the revenge of the dogs

I'm using some of this year's annual leave to give my Spanish a bit of a push forward, with three weeks at a Spanish school in Nicaragua.  I picked it on the basis of a website which seemed to suggest (to me and the other people currently staying here) that the premises were surrounded by nature - by birds and other creatures.  The reality is not quite as I imagined, however.  Whilst it is located in a reserve, so are all the buildings around us, including the lakeside bars with their loud music pumping out...

But still I am happy to be here.  It has its own kind of tranquillity, indeed I found myself sleeping better from the very first night.  A very important factor in this is the other students; whilst my Spanish teacher told me that it would really help me to improve my Spanish if I didn't speak English with the other students, their level is not enough to enable us to hold conversations in Spanish, and their travel stories are so interesting that we have spent many long hours conversing (in English).

Strange stories though.  One American guy - seemingly an alcoholic (he started on the beers by 8am and continued throughout the day despite the protestations of his teacher) and a sex addict (an average of two different women a day during his travels??), with a penchant for any available drugs - told us of his experience a couple of years ago with magic practitioners in Mexico City.  Apparently a woman there asked if he wanted to be a part of their magic circle, and although he felt scared as he knew it was dangerous he was also fascinated so said yes.  The woman (during sex, of course...) made some movement that somehow (he claims) passed a very powerful magical force into his body, which he told us he sometimes feels moving around his body, but which sucks his energy and passes it to her.  He is unable to remove this force.

Then a Dutch guy told us of his experience with a transgender lesbian who he had some kind of a relationship with - about the costumes they wore (or didn't wear) as they went out on the streets for Hallowe'en as (sex) slave and slave master...  He also recounted some of the beliefs she had, including those about universal forces controlling the planet, and how nothing is coincidental but all is controlled by these forces.

So, when the American suddenly departed on Friday, having decided that he wanted to find somewhere to eat dog meat (no, it's not legal nor culturally acceptable in Nicaragua), and later the same day the nice Canadian lady who had joined us Thursday (effectively taking his place in our cosy little set up) got badly bitten by a dog, I remembered the 'lack of coincidences' tale and could only assume that her bite was revenge for the dog meat eater - deflected from him to her by that mysterious magical force in his body!

Christmas (or not) in Panama

Forgive me if I have said all this before, but one of the things I really like about life as an expat is much-reduced pressure to conform to social norms.  It happens in the day-to-day sphere, where I don't bother to wear make-up (would not have been seen dead without it in London!) on the basis that most Panamanians would see me as just "a white lady" no matter what I was wearing and how made up my face was.  So what's the point in making an effort?

It is of even greater benefit when it comes to big days on the calendar, however - especially Christmas.  I've never been a fan of Christmas, and relish the freedom here to totally avoid tinsel, cards, turkey and brussels sprouts, etc.  Of course the locals do celebrate Christmas, with it being a Catholic country, but they are less insistent on knowing what I, as a foreigner, am doing, so it's much easier to do nothing at all than it was in the UK where that was seen as making some kind of statement.

However, this year the Panama City authorities have gone all out with the Christmas decorations, with the trees in every park lined and dripping with silver lights, and light sculptures of reindeer and Christmas trees and other random stuff placed between them.  It's impossible to avoid but I have to admit they have done a good job and the decorations are very pretty.

Not quite so good were the so-called "Carols by Candlelight" held on Saturday evening.  I've managed to avoid them all the other years I've lived here, but this Saturday I was just walking home and there they were, people gathered round an outdoor auditorium, ready to start.  So I sat down for the first song - which turned out to be the last, for me.  A bunch of seven-year-old schoolkids singing "Deck the Hall with Boughs of Holly" (in Spanish), slowly, tunelessly, and accompanied by two electric guitars... it was one of the most dire renditions I have ever heard, and I was grateful to be able to escape back to my totally un-Christmassy apartment.

a long weekend in the highlands of Panama

Another long weekend away, taking advantage of more Independence Day holidays, walking in some of the higher areas of Panama and hoping to see a few nice birds.

Well some of the scenery was beautiful, especially the cloud forest above, but sadly this area - Los Altos del Maria - is all privately owned (I entered with a tour group), marked out in lots, and those who buy the lots are slowly chopping down the forest to build their weekend homes.  A real crime.  & so pointless, as once the homes are built there will be no more cloud forest there, no more toucanets and sloths in the trees, and so not really much reason left to want to live there.

But for now it retains much of its beauty and much of its wildlife, even though the afternoon rain kept away the yellow-eared toucanets I had so wanted to see.  The vegetation is beautiful, the trees dripping with lichens and epiphytes and providing a home and a larder for creatures like these colourful caterpillars, which presumably will one day turn into beautiful butterflies or enormous moths.  A semi-transparent glass frog and a stunning coral snake were not so easy to photograph.

& the birds ... well I suspect too many bird photos would be boring for most of those who read this blog, so I shall content myself with one.  I've been dithering between the spectacled owl and the tody motmot - everyone likes owls, don't they?  But the tody motmot is such a cute little bird, found in all the countries of Central America but only in the high altitude parts and so pretty hard to see.  Here's the one that we eventually found, after a hard search, that then sat there patiently whilst we all took photos:

avoiding the noise

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.

am I allowed to admit that I don't much like Brazil?

A spare day ... not that I was all that happy that my delayed flight from Sao Luis to Rio de Janeiro caused me to miss the connection with my flight to Atlanta (and thus also the onward flight from there to Seattle), but it has at least given me a much-needed pause.  Some time for reflection.  If only also some time for sleep, but the airport hotel - one floor above the check-in desks - is rather too noisy for me.

My colleagues are so envious - there is always a clamour to do the assignments in Brazil - but I have to admit that I am not a big fan of the place.  At least not the urban parts of it.  You're not supposed to say that, are you?  Everyone loves Brazil.  But I find it dirty (graffiti EVERYWHERE) and dangerous.  During this assignment I managed to take a Sunday off and cross the bay from Sao Luis to Alcântara, and also a rainy half-day the following weekend for a meander around Olinda.  Both are old colonial towns, although Alcântara was abandoned by the rich Portuguese plantation owners in the second half of the nineteenth century; some of it has fallen into ruin and more is going that way if restoration isn't done soon.

It's a pretty little place, and atmospheric because of the ruins, but each time I tried to venture down one of the little side streets someone called out to me that I shouldn't, that it was dangerous.  Olinda attracts greater numbers of tourists, but has an edge to it that I didn't like, and when I got talking to a guide he admitted that it was not safe, that he'd seen tourists robbed there in the main streets. Indeed a colleague was mugged on assignment in the nearby city of Recife, and one evening when we got back to a local colleague's car from the Recife office, for my lift back to the hotel, we found the car had been broken into during the day, the battery disconnected to immobilise the alarm, and the spare wheel stolen.

This a picture of some of the old colonial streets of Sao Luis, taken while I was waiting for the boat to Alcântara.  Again, a really pretty place (although you can see the rubbish on the pavement and the graffiti on some of the walls), but I'd been warned in the office not to wander around there at quiet times of day.

Today I am sat in a windowless room in Rio de Janeiro airport, check-in for my flight isn't until 7pm, and there are buses from the airport into town.  But it's not just the 90 minutes each way that puts me off travelling, it's the thought of another day worrying about my money, passport, camera - whatever I carry in with me.  A porter at the airport told me that Rio is now far more dangerous than it was when I last visited in 2003.  It's a real shame.  An amazing country in so many ways.  But one which should be so much better,

other wildlife in the Pantanal and the Amazon

Some of the people with me on my holiday in Brazil were not birders, and even those of us who were there for the birds were also keen to see some of the other inhabitants of Mato Grosso state. The iconic jaguar was top of the wanted list for most of us, and we had a couple of days at Porto Jofre where they are most often seen (from a boat) as they come to the edge of one of the rivers to drink or hunt.  After many hours on the water, in fact when we were on our way back for lunch, we finally found our jaguar - a female, apparently with two large cubs in tow although we did not see the cubs.  She prowled through the vegetation alongside the river, occasionally coming right down to the water as in the picture above, giving us plenty of time to admire her and try to get a decent picture.

What you don't realise from the picture above, however, is that there must have been a dozen or so boats jostling for position on the water as we all followed her progress - many belching out fumes from their engines - and a small number going much closer than they should have, at one  point effectively blocking her from swimming across a small tributary as they all tried to get a better view for their occupants.  It detracted a little from the experience, for me at least, and I hope they can soon put in place some regulations to prevent these magnificent animals from being hassled.  They are certainly used to being watched by tourists whenever they come to the water's edge but I felt it had gone a little too far.  In the afternoon we came upon another load of people watching a jaguar cub swim across the river; we kept our distance so as not to disturb the animal, and were later told that it had spent a lot of time at the water's edge, clearly wanting to cross (the mother was already on the other side), before the boats eventually backed off a little to give some space.

Besides the jaguars I think our favourite mammal of the trip was the tamandua, a member of the anteater family with black and tan fur, that forages in the forest for termites.  This tamandua was aware that it was being watched (we were upwind so able to get quite close but eventually it heard the ten pairs of feet crunching on dead leaves and sticks) and so stood up on its back legs and opened its front legs wide - as if to embrace us - in an attempt to look big and frightening. Sadly no pictures good enough to share.

A giant anteater was also seen, briefly by torchlight, and this cute little nine-banded armadillo.

There were capybara everywhere, one even allowing a couple of us to approach within less than three metres, and caiman too although none of us tried to approach them quite so closely.  We saw one very nearly catch a monitor lizard that was right behind its tail - a good lesson in quite how quickly they can move when they sense prey.

We saw plenty of otters too, both giant river otters (always in family groups) and the solitary neotropical otters.  In the Pantanal we were surprised to come across a couple of tapir feeding in the forest, as these animals are not seen very often, especially whilst on foot.  Then later in the Amazon we saw one drinking at the water's edge, this one much better placed for us to take pictures.

There were other creatures too: an enormous tarantula, a sleeper snake, howler, spider and cappuchin monkeys, wild guinea pigs, giant cicadas that squawked when I touched them, and far too many ticks.  In the Amazon I was removing ten or so at the end of every day despite tucking my trousers into my socks and slapping on the insect repellent (which I'm thinking doesn't actually work against ticks?).  Most of us got bitten by ants, and around half the group got stung by bees...  But it was all well worth it to see such a fabulous array of birds and animals.

birding in the Pantanal and the Amazon

These hyacinth macaws were the birds I most wanted to see from all of those on the checklist for my holiday in Brazil.  I hadn't had time to do any research for this trip so was under the impression they would be difficult to find, but in fact they were quite common, and of course being big, colourful, noisy birds they were very easy to see.

I was also keen to see some of the manakins, which we also found although some species took quite a bit of searching.  Difficult to photograph with my little point-and-shoot camera as they were deep in the dark of the forest interior, but find a video on YouTube of band-tailed manakins lekking, also of red-headed manakins lekking, and you will understand why I so love these birds.  They are gorgeously-coloured little things, but what is really appealing is the way they display.  They shake their tails, they fluff up their feathers, they snap their wings open and closed, and they moonwalk along the branches.  Really amazing.

The Pantanal is a vast wetland area, and so is great for watching storks (including the jabiru) and herons; there were also sunbitterns all around the place, greater rheas, and red-legged seriemas.  Aside from the water birds, there were quite a few guans, curassows and chachalacas, surprisingly easy to see, and tinamous calling constantly (in the wooded areas) although rather more difficult to track down.  This bare-faced curassow was wandering around one of the lodges, having become habituated to people - I noticed one of its feet was damaged so maybe this was its best option.

During the two weeks we managed to see five species of owl, none of them new birds for me but I always love looking at owls.  I love the toucans and aracaris too, again no new species to add to my list but lots of pleasure from watching these beautiful birds.  In the Amazon I did add a new bird to my list that many birders never manage to see - a crested eagle.  We were at the top of the 50m high observation tower at Cristalino lodge, and the guide somehow managed to spot it perched on the top of a far away snag.  With his telescope it was very clear which bird it was, and I was thrilled to give it a tick, but if I'm honest I probably got more pleasure from watching the smaller, pretty birds such as this white-headed marsh-tyrant.

UNESCO World Heritage listed does not necessarily mean beautiful

With a need to change flights in Brasilia, I decided to add in a stopover so as to see this strange city.  Inaugurated in 1960, it was apparently built in 41 months following the decision of the Brazilian president of the time, Kubitscheck, to move the capital there.  The main buildings - that led to its UNESCO listing - were all designed by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, who was a big fan of concrete.  It seems he liked open space, too - especially open space covered in concrete.

I guess at the time it looked bold and futuristic, but now those 'iconic' 28-storey towers just look to me like concrete tower blocks, of the kind I would expect to see in some unfortunate housing estate in Birmingham.  'Brutalist' is the term I think we use for it these days.

I suppose the Metropolitan Cathedral still has something going for it, though I'm not sure about that bell-tower.  Again, I suppose it was futuristic in 1960, but now just looks a bit odd.

This is the Justice statue in front of the Supreme Federal Court:

Just too bare, too much concrete and not enough plants.

The city is certainly not designed for pedestrians, with even more space given over to roads than to the concrete plazas.  However I spent two days tramping its streets, to see as much as I could of this truly bizarre city.  I got to go inside some of the buildings, including a rather good hour-long tour of the National Congress Palace.  The Senate Plenary Hall (the parliament), inside the down-turned dome to the right of the first photo, was quite spectacular and its design way ahead of our ancient British parliament, as each member has a designated seat, all of which are connected up, with digital sign-in and electronic voting (buttons for yes, no and abstain).

The city does do stained glass rather well though - this in one wall of the Pantheon of the Fatherland and Freedom - quite beautiful:

I also trekked the two hours along one 'wing' of the city (which was planned in the shape of a bird or aeroplane) to the Temple of Goodwill, supposedly the most visited monument in Brasilia, but in reality for a pretty minority audience (you walk around a spiral of black granite that represents the difficult path so far in your life, and reaching a small bronze plaque in the middle of the temple, you are standing under the world's largest single crystal (apparently), from where the path spirals out again but this time in white, symbolisng re-emergence on a new path...).  Underneath is a well-appointed 'Egyptian room' (with copies of ancient Egyptian paintings on the walls, a bust of Nefertiti and so on), with no explanation given as to what this has to do with the temple above. I guess the kind of people who believe that crystals have special energy fields are also quite often into Egyptology?  My favourite aspect of this place was the pair of burrowing owls sitting on the grass outside!

The Sanctuary of Dom Bosco was rather nicer, nothing strange about the place but a lovely peaceful feeling from the blue light from another nice example of the use of stained glass:

Can't say that I'm too unhappy to be moving on from here though, flying tomorrow to Cuiaba to start my holiday in the Pantanal!

other aspects of the Darién

Whilst the main reason I went to the Darién was to see the harpy eagle, I also wanted to experience some of the other wildlife there.  & the show started even before we arrived, as this beauty (a female great curassow) popped out of the trees beside the road and wandered around for a little while allowing me to take some photos.

The camp itself was surrounded by forest and there were a number of great birds around the grounds. Parrots (red-lored and mealy amazons) flew around screeching the whole time, a woodpecker was nesting in a tree beside the dining area, and the hummingbird feeders were well used.  If I woke during the night I could always hear the yelping call of at least one mottled owl, and the guide managed to find one for me with his flashlight:






There were other interesting creatures around too, including this snake which I believe to be the highly venomous fer-de-lance:

There were monkeys (howler and geoffroy's tamarin) and sloths too, millions of butterflies, little tree frogs, giant toads, pretty grasshoppers - and far too many spiders for my liking.  It's difficult to limit the photos I post here as there was such a great variety of wildlife.  How often do you see a green butterfly?

What I hadn't expected to see so much of, however, was the human story that currently has the Darién as part of its route.  Migrants are working their way up from South America and through Central America into the US.  Based around the US policy of giving asylum to Cubans who arrive by land (but not those who come by sea), but now with as many Haitians and Africans from various nations using the route too.  It has hit the news recently as Nicaragua closed their borders to these migrants, meaning thousands of them stuck in Costa Rica, and now that Costa Rica is trying to limit the numbers the problem is hitting Panama.  A parallel with the way the Balkan states put up barriers to stop Syrians passing through on their way to Germany.

You don't see these migrants in Panama City unless you happen to be in the long-distance bus terminal when they come in from the Darién and wait for a bus to take them west to Costa Rica (or at least now to the camps on the border), but in the Darién there were hundreds.  These guys were waiting in the pouring rain to cross the Chucunaque River:

They will have made their way, somehow, through the almost impassable Darién Gap that divides Panama from Colombia - an area of rainforest-clad mountains dissected by numerous rivers, best known for its Colombian guerrillas and drug smugglers and the (mythical?) FBI agents trying to stop them.  I visited parts of this area, around the fringes, but the interior is pretty inaccessible.  Further on I saw them queuing to be processed by the border police, I saw them walking along the roadsides, queuing for food being handed out by a local Catholic church, and hanging around this camp waiting to move on to Panama City:

I wanted to know more about them, to hear their stories of how they got to Colombia (where I hear many have been robbed), how they got through the Darién, and what they were hoping for at the end of this hugely difficult journey.  Unfortunately, having a full (pre-organised) schedule, I didn't get the chance of more than a few smiles and waves, and it is difficult to get reliable information here on the matter.  Locals I asked told me they were all from the Congo, or from Somalia, or Haiti, or Bangladesh ... what is certain though is that their number does include Cubans, Haitians and Africans.

Panama's national bird

There are two birds I just had to see during my time living in Panama - the resplendant quetzal, which I saw earlier this year (and I just realised that I never wrote about that, this year is so busy that a lot of things are not getting recorded here), and the national bird of Panama, the harpy eagle.  & last week I got my chance to see a harpy eagle.

We (me, the guide from the camp, and a local guide who knew how to get us to the nest) set off at 4:30am, driving to the little port of Puerto Quimba to get seats on one of the motor launches taking passengers along the river and across the bay to the capital of the province, La Palma.  After a week of clouds and rain, it was a beautiful morning - and above the river were little blue herons, white ibises and even a roseate spoonbill flying in from their overnight roosts.

La Palma was a pretty place, with little wooden houses painted in bright colours tumbling down the hillside and extending on stilts over the water.  But we were soon into another vehicle, for another 45 minutes of travel further into this remote part of the country.

We arrived a a small village and I was faced with the next mode of transport - a horse!!  When they'd told me the day before that part of the journey would have to be done on horseback, I'd warned them that I have no idea how to ride a horse, but they said it wouldn't be a problem. But now I found out that this part of the trip was going to take at least three hours (in fact it took four) - and as we set off it became clear that this was not going to be easy at all.  At first they said my horse could lead, as it knew which way to go.  Not only was I not really comfortable with that, but it meant I was the one going first through all the cobwebs - of which there were many!  Twice I ended up with a large spider on me from the web, in one case on my face... not good news for someone who is scared of spiders.

However they soon decided that my horse was not going quickly enough so someone else went ahead and took the rope attached to my horse's bridle, so as to drag it along more quickly.  The path started to get steeper, and muddier.  & steeper, and muddier.  The horses were slipping and sliding in the gloopy mud, at times up to their knees in it, as I clung on for dear life.  There were tree roots in the path too, and rocks, and it was very tough going for the horses - but clearly we wouldn't have made it up on foot.  For large parts of the route the path also had an almost vertical drop on one side, and my heart was in my mouth every time I felt my horse slip.  Eventually we got to the highest part of the path - and then had to go down the other side of the mountain, which was equally steep, muddy and slippery.  The local guide told me to hold the back of the saddle (behind me) with one hand, to help prevent me from falling head first over the horse as we slipped and slid down the mountain.  I hadn't been told what to do should my horse decide to jump over a stream rather than wade through it - I managed not to fall off but the landing was painful.

But finally we got down, and arrived in a small community, and I relaxed at the thought of being able to get off the horse.  But no!  We were only passing through this community, and there was another hour to go to get to the harpy nest.

When we arrived near the nest site, they explained to me that the bird was no longer in the nest, but that they should be able to find it somewhere nearby, perched on a tree branch as it waited for the parents to come back every couple of days with food.  I didn't dare think about them not finding the bird ... but they did find it, and quite quickly.

What a magnificent bird it was!  Worth all the stress and pain of getting there!  One of the three largest eagles in the world (depends whether you measure by length, or weight), and incredibly strong (they can catch prey - mostly sloths or monkeys - equal to their own body weight), but above all with this amazing stare.  At one point those big black eyes appeared to be looking straight at me and it was not a comfortable feeling!

the oldest city in the Americas

Some of the ruins at Caral, a few hours north of Lima, date back to 3,000 BC, making this the second oldest civilisation in the world behind that of Mesopotamia.  Despite this, it is not one of the better-known sites of Peru.  Of course given its age it has suffered a lot of damage, but is still well worth a trip, with at least a dozen different pyramidal structures remaining as well as a couple of sunken circular structures rather like amphitheatres.  You are not allowed to clamber about on the ruins but just following the paths takes over an hour and there is the benefit of few other tourists.  It is also nice to get out of the cold and fog of Lima and into the sunshine...

I had nearly given up on a visit there, due to the price of the tours - the one offered by my hotel, for example, was US$350.  But at the last minute, searching again through the links thrown out by Google and the reports on Trip Advisor, I found a link to a Peruvian government website offering weekend one day tours for an all-in price (transport from and back to Lima, lunch, site entrance and guide) of S/100 - roughly US$30.  Yes it was a little more hassle than a regular tour as once I had filled in the forms I was told to go to a branch of the bank where the government has an account, pay the fee into the account, and then email the receipt number to the government rep.  But it worked, and the tour was excellent value.  For anyone reading this who wants to go, the website is http://www.zonacaral.gob.pe/viajes-educativos/

drinking frog juice

Many years ago I posted on my old blog louiseinsenegal about a visit to the Akodessewa fetish market in Lome.  Whilst gruesome, it was also quite fascinating to see all the animals and animal heads on display - mostly intended for medicinal use or as 'charms' to protect the purchaser or their property from some kind of evil.

So it was interesting last weekend to go somewhere fairly similar in a totally different part of the world - the witches' market in Lima, Peru.  Surprisingly few Peruvians even know it is there, but within the enormous Gamarra market is this section of stalls selling animals and animal heads, mostly intended for medicinal use or as 'charms' to protect the purchaser or their property from some kind of evil.  & there appears to be no link to the Afro-Peruvians, this is a market for the indigenous Peruvians.

Of course the particular animals on sale differ in some respects.  No cat or dog heads in the Lima market, and no dried chameleons.  Instead there are caiman and deer heads, and dried bloated toads.  But in the two I saw some related species - different kinds of monkey heads, and dried bats.  One big difference was the snakes.  In Togo, snakes are associated with some powerful voodoo spirits, so would never be deliberately killed, whilst the market in Lima was full of them: portions of snake skin; whole dried snakes; snake heads; and the soft, smooth bodies of freshly dead snakes.  This beautiful boa was in the process of being cut open with these scissors, so the the insides could be removed and discarded to enable the skin to be sold.

No-one seemed at all disturbed by my touching the bits of animals, or asking questions about their use, or even by my taking photos, even though it is illegal to sell, transport or profit from wildlife in Peru.  Indeed one man, who tried unsuccessfully to sell me a harpy eagle talon and a piece of snake skin, then gave me his business card, telling me he could ship such things to anywhere I wanted in the world, as he pays off a man working in the airport in Lima!


I had heard about the frog juice, or frog shakes, which are on sale here, as a traditional Andean cure for anaemia and respiratory diseases.  I soon spotted the fish tanks, cages and bowls with the frogs in - some of them apparently endangered Titicaca water frogs.  So I didn't want to buy a drink, to risk being responsible for the death of an endangered species.  But plenty of the locals were buying them.  I watched the vendor pick a frog out of the tank, whack its head against the counter-top to kill it, and in one rapid movement to skin it.  It then went into a pan of simmering liquid for a minute or two before being poured whole into the blender along with various powders and liquids, a spoonful of honey, and two small birds eggs - whole ones still in their shells.  The thick greenish-brown drink was then passed through a sieve before being served to customers.  As each customer got a whole jugful I got my chance to try it, offering a woman a very small sum of money for just one glassful of her purchase.  It tasted kind of earthy, but perfectly okay, and had no ill-effects on my digestive system.

Panama's second city

A parade was due to take place on Sunday in Colón, Panama's second city.  A parade to celebrate the African heritage of the people of that region.  I was interested in going but had no further details of the day.  I then made the mistake of asking a colleague.  Well, she is from Colón so I thought she might know.

She came back to me with a rough idea of the route and the information that it was to take place in the afternoon.  So, Colón being a very dangerous place, where one wouldn't want to hang around unnecessarily, I changed my plan of going there late morning and aimed to arrive in the early afternoon.  Second mistake - I asked at the information desk in the bus station how long it takes to get from Panama City to Colón.  An hour, she said.

I got a bus leaving Panama City at 12:50.  It arrived in Colón at 15:00 - not bad traffic, or anything, it just takes that long apparently.  Not that it mattered to be honest as I discovered that the parade was at lunchtime and had ended at 13:30.  Oh well.

I didn't really mind as I had long wanted to visit Colón.  When I first arrived here, the security rep at work told me it was a place I should never go because it is so dangerous - little did he know that this was like a red rag to a bull, and whilst I resisted the trip for three years, I always knew I'd find an excuse to go there one day.  So quickly forgetting about the parade, I wandered the streets of oh-so-dangerous Colón.  & I must say it was the most threatening-feeling place I have ever been.

Everything was dilapidated, broken down, dirty, and unkempt.  Apparently due to neglect, drug trafficking, and gangs - and the attitude of the people who live there, according to another colleague.  What really struck me was the appalling amount of rubbish around the place:

This was the inside of a church:

& this the view of one of many half-destroyed buildings:

I love places like this - they have so much atmosphere - and I was so glad I had finally got to see the place.  Although I must say I was very careful where and when I got my camera out.  Several times I saw a convoy of police driving around, some eight motorbikes, I think, each with two heavily armed officers on board.  They must have wondered what this middle-aged blonde woman, in an African outfit, was doing wandering around the streets!!  I didn't at any point feel any hostility from anyone there, but I wasn't going to hang around to talk to anyone either.

It means that within the space of just four days I saw what to me are the three different sides of Panama's human environment: the glass and steel skyscrapers of parts of the capital (where I live - and they're not as glamorous inside as they appear from the street); the traditional interior village where old traditions and introduced Catholicism mix; and the poverty and dirt of the neglected corner where the drugs slip through the country.  An interesting place, for sure!

dirty devils in Los Santos village

There are fairs and festivals around Panama all the time.  Looking in the newspaper, this week sees the Festival of the Mango in Rio Hato, the Flower Fair in Limon, the Fair of the Dairy Cattle in Monagrillo and the VI San Francisco of the Mountain Festival in Veraguas.  Whilst these are much more representative of the 'real Panama' than the shopping and fast food culture of the capital, I'm not really that tempted to spend hours on a bus to see a mango festival.

However there is a period of two weeks when the village of Los Santos holds various parades and dances involving quite impressive costumes, and I decided it might be worth travelling to check it out.  Mostly the parades start in the late afternoon, coinciding with the departure of the last bus back to Panama City, but on the Thursday of Corpus Christi they are around the middle of the day, following the Corpus Christi mass in the village church.  Well, the festivities actually start at 3am, with "buscando el torito".  This translates as 'looking for the little bull', which sounds for all the world to me like a game that married couples should play in the privacy of their bedroom, and with no accommodation in Los Santos in any case, I decided to give that a miss.  But I was up at 5:30 to get to the bus terminal for a bus that eventually got me to within walking distance of Los Santos by 11am.  & when I got to the village square, this is what I saw:

The streets were covered with leaves, rice husks and coloured little stones making colourful 'carpets' all around the main square.


This was where the parades were to take place, although when I arrived a set of speakers outside the church were still blasting out the service, so I had time to visit the little museum, and get myself a coffee.  There appeared to be only four other tourists in the place, but hundreds of locals, some in the red-and-black striped devil costume, holding their masks or hanging them on tree branches until the time was ready to start.

Then finally the procession came out of the church, firstly the priests and their assistants, but behind them were the devils.  The diablicos sucios (dirty devils) that the festival is known for, but also white devils, an angel, some transvestites, and various other costumes which I couldn't identify.  Although a little concerned by the number of macaw feathers in the masks, I was impressed.  Here are a few of them:

It was over pretty quickly, and by 13:15 I was queuing for a small local bus back to the long-distance bus terminal - finally getting home at 20:15.  So a very long day of travel - and no-one to explain to me what all the different costumes represented - but nevertheless a great day out.  I need to get out of the city more often!

which is the real Panama?

I continued my quest to find some 'normal' friends here in Panama, but have finally concluded that (amongst the expat community at least) there aren't any here.  That this is a kind of 'wild west' place that people come to when a normal, regular life is not exciting enough for them.  So I had best just enjoy the entertainment that they offer.  Although not the Ku Klux Klan supporter, nor the Trump supporter who recently shared a video suggesting that Prince died as a blood sacrifice of the illuminati ... really, I am not making any of this up.

I would certainly avoid the very nasty end of the spectrum of people who make themselves a new life here.  The paedophiles of whom I have been told there are plenty, but in Panama (at least in the poorer parts of the country) they can buy off the parents of the children they abuse, so even when their embassies know they are here, and know their history, they can do nothing as no-one is reporting any offence.  There are also expats who try to defraud other expats - largely over property; I understand that quite a few expats have paid over relatively large sums to buy properties off-plan, only to find later that the so-called developer never had proper title to the land so the development never had a chance.  Apparently the courts are very unwilling to take up 'expat-on-expat' crimes (probably because neither side will offer them a bribe - the legal system is very corrupt here), so the perpetrators tend to get away with it.

I was offered a financial product with a 16% return by an expat.  No way I would have gone for it, but I was curious as to what was going on so asked him how it was possible to pay such a high return (plus his commission for selling the investment), and he replied that they lend the money on at 30%.  so basically loan-sharking.  I must have hidden my cynicism quite well as he then offered me 1% if I could sell such an investment to any expats.  Don't call me...

I did see in the local newspaper that the Superintendent of Securities is investigating one financial group here, who are apparently offering a product which gives a 70% profit in 30 seconds.  As I said, a real wild west kind of place!

On the larger scale however, the Panama Papers, there is some impact on regular lives - mine at least.  The money I've saved since I've been in this job - effectively my pension - is mostly invested through a UK financial platform (and declared on my tax return!).  Two weeks ago I tried to pay in some more funds, and was told they would not accept any more money from me because of my residency in Panama, now considered a high risk jurisdiction.  I tried to explain that they had this the wrong way round, that the risk was in UK residents trying to invest offshore, not in non-residents trying to invest in the UK, but they weren't having any of it and I've had to go elsewhere.  Meaning another appointment at the British Embassy to get another certified copy of my passport and rental contract to prove my identity and address to a new institution.  All of which takes time, costs money, and is intensely frustrating.

There is now more than just the Panama Papers, however.  I'm not sure how much of this will have reached the international news, but the US just ten days ago named two Lebanese-Panamanian brothers as drug kingpins, and put them and their 68 companies on the Clinton List. These companies include a bank, a luxury shopping mall in Panama City, a Sheraton hotel, a chain of department stores, a chain of electronics stores, and the largest chain of duty free stores in Latin America.  The bank had to be taken over rapidly by the Panamanian banking authorities (although the US have now removed the bank from the list, having discovered that they were the ones to appoint the brothers when they locked up the previous owners...), the shopping mall is being wound up, and it seems that the other businesses will all have to close too, costing thousands of Panamanian jobs.  The American Embassy sent out notifications to all US citizens living in Panama that they are forbidden to shop in any of these places, on pain of a fine of over $1 million (!), and the companies are unable to accept US credit cards.  I didn't understand (apart from the bank and the duty free shops) how this would have much of an effect on them, but I went into one of the department stores yesterday morning just to see what was going on, and they told me they can no longer accept any credit cards, only cash, and I read that they are preparing fire sales of their stock prior to closure.  One of the brothers was on the board of Panama City's international airport, resulting in a $630 million bond sale  to fund its expansion having to be cancelled last week as Citibank pulled out.  The bond sale later went ahead after the brother was removed from the board, but then only for $575 million and they had to offer a higher interest rate.  So from being a real financial success story, Panama's fortunes seemed to have diminished almost overnight.

People are getting jittery too.  There was a bit of a panic last weekend when none of the ATMs were dispensing cash for a while, and Friday evening a newspaper article from Curaçao went viral here reporting that two of the largest Panamanian banks (including mine) had lost their US correspondent banks (meaning the end for them, given that Panama uses the US$) ... turned out that the story was a load of rubbish, but still we are all waiting to see what will be next.

So is the classic shot of the city above the real Panama (and is it sustainable)?  Or is that just one of these

hiding, some four streets away, the real Panama that looks like this?