more on Quito

Re-reading my last post, it doesn't give a particularly positive impression of Quito.  That is unfortunate as I rather liked the place.  Too cold to be a candidate for retirement (and probably not safe enough), but it had many features that I liked, and it is always good to get confirmation of which aspects of a place I should be looking for and not just those to avoid.

Not too big (population around 2.5 million), it nevertheless has a reasonable cultural life.  Sting and the Kronos Quartet both performed while I was there (not that I got to see either), and on our group evening out we stopped briefly in a small bar just to buy drinks, where two local musicians were playing guitar and singing some great local, traditional music.  Something you don't seem to get in Panama, and if I hadn't been with a group I would have happily settled down in that bar for the evening.  $1 each for cups of warming canelazo (aguardiente with cinnamon, cane sugar and a little fruit juice), great music, and a welcoming atmosphere.

There are some good museums, showcasing fantastic ceramics from the Incas and also from quite a number of pre-Incan cultures, as well as an interesting collection of gold and other metal artefacts.  The famous Ecuadorean artist Guayasamin left his amazing home as a museum, filled with both his own paintings and sculptures, and other art from around the world.  If you like religious art there is plenty of that too.  Restaurants serve everything from fondue to sushi, the local food is pretty much to my taste with plenty of potatoes, cheese and avocados, and there are a number of trendy 'superfoods' such as quinoa and chia seeds which are grown locally and therefore relatively cheap (yes, I did bring some home with me - made a delicious salad the other day of quinoa and sweet potates drizzled with avocado oil...).

What I really enjoyed though was the ease of escaping from the noise and traffic of a city up to a place full of fresh air where I hiked for a couple of hours.  I use the word 'up' deliberately because the escape involved taking a cable car on an 18-minute journey from the 2,800m altitude of Quito through the clouds to Cruz Loma at 4,050m.  Up there you are in the paramo, too high and exposed for trees but with miles of open land to walk on.

I went up towards the volcanic peak of Rucu Pichincha, not the whole way as you really have to be fitter than I am to ascend another 600m when starting at that altitude, but I think I probably got about halfway up, experiencing a thumping heart, brief patches of burning sun, sheet lightning flashing overhead and a pretty cold hailstorm - enough excitement for me in a couple of hours.  The cloud lifted for a few moments on my walk down to show the city spread out way below but it was the wrong time of year for the best views.  I just enjoyed being up there in the wilds though, feeling so very far from the city although in reality I was less than 2km above it.

I think my ideal place to live would have to be a city, or at least a well-appointed town, because I do enjoy the occasional cultural outing.  But I also love walking in the countryside so that needs to be nearby too - ideally near enough that I can get out there several times a week.  Given that it also has to be safe, hot but not too humid, with reasonable access to the rest of the world (so not New Zealand), and affordable, I wonder sometimes whether this place actually exists!

history and religion in Quito

I had been advised to arrive in Quito a day early, so as to acclimatise to the 2,800m altitude, but as I felt perfectly fine this morning I set out for a day around the old city - one of the first two places to be made UNESCO World Heritage sites.  It's nice, with a few big squares, old colonial buildings and lots of churches - much as I expected, I suppose.

Although there are hints of the old Inca beliefs here and there (sun motifs in the ceiling at the entrance to the Monasterio de San Francisco, for example), and apparently still some Inca rituals followed in the more remote parts of the mountains, Ecuador is now over 80% Catholic.  As today is Sunday this meant that all the churches were full of people attending Mass.  I visited a few, and thought it sad how many people were clustered at the shrine for the patron saint of lost causes, and even more sad how many obviously poor members of society were begging just outside - whilst inside those churches were covered in gold, seven tonnes of it in one church, I was told.  I'm not a religious person, and I'm sorry if I am now offending those who are, but just how does all this opulence fit with the supposed aims of the Christian faith?  It seems to me that it would be more in keeping with what Jesus preached if this wealth were used instead to provide much-needed services to the poor.

making arrangements

I sit here this evening writing this post having been a victim again of a strange aspect of Panama.

A really nice colleague had suggested we go together one weekend evening to try one of the jazz bars in the old city, and we’d agreed to make it this evening.  I’d given her details of some venues with live jazz or bossa nova to let her decide where we should go, and she was to email me today to let me know where and when to meet.  & I’ve heard nothing.  She’s not replying to her mails nor to phone calls.  I know that if I ask her on Monday what happened, there will be an excuse given; if I don’t ask she will never even mention it.

It has happened to me before with a colleague, and has happened three times with different commercial appointments.  A colleague referred me to a woman who fits window blinds; I met her and we arranged a day when she would come round to measure up, I arranged to work from home that day and then I waited ... and waited.  She never came and never contacted me to apologise or explain what happened.  The same with two guys who were supposed to come round to replaster a rotting wall last month.  Once I managed to get someone to turn up - a carpenter who measured up to make a bookcase, discussed the type of wood I wanted and gave me a rough price estimate - but then I never heard from him again and I've got used to the books living in a cardboard box beside my bed.

I can understand someone cancelling on me if they are ill, or their car breaks down, or even if they just get a better offer, but I do expect them to tell me.  An expat colleague says she has even experienced Panamanians not turning up when invited to her home for dinner.  Of course one of the interesting things about living overseas is the opportunity to learn about and experience other cultures first hand, but this is one aspect of Panamanian culture that I don't get.

It is something that expats here discuss quite a lot as none of us understand it and few of us ever really come to terms with it. 

a day in Suriname

I couldn't resist the chance to add another country to my list, although it was a 12-hour trip by bus and ferry to get from Georgetown to the capital of neighbouring Suriname, not to mention some stress in trying to organise transport there, as there is no fixed bus route but rather a number of private operators who collect you from your address in Georgetown and deliver you to your address in Paramaribo.  However one such operator was finally tracked down by my Georgetown hotel, and although they turned up 20 minutes earlier than arranged and had already driven away in the five minutes it took me to zip up my bag and run down the stairs, they did come back 30 minutes later and I was on my way to see a new country!

Driving in from the border the place seemed almost deserted (indeed the population is less than 500,000).  The road was in place a little pot-holed, and I felt that I must be in a much less developed place than Guyana.  So it was a shock to fimally reach the beautiful capital with its really well-preserved Dutch colonial-style architecture.  Apparently (as I have since discovered) the capital is a UNESCO World Heritage site.  I admit to having done no research for this trip besides the practicalities (visa and transport), so had not seen any pictures of the place to prepare me.  I think it can be a good thing sometimes to arrive somewhere with no pre-conceived ideas or expectations, as in this case where I was astonished by what I found.

I spent the morning visiting Fort Zeelandia and the Suriname Museum, and the early afternoon walking the streets, failing to find vantage points from which to photograph the beautiful buildings without their being half obscured by cars.  Clearly the colonial legacy from the Dutch did not include a love of bicycles.  As with Guyana, the population was really mixed, although here I was told that there was a level playing field for all races to invest and to start businesses, which seems not to be the case in the Indian-dominated Guyana.

Having seen all there seems to be I returned to my guesthouse to get an early night in preparation for my 4am bus back to Georgetown.  It was a great place to visit but a day trip was easily enough.

Karanambu Ranch

Our guide had forwarned us about the difficulties of our final stop in Guyana, a remote and rustic place where the rooms were rather open to the elements thus allowing a plethora of wildlife to come in.  Getting there involved four hours travelling by boat, although that did include stops to look at wildlife on the way.  On one such stop, the guide asked if we wanted something to drink - juice?  rum punch?  With a snack of home-baked cookies?  Bemused, I asked for the rum punch and a cookie and no, he wasn't joking.  & this was to set the tone for our three days there, with rum punch freely available before and during every lunch and dinner (and at a few other times too) and generally excellent food.  The kind of 'remote and rustic' which isn't too difficult to deal with!

He was right about the wildlife in the rooms though.  I walked in to mine to find several cockroaches and a lot of ants, and a gecko fell onto my hand as I put my rucksack down.  Later I realised there was a large and occupied hornet's nest in the rafters as well as quite a few bats, and some of the spiders were worryingly large.  I had to get the owner in to move one for me as it sat in the middle of the doorway into the bathroom and I could not see a way around it without getting too close for comfort.  Another couple in my group found a scorpion in their room, and we were warned that snakes sometimes came in too.  It was the kind of place where you checked beneath the toilet seat before sitting down, kept all your bags zipped up tight and tucked the mosquito net in very carefully at night!  But the beds were comfortable, there was a hammock in the porch - and did I mention the rum punches?

There were a wealth of activities too.  Of course our main focus was birds and wildlife (which included pinnated bittern, pearl kite, jabiru stork, capuchinbird, giant anteater, savanna fox and squirrel monkeys) but the three of us who were interested also got to play with a rescued giant river otter that was being brought up before its release back into the wild.  Its fur was so incredibly soft but unfortunately the muddy bank where we played was full of sand flies so I paid the price for the next few days.

There was also a small lake near the ranch full of water lilies, and we all took the opportunity to go and watch these open one evening.  As the sun goes down the big buds gradually unfold - within an hour all the flowers were wide open although the process was too slow to be visible (mind you, after a couple of rum punches I thought I saw movement in one...).

But too soon, I really could have spent another day or two at Karanambu, our stay came to an end and we had to head back to civilisation.  We flew back from the airstrip behind the ranch; here are three of the others at the departure gate.

there's a small bird in a distant tree

The 'birds and wildlife' part of my Guyana trip began with a visit to the botanical gardens (where a great horned owl was a nice sight) and to a narrow coastal strip of forest, where two great local birds - blood-coloured woodpecker and rufous crab hawk - put in appearances within five minutes of our arrival.  If only the birds had been so cooperative through the rest of our trip.

Then we flew to Kaieteur Falls.  Five times the height of Niagara Falls, with the water falling 227m (741 ft) in a single drop, they are spectacular but attract few visitors, our group of eight having the place to ourselves on our visit.  On the bird front, the resident Guianan cock-of-the-rock (the orange one above) showed themselves well.

From there we visited three different eco-lodges around the one million acres of primary rainforest that makes up the Iwokrama Protected Area.

Two of my target species for the trip, the jaguar and the harpy eagle, were nowhere to be seen (an old harpy eagle nest was no compensation), but I had not had particularly high hopes for these two.  Some other desired birds were absent too, largely due to a lack of rain this year.  Rivers and ponds were low or in some cases dry, and even up on the 30m high forest canopy walkway there were times when the forest was eerily quiet.  Several times our desperate guide was reduced to pointing out small birds on distant trees that were barely identifiable even through his telescope.

Even then, however, it was actually full of life, you just had to look hard to spot it.  Frogs and toads blended perfectly with the leaf litter, as did the butterflies when they perched.  Our guide found a snake and I could not see it even when he shone his laser pointer directly at a vine and said "it's there!" - it was only when the head appeared on the path that I realised that the vine was not a vine at all, but a superbly camouflaged vine snake!  Some birds, too, were well camouflaged, like this roosting blackish nightjar:

Generally though, when they appeared, the birds were highly colourful, like the toucans and macaws, for example.  Many of the best-looking birds followed a consistent colour theme, from scarlet ibis and crimson fruitcrow through Guianan red cotinga and red-and-black grosbeak, to the amazing red-necked woodpecker and red-fan parrot.  Even the mammals we saw the most often were the red howler monkey and the red-rumped agouti.

Accommodation was fairly comfortable and the food was okay although as ever when I travel I found myself missing a good cup of tea with milk in.  The final place we stayed in, however, deserves a post all of its own.

a few days in Georgetown, Guyana

Guyana has been on my wish-list of countries to visit since I first set foot in South America in 1992.  Not that Guyanans consider themselves to be part of South America, looking instead to their Caribbean neighbours with whom they share the English language, a love of cricket and that beautiful lilting accent.

The country is nearly the size of Britain, but with a population of only around 800,000, made up primarily of people of Indian/Pakistani origin (>40%), of African origin (30%) and Amerindians (10%).  The latter live mostly in the interior and culturally align themselves more with Brazil than with the Caribbean, but the other 90% of the population live mainly in the narrow coastal belt.  This area is mostly below sea level, protected by a sea wall and drained by a large number of canals with sluice gates opening into the sea - developed, I presume, by the Dutch who were early colonisers before the British took over.  British influence remains in terms of the language, imports of agricultural machinery and the requirement to drive on the left, but otherwise is not really noticeable.  The dominant group is clearly the Indian population - and I was lucky to be visiting during the diwali festival, so was able to see their illuminated floats pass by.

I had organised a trip to see 'birds and wildlife' but added on a few days before and after to see the capital, Georgetown.  It is a surprisingly pretty town, with some wide, tree-lined avenues that follow the layout of the old sugar estates, with drainage ditches kept reasonably free of mosquitoes by regular treatment.  A good proprotion of the old colonial wooden buildings still survive, including the City Hall pictured here and the 44 metre high Anglican cathedral.

As well as familiarising myself with the commoner birds in the botanical gardens, I visited a couple of museums and an art gallery, and went to look for the Umana Yana, a traditional meeting hall built by indigenous Indians in 1972 for a conference, but found it had burnt to the ground about six weeks ago.  Very sad, but apparently there are plans to rebuild it.  In compensation, however, I got to go up to the top of the Georgetown lighthouse, which I discovered later is only supposed to be open to those with special permission from the government.  Unaware of this, I asked the security guard at the entrance to the Ministry of Works car park if I could get to the lighthouse by going through their car park and he said yes.  Reaching the lighthouse, I was asked if I had permission to enter, and I pointed to the (car park of) the Ministry and said the guy there had told me to come through this way ... the two staff in the office three quarters of the way up looked surprised to see me but didn't stop me ... and I was in!!  So for those who will not be able to secure the necessary permission from the authorities, this is what you will not get to see:

a floating market and biting fish

My three weeks in Bangkok were busy with work but I took a Sunday morning off to visit the floating market at Damnoen Saduak.  I had read mixed reviews of the place, the negative ones describing it as just a tourist trap, others saying it was good fun despite being set up for tourists.  If there had been more time available I would probably have visited this plus one of the more 'authentic' floating markets too, but with limited time I decided that Damnoen Saduak with its easily arranged tours would be good enough.

& the critics are right that it is highly geared towards the tourist trade.  But many, probably the majority, of those tourists are Thai, and whether the vendors are selling vegetables to 'authentic' Thais or hats to tourist Thais doesn't change the fundamental (and photogenic) nature of the floating market.

It also has the bonus of a few attractions that would not be there without the presence of tourists (or at least I very much doubt that your average Thai includes a photo opportunity with a boa constrictor as part of their regular market day)!  I've long been fascinated by snakes, not only are they beautiful but they are also lovely to touch and they feel amazing when they move; I always take any chance I get to handle a snake and this is one of many photos of me over the years with one draped around me.

Later during my three week stay I got the chance to interact with different creatures - the little fish that nibble dead skin cells off your body!  I had long wanted to try this, and seeing a stall with the little tanks of fish, $5 for 30 minutes with your feet and lower legs in a tank I was straight in.  & I have to say that it was one of the strangest sensations I have ever experienced.  Around the more tender parts of my feet I could actually feel the fish biting, although it wasn't painful, just extremely odd.

a day in transit in Tokyo

No sooner was I back from Nicaragua than I had to fly to Bangkok - not an easy trip to do from Panama on an NGO budget.  Going via Europe was too expensive, and routes going the other way, over the Pacific, all involved a couple of nights in different cities or airports on the way there.  To my great good fortune, however, the cheapest of these flights was the Panama-Atlanta-Seattle-Tokyo-Bangkok route - with two nights in Tokyo!!  Having never been to Japan before I was very excited.

I tried to make the most of my day by getting up very early (not difficult given the jetlag) and starting off at the fish market.  Unfortunately it seems neither the tuna auctions nor the general fish wholesale market are now open to tourists, but I was able to get a very tasty bowl of various types of super fresh sashimi in one of the little local cafes surrounding the market.

From there I went to the Hama-rikyu Gardens, a very peaceful park with skyscrapers on one side and the river on the other.  I took a boat from there to the old district of Asakusa, where I discovered matcha green tea (mmm!) before making my way through the old shopping streets to Sensoji Temple, the oldest temple in Tokyo said to have been built in 628.  It was full of people, Japanese visitors (or were some of them Chinese tourists?) taking photos of the shrine as well as praying to Buddha, but it still somehow had a calm and peaceful air.

In the afternoon I moved on to the National Museum, which had an excellent collection from all around Asia as well as from Japan itself.  I ended up spending three hours in there - after which exhaustion kicked in and plans to catch some kind of evening entertainment were shelved.  The next morning's plans were also shelved, or at least thwarted, as I arrived at Yoyogi Park only to be told that the authorities had decided the previous evening to close it because of an infestation of dengue-carrying mosquitoes.

I hadn't known what to expect of Tokyo but really enjoyed my stay there.  It was an intriguing mix of very modern and very traditional.

saying goodbye to Nicaragua

After the Papaturro I travelled along a different river, this time the four-hour boat trip along the Rio San Juan, to El Castillo.  This village, of 1,500 people, lies beside a set of rapids, at the foot of the 17th century castle that gives the place its name.

The town was home to a great Nicaraguan heroine, the 19-year-old Rafaela Herrera who inspired the defenders to victory against a British raiding party after her father, the commander, died.  They could not defy the British for ever, however, and in 1780 another British party, this time led by a 22-year-old Horatio Nelson, captured the fortress.  Most of the conquerors died of dysentery over the next few months, finally abandoning the fortress in 1781.

I spent a couple of hours around the castle as the museum is excellent and there were a few nice birds hanging out in a big fruiting tree.  Then after a long lazy lunch in a restaurant beside the river I took the boat back to San Carlos.

In the evening I went to the little lakeside park to check my emails - the Sandinista government having made it a legal requirement that every town provide free wifi in its main square or park.  There were people around with cameras, and I soon discovered that the president - Comandante Daniel himself - had been expected for the formal opening of a nearby bridge, but that all such events had been cancelled earlier that day as it was felt to be bad form to be celebrating something while a dozen miners were trapped in a mine in the north of the country.  I was very sad to have missed him.  I gave money to the Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign in the early 1980s, to support the Sandinistas, and to see one of their main men in person (at that time a leader of the revolutionaries and now president) would have been very nice.

But I went back to my little hostel - $4 for a comfortable little wooden room of my own (with shared, but very clean, toilets and showers) - for my last night in Nicaragua.  The country said goodbye to me in its own style, with a small earthquake (four point something) at 4:30 in the morning...

The nest day I took another boat, to the border crossing into Costa Rica, and then a couple of buses to San Jose where I stopped for the night.  I just had enough time to visit the gold museum the next morning, which I must say was very good, with typical gold objects from pre-Colombian times but also with extensive information, mostly in English.

Then I took the bus back to Panama City.  I'd chosen to take the midday bus and arrive at 4 in the morning (rather than the midnight one) because I was keen to see the scenery of Costa Rica, but I was distracted by the conversation of the man sitting next to me.  He had fought in Nicaragua with the contras, part of an elite unit whose task was to kill Eden Pastora and Daniel Ortega.  Clearly they'd had no success with Comandante Daniel!  I was keen to get information from him about the grenade attack on Eden Pastora, as I don't think it was ever officially confirmed that the US (the contras) were behind it, but he wouldn't talk - claimed that his years there had been stressful and he'd needed psychiatric treatment afterwards for PTSD, so I couldn't push him as much as I'd have liked to.  He wasn't overly impressed to find out I had donated to the Sandinistas but we certainly had an interesting conversation and the journey back home passed very quickly.

boat trips in southern Nicaragua

The ferry departed Granada at 2pm, arriving in San Carlos around 5am - a 15 hour trip across Lake Nicaragua.  On arrival, after a very nice breakfast, I transferred to a different wharf and a different boat, this time for the four-hour trip across the south of the lake and then up the Papaturro River to the Los Guatuzos Natural Reserve.

I'd been warned about the Granada - San Carlos trip, about the need for warm clothes and sea-sicknes tablets.  Fortunately we had a very smooth crossing, and my T-shirt, shirt, fleece and down jacket together were enough to keep me warm, but sleeping in a deck chair is only easy for the first hour or so.  I was thus very envious of the locals on the trip to Los Guatuzos who came prepared with hammocks to string up across the boat.  The rest of us shuffled and wriggled about on the hard wooden benches as our bodies stiffened and our bottoms became numb.

So what did I do on my first evening at Los Guatuzos?  A three-hour boat trip...

This one was different, however, as the excellent guide pointed out various birds sleeping on their perches (including five different species of kingfisher), a large group of baby caymans (maybe two or three days old), adult caymans, a gorgeous red-eyed tree frog and a black and tan coloured rat-like creature.  For the first hour or so the river was also covered in a stream of thousands of bats flying over its surface, hunting the millions of insects that came out as the sun went down.

The next morning I took yet another boat trip - back in the same direction but with different things to see and more stops to get out and walk.  We saw dozens more kingfishers, trogons, sloths, caymans, and a few new birds to add to my list.  The guide also had me wading through a swamp, and climbing a tree, then swinging on two "Tarzan" hanging roots he had fashioned into a swing - determined to get me out of my comfort zone, although in their own way the mosquitoes were already doing that.

We were out for six hours, and the highlight for me was a little thumbnail-sized poisonous orange and blue tree frog.

It was also interesting though to walk through a local homestead, seeing how the local people live in this remote place.  They kept chickens and pigs, and grew rice, cassava, maize, avocadoes, beans, carambolas, lemons, cocoa and coffee - yes, I was told, they made their own coffee from the beans on their trees.  Amazingly they also had a tobacco tree, from where they dried the leaves and rolled their own cigars!  I guess they would be classed as poor, as they earn very little money, but they produce virtually everything they need - the only foodstuff they needed to buy being sugar and salt.

In the afternoon I went for a walk, following the only road out of the village as far as the next little community (which was as far as the road went).  Only people on foot, bicycle and horseback use the road, as there are no roads into the area on which to bring in cars.  Instead I was surrounded by howler monkeys and birds, such as this beautiful bare-throated tiger heron.

The guide's wife told me that this idyllic place is set to disappear underwater, as the proposed new canal will cause the level of the lake (and thus surrounding swamps such as Los Guatuzos) to rise by a metre.  I very much hope she is wrong.

land of lakes and volcanoes

The bells of the massive white Leon cathedral (the largest in Central America) rang out, mingling somehow with the little bells of ice-cream sellers in the central park plaza in front.  I was taking advantage of the recent introduction of free wifi in all such plazas in towns across the country - the ruling Sandanista party trying to make technology available to the masses.

The sky darkened suddenly.  Along with everyone else in the plaza I rushed towards home.  Lightning flashed around, but what with the drums of the school marching band and the bangs of fireworks going off I couldn't tell whether there was thunder.  Then big fat raindrops started to fall - just as I got to the front door.

The storm continued for three hours, until water was rushing down the streets in torrents.  The third day of rain in my three days here.  Badly needed rain for Leon where they get very little, but I rather wished it could have waited another few days until after my departure.

I took a risk on the unusual weather and booked myself on a trip to Telica Volcano, where it was apparently possible to see magma inside the crater.  Four of us hiked up the volcano with our guide, under a miraculously clear sky, but we still did not get to see any magma as the lack of wind meant that the volcanic gases were sitting in the crater blocking the view.  Still it was a lovely trip with nice views of other nearby volcanoes too.

A few days later I went to see another volcano, at Masaya.  Here I knew that no magma would be visible but again there were lovely views of the crater and the sulphurous smell of the gases.  We also went deep into a lava tube, and watched bats streaming out of a cave beside the volcano.  Nicaragua is referred to (by their tourist board, I think) as 'the land of lakes and volcanoes' and it is an accurate description although they shouldn't forget about the beautiful colonial cities of Leon and Granada.

I felt that Granada was somewhere I could seriously consider retiring when the time comes, with its stunning old colonial houses - not much to look at on the outside but with great character inside, a forest of wooden pillars surrounding wonderful courtyards, some with swimming pools and most with some of the living space (even the kitchens) effectively outdoors as they are located under the eaves but open to the central courtyard.  It is hot all year and has few mosquitoes so a semi-outdoor home would be perfect.  I had thought that Leon would appeal more with its socialist and intellectual character, rather than the more genteel, bourgeois Granada, but if I'm honest then Granada would be the easier place to live ... I can just imagine my collection of African masks hanging on the old adobe walls.

Spanish lessons and religion in Leon

The first of my three weeks' leave in Nicaragua was in the old colonial city - and former capital - of León. I'd arranged a week with a Spanish school, staying with a local family so as to get a better feel for the place as well as more opportunities to practice my Spanish. The lessons went reasonably well although the teacher was more keen to teach me grammar than to give me the conversation practice I wanted.  On the fourth day she was settling down to teach me how to conjugate the pluperfect subjunctive when I rebelled, and just refused to listen!  Perhaps it is an important tense in Spanish, but as I can´t yet communicate in simple terms what I did yesterday, I felt that this was just going too far!

Outside of the lessons, I spent a lot of time just wandering around the city.  León played a major role in the Sandinista revolution, and something about its characterisation as a place of left-wing revolutionary intellectuals appealed to me.  The Sandinista side of its history was certainly evident, from the murals (and graffiti) around the city to the Revolutionary War Museum.  What presented itself even more strongly however was the religious fervour of the place.  The city contains many beautiful churches, and its cathedral is the largest in Central America.  There always seemed to be church services going on and they were always full of people.

The end of my stay coincided with a local festival, the 'Chiquita Gritería'.  This commemorates the time when a local volcano was erupting and covering the city with ash, and a local priest decide to cry out to the Virgin Mary to make it stop, which miraculously (or coincidentally), it did.  There is a mass in the cathedral and a loud cry to Mary, followed by the whirling of some papier mache giant figures in the central square.  Then the townspeople, plus many peasants bussed in from the surrounding countryside for the occasion, tour the city collecting free sweets from houses and businesses who have decided to participate.  You can tell these because each has prepared a tableau in their front room with a statuette of the Virgin Mary with the blue Nicaraguan flag draped around her, and music will be blaring out from the property.



The photo here is one of the more impressive ones, which even includes an erupting volcano.  The people touring the city go up to each such house and ask through the open door/window, "Quien causa tanta alegría?" (who is causing such happiness?), to which the answer comes back, "La asunción de Maria!" and sweets are duly handed out.  Although I found the tableaux pretty tasteless, in some ways this seemed like a nice, social custom that got everyone out greeting their neighbours, but I did notice that some of the peasants looked suspiciously and sadly like this was the only time they would have the luxury of sweets, as they filled carrier bags with as many as they could get their hands on.  Despite the opulence on show in some of the churches, Nicaragua is still a very poor country.

a weekend on the coast

A long weekend on the Pacific coast to relax and hopefully catch some sun had to be postponed in June when I was asked to take on an additional assignment in Egypt, but finally I was on the boat crossing the water to this secluded little lodge in Chiriqui province, my work left behind for a few days.

The lodge (they call themselves a resort, but to me that term implies something much more luxurious) is simple, and quite rustic, but perfectly comfortable.  No air conditioning, wifi only if you ask for the office to be made available to you, and a reliance on solar power means that electricity-guzzling appliances such as hairdryers cannot be used.  The lodge has ten guest rooms in five well-spaced cottages, but for the first couple of days I was the only guest.  So I had all three beaches and all 67 hectares of forest to myself...

Except that I was sharing it with the resident wildlife - the iguanas, white-tailed deer, howler monkeys, vine snakes, hog-nosed vipers, hermit crabs, numerous butterflies, black hawk-eagles, a group of four extremely noisy house wrens, flocks of equally noisy red-lored parrots, and, unfortunately, rather a lot of mosquitoes.  Of course there is other wildlife too that I didn't manage to see - that apparently includes white-faced capuchin monkeys, anteaters, and boa constrictors, amongst others.

I spent a fair amount of time swimming in the sea, and more time swinging in hammocks reading my book, although the rain limited my time sunbathing.  I slept like a log, with the sound of the waves crashing onto a nearby beach sending me to sleep in a way that I wish the traffic noise at home did.  I also ate extremely well, as the owner previously ran several restaurants and bars in the US and could rustle up a mean stuffed courgette followed by pear poached in cream, rum and cinnamon.  Despite all the walking and swimming I suspect I have come home a pound or two heavier.  Certainly, if you can tolerate the mosquitoes, Panama does have some beautiful corners.

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 santitation 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?