metro-politan Panama City

I've written very little about Panama City since I moved here.  I think I've complained already about the Americanisation of the place - the elevated freeways, high-rise tower blocks, shopping malls and fast food joints - but it's not a bad place, just nowhere near as interesting as my previous home of Dakar.  It is fast-developing place, however.  Everyone knows about the on-going canal expansion, but above is the new metro, opened just a few months ago, and supposedly the first of four planned metro lines although the newly-elected president seems to have some different priorities so who knows whether the other three lines will get built.  It doesn't help my own journey to work but is clearly an enormous step forward for the city.

At the same time, we have the Metropolitan Park, some 230 hectares of dry tropical forest within the city boundaries.  It is part of a corridor of greenery across the country, set aside in part to protect the supply of water needed to operate the Panama Canal, but also providing a haven for wildlife and a nice recreational spot for the human population.  I was there last Sunday, arriving early to catch the birds before the people and heat drove them deeper into the bushes, and was lucky enough to see a pair of boat-billed herons roosting high in a tree.  These are nocturnal birds but one was awake and preening.


Not that many Panamanians go to this park however (a colleague expressed surprise when I showed him a photo of a howler monkey I took on Sunday, as he has never seen a monkey in his life and did not know there were any in the city), most preferring something rather more urban.  This, to me an unappealing bit of concrete, is where most of them prefer to go on a Sunday; you're not supposed to sit, or even walk, on the few strips of grass.

I do like some aspects of the Panamanian character, not least that they are very polite, being even better at queuing than the British and usually happy to stop their car to let a pedestrian cross the road.  But I don't understand their taste for all things concrete.  Nor, I have to say, their taste in clothes.  I went out for an evening with a colleague to a place she goes to regularly, with a live band playing Latin music (I still can't tell my salsa from my merengue...) and a crowd who are keen to dance.  There were more tight trousers and high heels, more leopard print fabric and more boob jobs than I ever want to see again in one place.  You might be thankful that I have no photos to illustrate that.

a short trip to Asuncion

So many trips, so much work, so little time to see anything or write about it here.  No posts then on Honduras, Haiti, El Salvador or Kenya (although I did get time to visit my Mum for a day whilst there), but happily my recent trip to Paraguay was just a little more relaxed.

Not that there is a great deal to see without adding on leave to visit the Chaco, the Iguassu Falls or the ruins of the Jesuit missions.  I looked into visiting the latter over the weekend, but now I understand why they are the least visited of all the world's UN World Heritage sites - $400 for a return trip there from Asunción.  I didn't go.

But I took a Saturday to go right around the capital city.  First to the botanical gardens for a bit of birding.  I was bitten to pieces by the millions of mosquitoes that hang out in the forest reserve there (the only exposed skin was hands, face and upper throat and all got badly bitten), but I think it was worth it to see four different species of woodpecker, a piculet, a cuckoo and two species of parakeet, amongst other birds.  Then I went into the historical centre, driving there along the Costanera which is a new road along the side of the Bay of Paraguay; another good spot for birds but I wouldn't have found an onwards taxi if I'd got out there.

The centre was OK, a few historic buildings here and there but not comparable to even the historic centre in Panama City.  But it was interesting to see the government palace (photo above), and then find that right behind it is a slum area.  People told me not to venture in there as it was not safe, but I was able to take a quick photo looking down from the plaza above:

Not far away were new shelters being constructed by hundreds of families just made homeless by the flooding of the Paraguay River.  Some were even camping on the porch of the cathedral. Paraguay doesn't exhibit the enormous income and wealth disparities of much of the rest of Latin America, but still it seems there is quite a difference between the haves and have nots. Asunción seemed like a modern developed city but apparently in the rural areas many families don't have proper sanitation and many children don't attend school.

From the centre I went around the San Jeronimo district, a poor area that has been painted in bright colours in order to make it attractive to tourists (and residents, I suppose), although quite how my wandering around taking the odd photo benefits the locals, I don't know.  When I asked a local if I was safe to be there (this was at dusk), he answered that yes it was very safe as there were police around to protect the tourists.  I didn't see any policemen or any other tourists - but then I didn't get mugged either.

One evening my colleagues there took me out to dinner, to sample Paraguay's famous steak.  It was very nice although as a part-time vegetarian I might not be the best person to ask.  Surprisingly, given the country's culinary reputation and the fact that beef is apparently cheaper than vegetables, I was able to find plenty of salads and so on for lunch - one colleague even took me to a newly-opened vegan cafe for a lentil burger.

The biggest surprise for me however was the weather!  Right now it is autumn in Paraguay, before winter comes next month.  Thankfully someone had warned me of the need to take a jacket and jumpers - but what was a big surprise was the changeability of the weather.  The first few days were bright and sunny, with deep blue skies, but very cold so I was wearing jumper, cardigan and thick pashmina in the office to keep warm.  Then it got warmer and very cloudy and wet for a few days, then hot and sunny (still 28°C at 8pm one evening!), then the next day it was cloudy and down to 15°C.  Very strange, but nice to see all the colours of the autumn leaves, I realise that it is a few years since I saw that.

feeling the earth move

I'd been excited about a three-week assignment in Nicaragua, as it seemed to offer the chance for weekend trips to Granada, or Leon, or Volcan Massaya.  In fact it turned out to offer long working days that spread into the weekend and all the sightseeing I could fit in was an hour-long drive around the capital city.

Managua is a strange place as it was twice flattened by an earthquake during the twentieth century and has not been rebuilt since the last one (which was in 1972).  So now there is no centre, just a string of suburbs.  The old centre was beside the lake - with views of the volcanic islands and no doubt the more expensive buildings positioned so as to catch the cooling breezes during the hotter times of year (it was 39°C today).  Then the '72 earthquake came and only the cathedral was left standing, even that badly damaged and still too dangerous to go inside even now.  This was in the time of the dictator Somoza, so much of the aid that came in was misdirected, and he took advantage of the situation to buy up plenty of cheap land all around the edges of town before slapping a ban on re-building in the centre, so that those wanting to build new homes had to buy land off him - now at vastly inflated prices.

So Managua spread outwards, and the centre remained empty and desolate.

Recent efforts have cleaned it up a bit, put in a family park and a few fountains, but it is still pretty empty.  Yet no new 'centre' has developed and it feels as an outsider that the old centre, near the lake, is crying out for development.  I've asked a few people about it, and the main reason given for its virtual abandonment is that it is right astride a big fault line, so it is the part of the city most likely to suffer again in the next big earthquake.  No one wants to live there.

The fear of earthquakes is very palpable here.  People still remember the '72 quake, many lost family, friends and property.  More than that, however, is that earthquakes here are an everyday reality.  I'd never experienced one before, but four days into the trip, in the middle of a discussion in the office, everything started shaking and there was a loud rumbling sound.  It doesn't take long to realise that it is a quake (even if it did feel rather like being in a basement office in the City of London with a tube train going underneath) and we quickly evacuated with all the other staff.  It was a 5.2 magnitude, which is quite strong, but was some 60 kilometres deep so didn't do any damage.

Two weeks later and we had another one this afternoon.  A much more powerful, although quick-lived, shaking.  This time I felt a rather more serious need to get out of the office quickly - I heard something smash in the next room (it was part of the ceiling coming down) and colleagues looked scared.  This was a 6.2, and less than 10 kilometres deep, so much stronger.  Some colleagues (those too young to remember 1972) said it was the most powerful they had ever felt.

The power and phone lines were out, and aftershocks were expected, so we were told we could go inside only quickly to collect our things and then should head home (back to the hotel for me).  When I arrived here everyone was outside following an aftershock, and I've felt two more since as I sit at my desk in the hotel room.  I did enjoy the new experience of feeling a fairly powerful earthquake, but I must say that I am not particularly enjoying the aftershocks, wondering how many more there will be, how you judge when one is strong enough to require evacuation, and whether I will be able to get to sleep tonight.

celebrating the heritage of Portobelo

Another (rainy) day in Panama's short dry season, another provincial festival.  This time the Diablos and Congos festival which takes place two weeks after carnival every other year in the Caribbean village of Portobelo.

Well, technically it is a city, but with its current population of less than 3,000, it is only its ruins that hint of its past importance.  Founded in 1597, it became an important silver-exporting port for the Spanish after Francis Drake burned its rival port to the ground.  It was sacked by Henry Morgan (yes, him again) in 1668, and then captured by the British in 1739 as part of the War of Jenkins Ear.  Apparently this victory was greatly celebrated in Britain and is the reason that Portobello Road is so named.

The Spanish quickly recovered Portobelo but its importance declined as ships began to travel around Cape Horn.  Today one can still see the remains of three forts and the impressive old Royal Customs House where the Spanish used to store all the silver they had taken from Peru, but otherwise it is just a fishing village.

The festival, however, gives everyone the chance to dress up and to celebrate their heritage.  The inhabitants, the Congos, are descended from escaped black slaves and they are proud to maintain elements of their African heritage.  I say 'elements' because I saw little to remind me of Africa.  Just the drums, in fact.  The costumes appear to me to be either colourful versions of the Spanish flamenco dress (like the less colourful pollera worn throughout the country on festival days), or a collection of everything the wearer could find to somehow stick together!  More photos here than usual, but it really was a colourful spectacle and some of the costumes are hard to describe...

carnival

Unfortunately my boss had decided to organise a meeting in Madrid during the carnival week, so I only got to go to the first of the four days of Panama's carnival before I was off to the airport again.

I managed to take this one picture that gave the impression that our carnival was something like the one in Rio, but in reality there were only five floats, separated by groups of ordinary people in T-shirts sort of shuffling along to various different drum rhythms.

A section of the Cinta Costera, that part of the Panamanian highway which skirts the Bay of Panama, was cordoned off, with tight security for entrance (full body pat-down as well as thorough searches of bags).  Inside, there were countless stalls selling coca cola and beer, a few barbecue stands, large speakers belting out Latin music (I admit that I still can't tell the difference between salsa, merengue and bachata) and lots of Panamanian families milling about.  Everyone appeared to be enjoying themselves, so perhaps I just wasn't in the right mood that day as I thought it was rather boring!

There were also a number of people in red-and-black devil costumes wandering about and posing for photos.  I wasn't sure of their significance so googled them, and it seems that their origin is unknown but they generally represent evil (colonial conquistadors or perhaps slave masters), and that the colour of their costume reveals their seniority as a devil, with the beginners in red and the more senior devils with more black in their costumes.  Here in Panama they weren't really doing anything, they were just wandering about, but it seems that in some of the provincial towns they have far more defined and interesting roles.  Very clearly there are many provincial carnivals which are better than the one in the capital.  Maybe next year I will have the opportunity to attend one of those, so I shan't post a devil photo this time but instead the one I took of a costume lying ready on the ground, an hour or so before the parade started - coincidentally, it appears to be the same costume as in the photo above.

Panama Viejo

The city of Panama, founded in 1519, was the first permanent European settlement on the Pacific Ocean.  Today, however, the site of this settlement is just a collection of stone ruins, with the modern-day Panama City a few kilometres to the west.  I started feeling guilty this morning about just faffing around at home so decided to play the tourist for the day and take a look around the old ruins.

As with most other colonial cities in this part of the world, the damage was done by a British pirate, in this case the Welshman Henry Morgan, who sacked the old city in 1671.  It seems that everywhere I go in the region either his name or that of Francis Drake is raised as the culprit for burning and looting the old Spanish cities, with no amount of fortification seeming to be too much for them.  Both of these men were knighted - and are generally referred to in British literature as 'privateers' rather than pirates.  Of course Britain (England) was at war with the Spanish at this time so I suppose such behaviour was excusable.  Indeed I overheard someone's guide at the ruins today speaking quite admiringly about Henry Morgan, telling the tourist that he was a very clever man - it seems there are no hard feelings today.

A significant amount of restoration has been done to these ruins since I last visited them in 1996, apparently partly funded by Spain.  Perhaps it would have been a nice gesture for Britain to have found the money for this!

A week in the Dominican Republic

I always thought of the Dominican Republic as a place of all-inclusive beach resorts, sex tourism and a problem with food poisoning, but a quick holiday with a bird-watching group changed all of that.  I saw that the interior is mountainous, in the north quite lush and green with plantations of fruit, coffee and cacao, and in the south rather drier but with areas of cool pine forest.

More surprising to me though was the capital, Santo Domingo.  The city was founded in 1496 by the brother of Christopher Columbus and is the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the Americas as well as the site of the region's first university, cathedral, monastery, castle and fortress.  The old colonial quarter is reasonably extensive and contains some wonderful 500-year-old houses, solidly built of thick coral blocks with heavy wooden doors.  The city held a strategically important role in the expansion of the Spanish empire, with conquistadors setting off from here on their voyages of discovery including Hernando Cortes (Mexico), Diego Velazquez de Cuéllar (Cuba), Ponce de Leon (Puerto Rico) and Vasco Nuñez de Balboa (first European to see the Pacific Ocean).  The street running from the Plaza de España and past the old fortress still contains the old houses where they were based.

There are museums too, and other interesting remnants of history, including a cannonball lodged on the roof of the cathedral, fired there as part of Francis Drake's invasion of the city in 1586.  The city is not overrun with tourists, but there are enough to support a good number of decent restaurants and cafes.  A potential retirement spot?