sky our last day in the country). We couldn't see more than three inches through the water, but chose to be trusting and dismiss Spielberg's stories in lieu of the Atlantic waters' siren call.
I loved it...
We also both faced our first illnesses of the trip this week.
Daniel had the usual traveler’s cold, and I was conscious to keep my head above the surface and my face clear of icky fluids, preventing the exacerbation of an apparent eye infection that has left me with sore sockets, bloodshot eyes, and the feeling of ever-present hairs stuck directly across my corneas.
It has ached in ways that worry me a bit (sometimes my anxieties threaten to convince that my laser eye surgery has at long last betrayed me as I feared, and turned for the worse...).
I'm just trying to prevent further infection, if I can. It's already feeling better.
Considering my immune system’s past track record, I expect a full recovery in the next few days.
Daniel had the usual traveler’s cold, and I was conscious to keep my head above the surface and my face clear of icky fluids, preventing the exacerbation of an apparent eye infection that has left me with sore sockets, bloodshot eyes, and the feeling of ever-present hairs stuck directly across my corneas.
It has ached in ways that worry me a bit (sometimes my anxieties threaten to convince that my laser eye surgery has at long last betrayed me as I feared, and turned for the worse...).
I'm just trying to prevent further infection, if I can. It's already feeling better.
Considering my immune system’s past track record, I expect a full recovery in the next few days.
The Ferocious Panamanian Mosquito Massacre of 2015 Also medically related: Given the historic nature of disease-riddled mosquitoes in Panamá's yesteryears, our bedroom beckoned preparations.
With his previous travels, Daniel is all too familiar with mosquitoes, and all that they could carry, in terms of undesirable injections. He considers them the winged terrorists of the animal kingdom (anyone agree?). I, of course, am being far too cavalier about it, and am very fortunate he is here to bedeck our beds with not one, not two, but THREE full-sized, interwoven bug nets, to keep out the vampiric insects that would add us to the 800,000 malaria fatalities (the US spent over $20 million to kill off Panamanian mosquitoes while building the canal, we are just making sure that effort was worth it!).
Geckos frequent the white-washed walls and Santorini-blue window panes of the jungle cabin, and every time I see one, I thank him and do my darnedest expose all the secret locations of the many-legged fiends that run rampant in the ever-humid house.
With his previous travels, Daniel is all too familiar with mosquitoes, and all that they could carry, in terms of undesirable injections. He considers them the winged terrorists of the animal kingdom (anyone agree?). I, of course, am being far too cavalier about it, and am very fortunate he is here to bedeck our beds with not one, not two, but THREE full-sized, interwoven bug nets, to keep out the vampiric insects that would add us to the 800,000 malaria fatalities (the US spent over $20 million to kill off Panamanian mosquitoes while building the canal, we are just making sure that effort was worth it!).
Geckos frequent the white-washed walls and Santorini-blue window panes of the jungle cabin, and every time I see one, I thank him and do my darnedest expose all the secret locations of the many-legged fiends that run rampant in the ever-humid house.
Jungle jaunts are generally densely packed with trees, but every so often a break in the botany rewards a viewer with a vantage such as this. The Panamanian tropical forests laid before you.
A local child brilliantly adorns her home for us. This house felt relatively upscale, when stacked next to much smaller and less luxurious abodes. Errand runs to and from town take us through communities in the tropical wild lands. Sparsely spaced structures are plopped along side the road in the midst of the greenery.
Families (at least in this part of the country) live in cement-block cubes with corrugated metal roofs. The box-like shacks are congregated intermittently along the edge of the jungle road, almost entirely open to the elements (windows are generally absent, and oftentimes even doors are nowhere to be seen).
That said, with the vibrant paint they generally chose to coat the concrete, and the brightly-colored clothes they hang from fences and trees to dry after cleaning, homes look quite beautiful, snuggled between the trees and bushes like rainbow butterflies on a green lawn.
Families (at least in this part of the country) live in cement-block cubes with corrugated metal roofs. The box-like shacks are congregated intermittently along the edge of the jungle road, almost entirely open to the elements (windows are generally absent, and oftentimes even doors are nowhere to be seen).
That said, with the vibrant paint they generally chose to coat the concrete, and the brightly-colored clothes they hang from fences and trees to dry after cleaning, homes look quite beautiful, snuggled between the trees and bushes like rainbow butterflies on a green lawn.
A beach side, family outing. Looking for commodities to barter or make a profit, if we can!
Not every house is chromatically embellished. It's not uncommon to see stone-only constructs for a family's needs. Some children go to school (typically religious institutions smack-dab on the rainforest roadside) or work with their families (we saw no shortage of gatherers out with their parents and siblings, searching for sellables, where they could find them).
There's a simultaneous sense of community and every-man-for-himself-ness that seems to influence the brand of social cohesiveness I found here. People are willing to help others, but based on what I experienced I’m guessing some of those ties may be more tenuous than tight.
That said, it also seems to be understood that we all work together to get things done. I could sense a kind of allowance for the role each person played (or pressured others into tolerating) as we navigated our week.
There's a simultaneous sense of community and every-man-for-himself-ness that seems to influence the brand of social cohesiveness I found here. People are willing to help others, but based on what I experienced I’m guessing some of those ties may be more tenuous than tight.
That said, it also seems to be understood that we all work together to get things done. I could sense a kind of allowance for the role each person played (or pressured others into tolerating) as we navigated our week.
Poor man's porridge made tasty with guava, bananas, and sugar-caned breakfast bread... On an economic note, Panamá is not as cheap and I was told, and I was embarrassingly disappointed.
It may just be where I went, but prices are generally the same as Seattle, in this tiny, North-coast town of Colón (which boasts the world’s largest duty-free shopping zone).
Some prices actually seem about the same as a decent sale back home, while others dare to be shamefully expensive (in my frugal-minded opinion). Oh, well. We stocked up a week's worth of meager eatings for about $40 (14 meals for two... About $1.43 per chap per meal. Not bad).
It may just be where I went, but prices are generally the same as Seattle, in this tiny, North-coast town of Colón (which boasts the world’s largest duty-free shopping zone).
Some prices actually seem about the same as a decent sale back home, while others dare to be shamefully expensive (in my frugal-minded opinion). Oh, well. We stocked up a week's worth of meager eatings for about $40 (14 meals for two... About $1.43 per chap per meal. Not bad).
Peace can be found anywhere. The challenge comes in attaining it. I find myself already, only two weeks in, becoming more hasty, judgmental, impatient, and spiteful, when things feel outside of my control. The pressures of travel pull out negativity in me, sometimes.
I'm hoping to grow and move past those tendencies. I'm so grateful to be here, to have this opportunity, and I'd love to experience it with a more graceful and loving attitude. It's as much work as I thought, but I see how worthwhile the sweat can be, in the long run.
Daniel, the veteran traveler, is doing his best to handle my unruly and stubborn tantrums, and has been FAR too kind in forgiving my errs and rarely acknowledges my blatant faults... Bless his heart.
I'm hoping to grow and move past those tendencies. I'm so grateful to be here, to have this opportunity, and I'd love to experience it with a more graceful and loving attitude. It's as much work as I thought, but I see how worthwhile the sweat can be, in the long run.
Daniel, the veteran traveler, is doing his best to handle my unruly and stubborn tantrums, and has been FAR too kind in forgiving my errs and rarely acknowledges my blatant faults... Bless his heart.
A boy and his dog... Temporary dog, of course.
Sea snails, so we see shells by the sea shore.
Lil, lazy lizard... This Basilisk scooted off, when we approached. Sadly, though, not running upon the water's surface...
Next leg of the journey is a bus ride back through Costa Rica on our way to Nicaragua. We plan to land in a community farm located on the small, volcanic island of Ometepe until we head to picturesque Granada, across the semi-dangerous lake waters that the volcano rests upon.
We apologize for being so off-grid this week. We haven't had much presence online, and thusly don't have shout-outs for donations. Please visit our fund-raising page to see how to contribute!
We will keep exploring the world. Trying to make it better!
PS, Just heard a little gecko croak!!!! Let us hope it was in celebration of just finishing off the last pesky pest in Panamá!
We will keep exploring the world. Trying to make it better!
PS, Just heard a little gecko croak!!!! Let us hope it was in celebration of just finishing off the last pesky pest in Panamá!
Explore the world. Make it better.
Like the photography?
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Click the links and take a gander at our internal gallery or Instagram account!
LOVE it? Visit Daniel's store here!
There is more to see than a post has room for!
Click the links and take a gander at our internal gallery or Instagram account!
LOVE it? Visit Daniel's store here!
So... Where were we????
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