Before writing what belongs under this title, I wanted to add a follow-on to my last post, about feeling unsafe in Brazil. Purely coincidentally, at the start of the assignment in Colombia that followed Brazil, the security briefing included a sharing of the list of the world's most violent cities (those with the highest murder rates). I was very surprised to see that Sao Luis, where our country office is located in northern Brazil, is officially the tenth most violent city in the world. & that Brazil has more cities in the top fifty than any other country. So my feelings about the place were right.
So, onto today's post - on the left are some pre-Colombian petroglyphs, on a small group of rocks in an unmarked field about an hour's walk along country roads and muddy trails outside of the small village of La Pintada. My old guidebook had said the petroglyphs were "2km from the cemetery and well-signposted from the plaza" but when I found the plaza there were no signposts and the local policeman had no idea what I was talking about when I asked for directions. OK, I hadn't done my preparation properly so didn't know the Spanish for "pre-Colombian petroglyphs" but "rocks with drawings on" should have given him a fair idea, surely. But eventually I found someone who thought there was something round the corner and along the turning to the left ... well that got me to the cemetery so I knew I was on the right track, but there the road forked. Thankfully the guy standing nearby understood immediately, knew which road I should take and said that they were about a twenty minute walk away.
So I walked. & walked. In the hot Panamanian sun and 90% humidity. Clearly not many foreigners walk along that road as one vehicle full of farm workers even stopped to ask if I was okay. I walked for twenty minutes, and for another ten, and another ten. People looked at me blankly when I asked about rocks with drawings on, and I was close to giving up and turning back - fifty minutes into the walk - when I saw two people up ahead and decided to ask them as my final shot. Clearly they knew exactly what I was talking about - there was conversation between them as to which ones to direct me to, and having decided that the ones in the river behind the field were too hard to get to and find, they offered to show me some if only I didn't mind waiting for twenty minutes while they went off and did what they were there for.
Of course I agreed, and sat on a log to read today's Guardian that I had downloaded on my phone whilst in a wifi zone. When they returned exactly twenty minutes later I felt even more confident. They walked me to their car and we drove back part of the way I had walked then off along a side track, and then a muddy side-track of that. Then walked through a well-hidden gate and through waist high vegetation in a muddy field - to a pile of nondescript-looking rocks. With a number of petroglyphs on! Turns out - would you believe my luck - they were archaeologist/anthropologist consultants!! I should write to the guidebook company as there is NO WAY anyone without this stroke of luck would have a hope of finding any petroglyphs.
This was the church in the main plaza by the way, which was a pretty little village as you can see.
So why did I get up before 6am this morning and spend a total of seven hours on buses in order to see a few old carvings on some rocks? Well it was to avoid more of this:
The patriotism holidays - which had started yesterday with fireworks from the government palace at 5am (the sound of the explosions echoing off the buildings around me woke me up and I got up to see what was going on), continued with more fireworks from the same place half an hour after the first lot finished, then with the parades - see above - of endless groups of people sweating in the humid air as they marched through the city banging drums and blowing trumpets. At an extremely slow pace such that it took the parade five hours to pass my building. Before the fireworks started again. I wouldn't have minded at all had this been African-style drumming, that you want to move your hips to, but no this was the American marching band style that Panama now considers its heritage. I should say that they actually started at 1am, but fortunately not near enough to my building for me to hear them.
These holidays continue on and off through the month - when I got back at 4pm today the parades were still going past, and there were more fireworks this evening. & from the bus I glimpsed four other parades in the interior of the country. Yesterday was the celebration of independence from Colombia, today was flag day, tomorrow celebrates the confirmation of independence when the Colombian forces in Colón agreed not to resist (on payment of a $8,000 bribe, apparently!), then on 28 November is the celebration of the first call for independence and then on 10 December the independence from Spain. Panamanians get very upset if foreigners say anything negative about the celebrations (eg complaining at being woken at 1am by drummers), even though many of them escape to a beach somewhere for the long weekend, so I hope none of my colleagues are reading this.
