saying goodbye to Panama

Oh my goodness.  February and March just flew by, and now my Panama contract is over.  I tried to fit in as much as possible - gave up on some of the islands but managed some goodbyes to friends, an evening at Danilo's Jazz Club, a couple of days' birding in Soberania National Park (adding streak-chested antpitta and pheasant cuckoo to my life list) and a five-day birding trip to the west of Panama, around Chiriqui, La Fortuna and Boqueron.  All this plus listing and packing up everything I own ready to be shipped to West Africa for my second stint in Senegal.

This from my Chiriqui trip isn't the best ever photo of a resplendent quetzal, but it still shows the beauty of this amazing bird.  Whilst not restricted to Panama, it is nevertheless one of the country's best-known birds and so it seemed appropriate to post a picture.  I saw five of them during the few days spent around Chiriqui.  There were some other good birds too, including the yellow-eared toucanet that I have searched for unsuccessfully on two other trips; this time they appeared, frustratingly in the clouds that covered La Fortuna that day and so just as colourless silhouettes calling from the trees, until the cloud briefly lifted and I got to see their colours.  Bare-shanked screech owl, fiery-billed aracari and wrenthrush were some other highlights of the trip.

The birdlife of Panama really is quite spectacular, and I wish I'd somehow found more time to get out there and enjoy it.

The other part of the natural environment that I loved were the sloths.  The last one I saw, although wild, was hardly in a natural environment, as it had come into the open-air kitchenette behind the ticket office into the tiny La Culebra park out on The Causeway.  The guards told me it sometimes comes in to drink water, and does not seem to be disturbed by their presence.  This time it was lying on top of their lockers, and seemed curious about me when I approached.  Of course I took it too far and briefly stroked the fur on its extended leg (how could I resist the chance to touch a sloth?); it hissed at me but didn't seem seriously bothered.

I didn't really get that much time to reflect on my five years in the Americas, my time being rather taken over by all the practicalities such as closing my internet and bank accounts, plus the listing and packing that I mention above.  Overall my feeling was that I would have liked another year, that the country has much more to offer than I was able to experience in my time there.  But looking back over my final year in the country, I actually spent only 13 weeks in Panama, with the rest in 16 other countries.  So I suppose I shouldn't be too harsh on myself for 'failing' to really get to know the place.

I suppose this should be my last post on louiseinpanama ... so I shall see you back on louiseinsenegal !

a busy month

Since my Emberá day trip I have been pretty busy, with work assignments in Nicaragua and Mali, and I'm writing this in my hotel room in Bolivia, ready to start the next assignment here tomorrow.  Three continents in six weeks (I also attended a big meeting in the UK) - they are still working me hard!

Mali was an interesting trip, coming just a couple of days after I had been offered, and accepted, another contract back in West Africa.  I'll be starting back there in early April, and this quick trip to Mali was a great reminder of what I will be going back to.

Firstly there is the rather less comfortable travel than I've become used to over here.  The airport in Bamako, for example, has just four international departure gates, no restaurant or cafe inside the terminal (in fact not even a place to buy a simple coffee), a departures board that was showing only flights that had already departed earlier in the day (so I wandered between gates, trying to guess which one my flight would leave from), and I didn't even bother to check whether there was wifi.  Once on the plane there was the confusion about who sits where - I had forgotten this aspect of West Africa - as people either willfully sit wherever they want (until challenged) or, perhaps, can't read what is on their boarding pass.  It was sufficient to delay take-off for nearly an hour.

Then there's the security aspect, which is now a lot worse than it was when I left back in 2013.  Trying to board our flight in Bamako, every passenger had to present laptops and mobile phones to a row of security staff who carefully swiped certain parts to check for explosives.  In our office the security briefing warned me against visiting any restaurants or bars that are popular with expats as they are a potential terrorist target.  I was safe to eat in the hotel, but the hotel was like Fort Knox and consequently rather lacking in character.  In the countries where I will be working, we have Al Qaida and related offshoots in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, Boko Haram in Nigeria and the north of Cameroon, and various rebel groups in the Central African Republic.  It will not be safe for me to wander around on buses before and after assignments in the way I used to.

But on the good side, on the plane I watched a film called Clouds over Conakry which captured so well the different (competing) aspects of the culture - the modern young women wanting to enjoy nights on the town, the Muslim preachers warning about the young misbehaving, the still strong power of the ancestral fetish and spirits - and corruption at high levels.  Really an excellent film.  & of course there is the music!!  The first African music I listened to on my short trip was on the Air France playlist - a band called Fofoulah, who I had never heard of before.  There was no information on them, and I was puzzling over the Senegal-style drums and some of the lyrics seeming to be in Wolof, yet with a dubby feel that I guessed might be more Nigerian.  Ha!  It turns out they are a London band, but with Senegalese members on drums and vocals.  Then in the car, travelling out to visit a field office, I heard Rokia Kone (new to me), a superb Burkinabe singer whose name the driver didn't know, and then some classic Salif Keita from the past.  It whetted my appetite for the cultural side!

I realise as I write this that I will have been in my three favourite countries (Mali, Nicaragua and Bolivia) all within the space of one month.  Wow!  OK so I feel as though I've spent much of that month in aeroplanes and airports, and I did miss the entire carnival weekend on the Mali trip, but still, how lucky am I?

the Emberá day tour

Still trying to fill every moment of my spare time, as the clock ticks down on my contract here in Panama, I managed to grab a last-minute space on a day trip to an Emberá village.

The Emberá are one of seven indigenous tribes in Panama, all largely looked down upon and discriminated against by those of Spanish/mixed descent - considered 'primitive' and uneducated.  It's probably true that most of them are uneducated, at least in the subjects covered by the national curriculum, although they all speak at least two languages (Spanish as well as their indigenous language) and have an in-depth knowledge of the rainforest where they live - including which plants to use to heal infertility, diarrhoea, diabetes, etc.  They do go to school, but many leave at 12, as the government has not provided them with schools of higher grades.  & primitive?  Well, their villages are not accessible by road, but only by boat, the area where they live has no electricity and negligible phone coverage (and so no internet), so their lifestyles are certainly different from those of the 'civilised' world.

The Emberá traditionally live off what they can gather, hunt or fish, with a few other products purchased in occasional trips into town, financed by the sale of their own produce.  Previously they all lived in the Darién, both on the Panamanian and Colombian sides, but with a trip to town taking them several days, some migrated, around fifty or sixty years ago to what is now the Chagres National Park - much closer to Panama City and thus more accessible.  When the area was declared a National Park they were allowed to remain, but were forbidden from hunting, and of course from chopping down any forest in order to plant crops.  They have now introduced chickens to their small villages, and perhaps the odd bit of illicit hunting still takes place (one man told me they still eat iguanas during festivals), but the restrictions of the National Park make it harder for them to survive.  So some of the villages have opened themselves up to tourism, as a useful source of revenue.

What the tourists see is not that different from the day-to-day reality, the only difference being that they wear their jewellery, and sometimes a crown of flowers, on days when tourists are coming (none will come unexpectedly given that they have to take a dug-out canoe 45 minutes along the river to collect you from the nearest road access), and in the afternoon they do a quick traditional dance display.

This man in the photo, for example, had put on his jewellery for our visit, but the body coloration and the loin cloth are his normal 'attire'. The coloration is from a berry of the genip tree, an extract of which is painted onto the body and allowed to dry, leaving its mark for some two weeks.  It protects from the sun and apparently repels mosquitoes as well as being decorative.  I think everyone I saw in the village had some degree of body coloration (known by some as jagua tattoos), and they will happily apply it to visiting tourists.  Although mine got splashed in the boat coming back, so I will have a nice blue splodge on my arm for the next two weeks...

This woman working in her kitchen is not dressed up for the tourists (but is still photogenic!)

whilst the woman on the right has her best jewellery on for the visitors.

Children also join in the fun:

The visitor fee allows you to roam around, ask questions if your Spanish is good enough, and take as many photos as you like.  Revenue is split between the families in the village.  It does feel touristy, but is still a very interesting visit and the money paid enables the Emberá to continue their traditional lifestyle.  I heard that those who try to move to the town and cities can only get basic work, at the minimum wage, and so can only afford to live in the poorest areas where the drugs, gangs and violence is endemic.  So most choose to go back to their peaceful, rural, lifestyle with their family and community.  'Primitive' or not.

the tranquility of Mompox

After Peru I was able to take a few more days off, in compensation for many weekends spent travelling and working away from home, and decided to go to Mompox in Colombia.  Founded in 1540 beside the River Magdalena, it became a major Spanish colonial trading post, but then when more modern boats required a deeper berth, and trade moved to a different branch of the river, Mompox went to sleep.

The streets and buildings are still as they were hundreds of years ago, perfectly preserved (it is a UNESCO World Heritage site) but now there is very little activity.  The few tourists who pass through mostly spend just one or two days there, despite its remoteness and difficult access.  But for lack of time to do the necessary research, I had booked myself in for six days... that turned out to be six days well spent.  Not that I did very much, but it is an easy place to wander around slowly, to sit in a rocking chair in a cafe beside the river and sip a coffee, to watch the iguanas, kingfishers and woodpeckers in the trees beside the river...

I also wandered along the river out of town, just to enjoy being out in the countryside, although of course there turned out to be more attractive birds there.

Not to mention that the people were so friendly!  Many of the older people stopped to chat - to ask where I was from and what I thought of their town, to admire my eyes (it seemed as though no-one with green eyes had ever before visited the place), and in one case to ask me to join a family reunion celebration.  Even when I declined the latter invitation they ensured that I hung around long enough to drink a glass of Scotch with them.

The people running the hostel I stayed at treated me like family, inviting me to share their food (not that I'm a big fan of chicken feet soup), going on a boat trip with me along the river, and even now, two weeks after my return, sending me nice messages on facebook.

There were a few things to do in town.  A rather nice cemetery, full of cats.  A small but interesting museum.  & a botanical garden - totally overgrown as the caretaker has some long-term illness and clearly no-one is covering his responsibilities in his absence, but a trio of rather cross-looking red-mantled howler monkeys were around as well as a large number of mosquitoes.

But overall I didn't do very much at all while I was there.  A rare time of relaxation!  Something I know I don't do enough of these days as I am usually rushing around either working or trying to fill every moment of my spare time.

the end of the Peru holiday

 My short holiday in Peru comes to an end today, and it has been fun, although sitting here in multiple layers of clothing in Cusco and still freezing cold, I am certainly looking forward to getting back to the warmth of Panama!

I did go back over some old ground on this trip: a second boat trip around the Ballestas Islands; and second views of the Inca ruins at Sacsayhuaman and Pisac.  I saw more trepanned and elongated skulls, and more Inca mummies.  But I also saw a number of new places.  Arequipa is a great city (as is Cusco despite being too cold - and too touristy), the Colca Canyon is impressive, the floating islands tour on Lake Titicaca is a massive tourist shopping trap - to be avoided - and the Inca ruins at Ollantaytambo are not to be missed.

My favourite sites of this trip though were rather unexpected.

This is the active Sabancaya volcano, seen from the 4,910m pass at Patapampa, on our way to the Colca Canyon.  It was cold, of course, but the early morning sun was glistening off the snow on the rocky ground, and then with the bonus of this volcano ... absolutely stunning.

Also stunning were the salt pans, or Salinas, at Maras.

Extremely salty water from a spring has been channeled into a series of hundreds of ponds - each owned by a local family - from which (once the channel is temporarily blocked) the water is allowed to evaporate and the remaining salt is collected and sold.  The process takes only a few weeks.  It was one of those rare places that made me go "Wow!" - out loud - when the bus turned the corner and the salt pans came into view.

Finally, there were two small village churches - at Chincheros and Andahuaylillas - with amazing painted ceilings and walls, although unfortunately no photos allowed in either place.

Huacachina - is this what tourism means?

Huacachina is a small oasis in the southern sand desert of Peru, apparently a once tranquil place where one could bathe in the lagoon and wander amongst the peaceful sand dunes.  But then it began to develop into a more active tourist destination, with backpackers coming in to go sand-boarding down the dunes, zooming around in noisy dune buggies, peddling around the lagoon in garish plastic boats, and partying all night on cheap pisco sours.

I spent a night there as it is on the route going south down the Peruvian coast, and it sounded nice despite the dune buggies.  I did find the odd nice corner such as this mini-lagoon a dune away from the main one:

There were moments of tranquility (between passing dune buggies).  It truly was a beautiful setting.

However, the presence of so many temporary visitors leads to much more consumption locally.  Not just in whatever fuels those awful buggies, but in the acres of plastic bottles and bags that people seem unable to do without these days.  When I travel I carry a water bottle with me, fill up from the tap, and add a chlorine tablet - and sometimes a neutralising tablet to get rid of the chlorine taste, but not always.  As far as I know these do no direct harm to the environment, although there is of course some environmental impact in their manufacture and packaging.  But - despite this also being cheaper than buying bottled water - no-one else seems to do this.  With the result that the above mini-lagoon looks like this if you walk a little further down:

(with dune buggy on the sand dune behind, grrr!).  & the yellow-crowned night heron I was so pleased to see was surrounded by plastic waste:

I used to have hope that we could sort out our environmental problems.  I started giving to Greenpeace some 35 years ago and they are still the main beneficiary of my will.  I am mostly vegetarian (100% vegetarian at home, and mostly so when I travel though will eat meat to avoid inconveniencing people), for environmental reasons as I do like meat, I always use public transport (have never owned a car), and I try not to consume more than I need to - although I do recognise the negative impact of all my flights around the world, of course.  I will continue all this for the rest of my life, as I would feel selfish and irresponsible to live any other way.  But sadly I no longer feel sure that it is worth the effort.  The world's population keeps on increasing, we keep on consuming more and more, and finding more stupid ways of using up finite resources whilst churning pollution into the environment (bitcoin??  using more energy to 'mine' the coins than most countries use in a year - so that people can use them to evade taxes and other obligations or to gamble on their value?).  I no longer feel much hope, and sometimes even wish that some deadly new disease could sweep the planet and wipe out half the population.  As I say, I will continue to try to keep my own contribution to the damage low, but knowing at the same time that there is probably no point.

Peru - and thinking about Senegal

Straight after my assignment in South Sudan I had another in Peru - so with two weeks' leave still to use up by the end of the year I thought the easiest option would be to stay on in Peru, and visit a few places down in the south of the country where I haven't yet been.  But life is never that simple.  My new boss - still learning the trade, I guess - made a mistake with her calendar as a result of which a meeting had to be scheduled - in the UK - for mid-December.  Straight after my Peru assignment.  So instead of travelling around Peru I was in the bitter cold and snow of the UK, reminding me once again of the need to put off my return 'home' for as long as I possibly can.

By the time all this happened it was too late for me to think of some alternative holiday (somewhere I could have gone directly from the UK, perhaps?), so I used up my remaining air miles to fly back to Peru once the UK meeting was over.  I had an afternoon in Lima to start with, so treated myself to a meal at Maido, currently ranked as the eighth best restaurant in the world.  I didn't go for what the restaurant is famous for, however - the 13 course tasting menu at $130, or even more if you have the recommended drinks with each course - but just one of the cheaper main dishes from their a la carte menu.  A kind of seafood risotto with a seafood omelette draped over it, accompanied by a glass of 'vinmuth' (wine steeped overnight in herbs).  It was nice but did not make me feel like I was in a world class restaurant.  But I'd really gone there for the experience: arriving rather before 7pm in order to get the one slot that cannot be reserved in advance; having all the staff call out 'Maido!' (Japanese for welcome) as you walk in; and watching the guy next to me go through the first few courses of the tasting menu.

I have no idea what he ate as the food was beautiful but unrecognisable (little colourful blobs on equally colourful bases), although I overheard bits of the extremely long descriptions of his first two courses, especially the instruction that the second course be consumed in one mouthful as it was designed to explode in the mouth...  Dining at Maido was an enjoyable experience but also a valuable lesson, as I left 30% of my one dish - not because of any issues with its quality, but because I was already full.  I realised that my decision on where to retire will not need to take any account of the availability of top quality dining opportunities as those are wasted on someone with as small an appetite as mine.  As long as I can buy good quality (preferably cheap) fruit and vegetables I shall be happy food-wise!

I've been thinking a bit about retirement recently, as my contract in Panama comes to an end on 3 April.  Luckily I do have an option within my current organisation, as my old position in Senegal has become vacant and I would be eligible for a second posting there.  I was disappointed that the East Africa position was made available for locals only (ie for Kenyans, as the job is based in Kenya), but then intrigued and confused about the possibility of returning to Senegal, taking a weekend of deep thinking before deciding to send in my application.

Those of you who know me may be surprised that I didn't jump at the opportunity to apply to return to Senegal, which I loved so much.  In part it is through fear that it won't be the same second time around.  I won't get to live again in that beautiful apartment, my friends have all departed, the management team in the office has changed...  Also, just the fact that I've already been there.  You've seen how busy I've been during my time here in Latin America, squeezing in trips to every corner of the continent in any spare moment - but I've already seen all those corners of West Africa.  In the end, however, it was this factor that encouraged me to apply.  Whilst I've loved every minute of all the travelling I've done here, it does take its toll.  I never have time to rest, I never have time to build a social life, I never have time to listen to music or read a book - and I realise that I need to re-learn to do those things.  The main alternative I had in mind to applying for that post is early retirement, which I could afford to do if I chose to live somewhere cheap like Nicaragua.  But I was a little scared of this option - what would I DO all day??  An hour a day working to regain my fitness, perhaps, another hour reading a book, maybe a third hour online, reading the newspapers and commenting on friends' facebook posts ... but then what?  So I'm hoping I am successful in my application for the Senegal post.  An opportunity to return to a place that I loved (the local music and culture will still be there even if the apartment isn't), where the work feels very worthwhile - and where I have more time to myself, to learn to relax again in preparation for the future.

at the airport

Juba airport is the most strange place.  Surrounded by portakabins, which are the offices of all the airlines.  The places where you have to go to turn an e-ticket into a boarding pass and to check in your luggage.  More portakabins for some of the officials' offices, and then the departure area consists of tent roofs held up on top of scaffolding poles, strips of rotted hardboard perched on cement blocks on the ground over the bare earth below ... no photographs allowed of course, but it's always possible to take one at a strange angle with your camera hidden in your bag ...

But I jump ahead of myself.

My airport journey started in the Bannastars portakabin (between the Kush Air and the Dream Air portakabins) where I checked in for my flight.  I showed my ticket, I showed my passport - the visa, plus the Registration Stamp on the back page - and I showed my government Travel Authorisation allowing me to go to Yei, and I collected my boarding pass.  My suitcase was weighed and tagged on a portable weighing machine outside.  Then I waited.  & waited some more, standing around trying to catch shade from the already hot sun (at 8am) near the suitcases.

Finally they tell us to go and check in at the departure gate (the tented area above).  But on the way there, foreigners are pulled aside and told to go to another portakabin for another check of our documents.  My turn comes and the man tells me "you need a stamp".  "Where do I get that?"  He motions to his left (where there is a wall) and tells me I get it from the man in the office.  So I leave his 'office' and wander about looking for a different man in a different office .. somehow find him and he eventually gets off the phone then checks my documents.  Obviously satisfied, he affixes a post-it to my passport, writing on it, "To Yei: Approved" and he signs it.  I go back to the first man in an office who stamps the post-it.

Now to the tented check-in area.  People are checking in for a multitude of flights, all on the small airlines that are making money out of the South Sudan tragedy - going to Yei, to Nimule, to Torit, to Pibor - and one international flight to Nairobi.  I stay as close as is decent to the man in front, to prevent anyone from queue-jumping.

But then the man who gave me my boarding pass in the Bannastars office pulls six of us (all foreigners) aside and says we have to go to CID.  We follow him out of the departures area and around the car park and into another set of portakabins.  In an office there I am asked for my travel authorisation, which I produce.  The guy who took us there gets a ticking off - "They have their documents!  Why did you bring them here?"

Now back to the original office where the whole morning started.  We wait.  The departure time of my flight comes and goes.  There is no information, but I realise there is no power in the office, as the fan sits motionless and the sweat drips down all our faces.

Eventually we are called outside to watch the loading of our luggage into the back of a van, and then we walk back to departures.  At one stage a man inspects my passport and takes the post-it note.  I ask if I can't keep it as a souvenir but am told they need to file it with their records.  I cannot imagine the filing system for post-its ... already mine was curling at the edges in the heat.

Through the departures area and we got on a bus, and then finally onto the plane.  I reflect again on what an amazing life I have (and how lucky that none of the people who checked it spotted that the registration stamp in my passport by the Directorate of Nationality, Passports & Immigration describes me as being of US nationality).  Finally, here's a sneaky photo I took (camera inside my bag which was on the ground) of the Ethiopian Airlines check-in desk at the international departures area...

working in South Sudan

After my four weeks in Panama it was nice to be travelling again, especially as it was to Africa - and to a brand new country on my life list.  Indeed quite a new country in other senses, as South Sudan was only born in 2011.  Sadly by 2013 it was embroiled in a civil war.  At the time of independence the humanitarian needs were already massive, with some of the worst health indicators in the world.  Then the civil war made it too dangerous to farm the fields, there was no rain, and parts of the country slid into famine.

With famine, the cattle herders have to travel far with their cattle, and there are skirmishes if the cattle eat farmers' crops, as well as cattle raids as these valuable animals are stolen and anyone defending them is killed.

But the main problem is the confusing set of of conflicts, mostly between the Dinka and Nuer tribal groups but also with other smaller groups and even now between different Dinka groups.  The government controls only part of the country, and everyone in all areas has guns.  There are only two intercity paved roads in the country, and in the rainy season the other roads - red laterite like the one above - become rutted and flooded and often impassable.

So it was an interesting country to visit!!  We have an office in the capital and eight field offices around the southern half of the country - none of which is now accessible by road.  Earlier in the year two field offices were accessible in road convoys with UN support but the last convoy was in May.  I had to go out into the field to see if we were doing what we should be - primarily distributing food to vulnerable groups (the malnourished, the displaced, breast-feeding mothers, etc) - which for the first trip meant a flight on the UN Humanitarian Air Services flight to Rumbek, the second a commercial flight with JetStar to Yei.  The Juba airport experience will get a post all of its own...

It was great to get out of Juba and actually see something of the country.  I will regret for ever that I didn't ask some of the women in Wulu if I could take their photograph, as the tribal scarification on their faces was so beautiful.  But I did take some photos of a 'welcoming committee' of women in another village, where in this close-up shot you can at least see that the woman in the background has undergone the traditional removal of the bottom front teeth.  A painful experience that you never forget, according to one of my colleagues.

Whilst I met plenty of displaced people in the villages - people whose homes had been burnt down by raiders, who'd had to trek for days to find somewhere else to lodge - it was heartening to find in some villages there was a mix of Dinka and Nuer, co-existing quite happily - so there is some hope of peace between the two groups, eventually.

In Yei I was excited (and saddened) to visit a camp for Internally Displaced Persons - no photos there as there were too many children around and we have rules about publishing photographs of children.  But these makeshift homes of displaced people were beside the road in Juba.

Not sure how long they'd been there but some of those I spoke to in the camp in Yei had been there for three years.  Children had been born there and knew nothing else.  I asked about the life - how did they get food (in this camp we were working on early childhood development projects rather than feeding)?  They said they received rice from an aid agency but otherwise had to go and forage in the bush.  Some of them also collected stones in the bush and worked to break them into smaller stones to sell for construction ... impossible, really, to imagine that life.

But even there people were smiling and laughing, the joy that is always there in Africa, whatever the circumstances. 

& here, a typical village - the sort of place they would have fled from before they began their years of displacement:

the Festival of the Handsome Bull

Strange how I should write my last post, and then almost immediately afterwards go to a small rural town to see some real Panamanian culture at a local festival.  There are festivals like this somewhere in Panama every week, but this weekend I felt I needed to get out, as the only way of ensuring that I didn't spend another whole weekend working, so decided on the Festival of the Handsome Bull in Antón, just a couple of hours' bus ride away from Panama City.

The first half of the proceedings took place on a stage, with an announcer at the side introducing the various different groups in their polleras (the Panamanian national dress for women) dancing in traditional style to the cumbia music played live by a group of musicians beside the stage, and reminding us repeatedly that this was Panamanian Culture.  I don't really like the pollera - too frilly and fussy for me - nor do I like cumbia (an accordian and drums with the occasional seemingly random yodel thrown in), but it was fun to see everyone dressed up and enjoying themselves, and some of the young girls did look very pretty.

The second half was a long parade, with floats pulled by bulls (seemingly the only reference to the Handsome Bull of the festival's name) and plenty of dancers accompanying them.  There were also a few traditional masks around, some (or maybe all?) representing the 'dirty devils' of Panamanian folklore.

And as ever at these festivals, the wonderfully colourful 'congos' - the Afro-Panamanians from the Caribbean coast region.

It was fun, a nice distraction from the preparation for my next work trip, but still doesn't make me feel any more connected to the country, I have to admit.

some time in Panama

There was clearly to be no hope of getting to sleep on Tuesday night, after Panama qualified, for the first time ever, for the World Cup.  After last Friday's 4-0 defeat to the USA the team was all but mathematically out of the competition.  This was not a surprise to the Panamanians - after all, with a population of just 3.5 million, what hope did they ever have of reaching the World Cup?  Tuesday night's game was really just a formality - of course it was possible that they would beat Costa Rica, but so what?  I mean who could possibly have predicted that at the same time the USA would lose 2-1 to little Trinidad & Tobago?

I wasn't watching the game on TV.  Why would I?  But from the great cheers I heard from the street outside I knew Panama had won the game, and as the volume went up - the traffic gridlocked with horns blaring and music blasting out (above a photo looking down on what is normally an endless stream of traffic along the Panamerican Highway) - I wondered whether something unusual had happened, and checked in to the usually endless stream of pointless messages on the Panama Expats WhatsApp group to learn the exciting truth.  Well, exciting for the multitudes that thronged the streets until 4am celebrating - to be honest, I cared more about the fact that I couldn't sleep through the noise, although at least I knew I didn't have to go to work in the morning, with the President having decided at midnight to declare a public holiday.  Some didn't know, and turned up to locked offices in the morning, others sat at home cursing the cancellation of conferences, meetings and appointments they had made weeks before, bosses of companies that were obliged to open no doubt cursed the fact that the law requires them to pay 2.5 times the normal daily pay to staff working on a public holiday, as well as granting them a day off in lieu.  & many, perhaps the majority, continued through their unexpected day off celebrating their country's achievement.

It highlights how detached I feel from this country that has been my home for 4.5 years that I really didn't feel anything about the qualification, merely annoyance at having my work plans for Wednesday mucked up.  Looking back to my time in Senegal, I know I would have been celebrating with them, and I often ask myself why I have failed to 'bond' in the same way with my current home.  It's not that I don't appreciate the wonderful bird life (this pic on the right taken just last week), or the 60Mbps download speed I get with my 'standard' home internet connection, or the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Casco Viejo that I can see from my balcony, or the variety of different activities on offer here (last weekend I went to a 'bat night' at the Smithsonian to hear all about bats and take a close look at a couple that flew into the mist net during the talk), or the local food (sweet potatoes and fried ripe plantain will forever be a part of my diet!) ... it's just, well, the place has no real local character.  It may be different in a small farming community somewhere out in the hills, but Panama City is so much a hub, a transit place, with so many foreigners and international companies, that it doesn't seem to have any identity of its own.  & I do appreciate that London could be described in the same way whilst being, to me, the best city in the world ... but it still has character.  Which really Panama City doesn't.  I think I've said this before, but it wants too much to be Miami (traffic, high-rise buildings, shopping malls, fast food joints), without celebrating what it has of its own.

To think that the old buildings like this:

have nearly all been knocked down to be replaced with these:

(and I do have some much less flattering pictures of the skyscrapers here) is sad.  In these tall buildings, no-one knows their neighbours - in fact many don't have neighbours as half the flats are empty, either victims of an over-ambitious construction sector or, more likely, money-laundering vehicles.

There is also the factor of Panama's short history.  Colonised by Spain, then independent but as part of Colombia, then effectively colonised by the USA, its indigenous people seen as backward or at best as tourist draws, rather than as a source of cultural pride.  Plus, as noted above, the country's role as a crossroads, with both the canal but also the 'hub of the Americas' airport with Copa being probably the main airline of the whole region.

In other, different countries, the history of the relationship with the US might have served as a uniting factor.  The overarching point of dispute being the 5 mile US-controlled zone either side of the canal - which was an unincorporated territory of the USA from 1903 until 1979, and then jointly controlled until 1999 - with the Zonians having all the comforts of 'home' and Panamanians needing permission to enter it when they wanted to cross their own country - Martyrs Day is still celebrated on 9 January to commemorate the death of 28 people in 1964 when riots followed a bunch of Panamanian students trying to raise a Panamanian flag within the Zone.

Then of course there was the US invasion of Panama in 1989 to get rid of General Noriega.  Not that many Panamanians supported Noriega, but his rise had been supported by the US, and the invasion destroyed property and the lives of civilians in the slum district of El Chorillo in Panama City.  This bit of city-centre graffiti commemorates that day:

("National Hurt: on the 20th December 1989 the Yankee army invaded this country and killed innocent people.  Until today it isn't known how many went.  The wound is still open.") but I've never met anyone who seems to hold a grudge about it.  I suppose it is countered by the money that the canal brings in, the number of people with some US blood from the canal zone days, and of course the cultural dominance of the USA generally in Central America.

I'm sure there are many things I will miss when I finally move on, but I'll always feel a little sad that I always felt like a visitor here, and never like it had become my home.

birds of the Galapagos

I suppose I was more attracted by the birds of the Galapagos than the reptiles, much as I loved the iguanas.  & it was the albatrosses that made me travel there during August, when the sea was cold and choppy, because the entire world population of this species breeds during the northern hemisphere summer on Española Island.  This is the most southerly island of the archipelago, far from the main group, so it also led me to do a two week trip rather than the usual one week.

All well worth it, as not only were the albatrosses amazing, but the whole two weeks was amazing. The photo above, of these goose-sized birds, shows a movement from a 'dance' between a pair that can go on (apparently) for two hours.  They dance like this when courting, and work to perfect their moves, and then use it to reinforce their bond each year when they meet up again to breed.

Another favourite was the frigatebird, above displaying with his throat pouch all extended, but here to the right with the pouch shrivelled back up, paying the inevitable consequences of such an impressive display to the females:

I see these birds every day from my apartment in Panama, but only in flight, and never with any hint of the impressive red pouch.  They are truly prehistoric-looking birds in flight, although I'll resist the temptation to put in another photo of one as I want to show some of the other birds too.

Alongside the frigatebirds, sharing the same nesting ground, were the boobies.  Two species, Nazca boobies and red-footed boobies.  Sadly the blue-footed ones have decamped to an island where the tourists do not have permission to go, and although we still saw a few of them, we weren't able to wander amongst a breeding colony.  I was lucky to see one pair doing their 'foot-waving' dance, whilst everyone else on the boat was snorkeling in the cold water, but too far away to allow me to get a photo with my little makeshift camera.

With the other two species, however, we had our fill.  I particularly liked the red-footed because their feet were so amazing - webbed, yet prehensile, so they had no problem perching on small tree branches - or on one occasion, in the rigging of our boat.

One unexpected Galapagos bird (for me anyway) was the short-eared owl.  We saw several of them on different islands, but on Genovesa Island, at a colony of storm petrels that nest in tunnels in the lava, the owls have learnt to hang around waiting to catch a petrel unawares as it leaves its tunnel.  Apparently they are also known to hide in the entrance of the tunnels, waiting to grab a petrel as it flies in.  We didn't see them actually catch anything, but we did see them hanging around the nesting colony, well-camouflaged in rock crevices.  I prefer this picture of one on Isabela Island however as you can just about see the short 'ears' which are not that often visible.

There were also storm petrels, and hawks, and more common birds such as a few heron species, oystercatchers and flamingoes - all rather easier to approach and photograph than is the case elsewhere.  But I can't finish this without referring to the famous Darwin's finches.  We didn't manage to see all 14 (I think it is) species, nor did we see the sharp-beaked ground finch doing its vampire feeding - where it pecks at the base of feathers of boobies and feeds on the blood.  Although I did sit for a while on a rock on Española Island with a couple of Hood mockingbirds pecking very hard at my toes - trying to draw blood, I am sure!

Some of the species were difficult to tell apart, in particular as the medium and small ground finches are know to hybridise, but I believe this is a small ground finch.

reptiles of the Galapagos

The islands are named after a saddle (the Spanish word), based upon the shape of the shell of some of the tortoises, which have evolved to be able to stretch their necks up high, to get the juicy leaves from the cactus that has evolved long trunks to keep the leaves up high out of reach of normal tortoises ... I do not have any particular interest in tortoises but they are hard to avoid in the Galapagos Islands.

Now there are only some estimated 30,000, and this following plenty of work by conservationists to breed and reintroduce them to parts where they had died out.  It is estimated that when Darwin visited the islands there were 250,000 there.  But people came and hunted them, with ships filling their holds with them, stacked alive and upside down, as they would stay alive like that for up to a year, providing a store of fresh meat for the sailors.  Away from such a cruel end they are long-lived - one taken by Darwin in 1835 only died (in Queensland zoo) in 2003.  They are also quite fascinating - did you know that as youngsters it is not possible to determine their sex, but that when they mature, in males the undershell changes to a concave shape (to enable them to mount a female), the tail grows longer and the penis migrates from its internal position to the end of the tail?

But I much preferred the iguanas, both the land and the marine varieties.  The land ones mostly seem to have a kind of smile on their face (although this one looks quite grumpy) and are very pretty, in varying patterns of cream, yellow and black.

The marine iguanas were more ferocious looking, although mostly just laying around in big heaps trying to keep warm (this being the cold season in the Galapagos as the Humboldt current brings cold water up from the southern oceans).  They are black in colour, however those from Española (Hood) Island are much more colourful, particularly during the breeding season, and some appeared to have come into season early.  This made them more aggressive towards other males too, so quite entertaining to watch!

I was very keen to see a snake or two as well (I'm sure you've all seen the BBC footage of the snakes hunting the young iguana!), although not hopeful as they are not seen all that often.  But we were lucky and saw three snakes, one long black Fernandina snake and two stripey Galapagos racers.  The first snake we saw was out in the open, seemingly basking in the late afternoon sun.  We discussed whether or not it was actually alive, this being highly unusual behaviour, when a mockingbird came along to cause trouble.  It pecked at the tail end of the snake, lifting that end up, and the snake - clearly very much alive - reared up at it.  They are very mildly venomous, apparently, but kill their prey through constriction.  A battle ensued, with the bird continually pecking at the snake, seemingly trying to drag it even further into the open, whilst the snake tried to fend off the bird whilst moving towards cover.  We moved on once the snake had safely made it to the cover of a bush, although the mockingbird was still hanging around.  Wish I'd thought to video it, as my replacement camera did not take good enough photos, but these three blurry, washed out pictures give some idea of what the interaction looked like:

a camera curse

Somehow - I'm not sure exactly how, but I have been feeling a bit clumsy lately - my camera slipped out of my hands as I tried to take a photo through the gate at the top on an Inca tunnel in the Pumapango Archaeological Park in Cuenca, Ecuador.  Rather than landing at my feet, it caught a part of the gate and glanced off it sideways, into the tunnel.

Down it went, bouncing off the rocky floor, down and down. Down into the Inca underworld (this photo taken with my phone).

The guards found a key and opened the gate, climbed down, and retrieved my camera, but there was a dent in one side of the lens cladding, and the message on the screen "System error zoom" when I tried to do anything.

I spent the rest of that day traipsing round the streets of Cuenca searching for a camera shop, certain that I'd passed one the previous day.  I was going to the Galapagos and I had to have a camera!  There were plenty of stores developing photos and taking portraits, but the only cameras I could find on sale were little pocket starter ones, with something like a 5x zoom - no substitute at all for the 24x zoom Panasonic Lumix compact camera that was sitting broken in my hand.

Several stores, however, referred me to a camera repair shop called La Victoria.  I didn't have any hope that my camera could be repaired, but I found the shop and the man there was confident that something could be done and so he sent my camera off the next day to their repairman, whilst I continued to scour the outer suburbs of the city hoping to find a place selling Panasonic compact cameras, following leads from internet searches which didn't really help.

Finally the store confirmed that they could not repair my camera.without a two-week wait for spare parts - but that they had a Panasonic Lumix for sale.  It was a bridge camera, probably capable of taking better pictures than my compact, but bigger and bulkier and more complicated to use.  The kind of camera you would have to hand around your neck, rather than being able to put it in a handy little case attached to your belt, as I am used to.  & they wanted $520.  In cash.

I didn't have the cash, so whilst I was deliberating over spending that much money on a camera that was in a style I didn't like, I went to a bank to see if there was any way of getting cash with my credit card (in Panama we don't use a PIN but simply a signature); no, I couldn't.  I went back to La Victoria - what if I agreed to pay extra to cover the credit card commission?  The man telephoned his boss and they conferred for a while - and agreed that I could buy the camera with my credit card but for $600.  So, in some anguish about shelling out so much money for a camera I didn't want but would need for just my two weeks in the Galapagos, I handed over my credit card.  They refused to give me an official receipt (the one I'd need to reclaim the 12% VAT at the airport) - it seems they were on the fiddle which I suppose is why they only wanted cash initially.

Anyway, I bought the camera and transferred my 8GB memory card into it from the broken old camera.  Waiting at the bus station that night I was able to download all the photos off the memory card (including shrunken heads in the Cuenca Pumapungo museum!) and onto my laptop, and edit them as necessary to be uploaded to the internet next time I had a connection.

Next morning, waiting at the Quilimbe bus station in Quito for my onward bus, I got to use the new camera for the first time - a distant snow-capped peak (Cotopaxi) with a thin strip of cloud across it.  It certainly wasn't as easy to use as the old one (way more features!) but the picture looked nice.  I was going to have three days to get used to it in Mindo before heading to the Galapagos.  One thing I particularly disliked about it was its size and its sticking-out lens, which made it feel quite fragile, especially as it hadn't come with a camera bag.  So I packed it back carefully into the bubble-wrap the shop had given me and into my day-pack before boarding the bus.

As I got on, a gentleman who I assumed (from his dress and manner) to be a bus official asked for my destination and then told me where to sit, doing the same for the two people behind me.  I placed my day-pack carefully on the floor between my feet, one strap wrapped around one leg as I always do, but the bus man asked to put it up on the overhead rack for me.  I told him I'd rather keep it with me, but he referred to the regulations and said it had to go up top.  "Careful with it!" I said, as he took if from me, "It has a camera in it, it's fragile".  & he placed it, carefully enough I suppose, up on the shelf behind me.

I wasn't at all happy about this.  I am always so careful with my belongings when I travel, with my bag always not just in sight of me but attached to me somehow.  I saw he'd done the same to the woman (another tourist) who got on behind me, but in the ten minutes before the bus was due to depart she decided to use the bathroom, and so retrieved her bag when she got off.  I noticed that she kept it with her when she got back on and nobody invoked 'the regulations' at that point. More and more people got on the bus, some of whom had to stand in the aisle, and I was watching carefully to ensure that no-one was getting off with my bag.  I was really unhappy about it not being with me - or even within my sight - a real sense of unease that I can't explain.  Finally I couldn't stand the stress of it any more and pushed past people standing to go and retrieve the bag.

I cannot describe the sinking, dreadful feeling as I moved the bag - still in the same place, and with all the zips done up, but only weighing half of what it should.  My laptop had gone, my mobile phone had gone - and my brand new $600 camera had gone.  I accused the bus conductor of being in collusion with thieves for telling me to put my bag there, but it turns out that the man who told me to put the bag there was not a bus employee but an imposter.

The police were called and I agreed to file a report, so they collected me and drove me back into the heart of Quito, to the tourist police office, and filed my report.  Afterwards they took me back to a bus station, but via a photo development place where I bought one of those poor quality, low zoom starter cameras - I had to have something for the Galapagos.  & again, they would only take cash ($180) which left things pretty tight for the rest of my trip.

I went through several days of alternate tears and anger over this, cross with myself that I hadn't acted sooner on my instinct, and frustrated that despite the CCTV camera on the bus I didn't get the feeling there would be much effort made to catch the perpetrators.  It seems that the bus route I was on is notorious for thefts, though I don't know whether they always use the same trick they used with me; if I lived there I'd be more than happy to take the same route again and try to entrap them!  Fortunately with the combination of my new small camera and a new large memory card, and a very kind cabin-mate on the boat with a good Panasonic camera who was happy to lend it to me - and wildlife that tended to stay there and wait while we switched memory cards - I was largely able to get the photos I wanted from the Galapagos.  More frustrating was the short trip to Mindo that preceded the Galapagos, where I saw birds such as plate-billed mountain toucan, giant antpitta and bronze-winged parrot, but was unable to photograph them with the tiny replacement camera.

Then when I got back to work but with no laptop and no phone ...  & discovered how many of my regular websites had been 'open' on my old laptop with me no longer remembering the passwords; clicking "forgotten my password" so they can send a code to your registered phone number doesn't work either when your phone was stolen alongside your laptop.  You might notice from comments on the previous post that I struggled to get into here to post this!  There was a glimmer of hope financially when I discovered that the trip is probably covered by my employer's travel insurance (as I used my annual home flight allowance to buy the air ticket), but I cannot produce a receipt for the stolen camera, only a credit card slip which says I bought a 'product'. Attempts to contact the shop reveal I did not even buy it at the well-known La Victoria, but at a little unnamed place next-door which capitalises on such confusion.  I just have to keep reminding myself though how lucky I was they did not steal my passport (which was with the phone), and presumably did not find my purse with money and credit card inside.  That would have made things far more difficult.

For those wondering, by the way, the photo of the Inca tunnel had already been uploaded to the cloud from my hostel before my phone was stolen!

around the Balkans

I was able to slip in a quick trip to the Balkans before our Amsterdam conference - just a few days each in Serbia, Kosovo, and Bosnia & Herzegovina, but that was enough to get a flavour of the culture and an introduction to the complicated history, too complicated to understand properly in such a short time.  I suppose a summary would be that the region lies on a kind of crossroads between Asia and Europe and so was invaded and occupied over and over again through the centuries by Celts, Romans, Slavs, Hapsburgs, Byzantines, Ottomans ... and parts were also bombed by the Nazis and most recently by NATO.


As a group we were most interested in the recent history - the break-up of Yugoslavia and what followed - but, maybe not surprisingly, our Serbian guide avoided the subject and focused instead on the fourteenth century under Stefan Dušan before the Battle of Kosovo where the Turks defeated Serbia, beginning 500 years of Islamic rule.  The resentment against the Turks is still part of the politics for some, shown by the fairly recent persecution of Kosovan Albanians and of Bosnian Muslims by the Serbs.

We arrived at Srebrenica the day before the annual commemoration of the massacre.  In addition to the thousands of existing graves there were around seventy newly dug graves awaiting the burial of remains of victims identified during the past year.  It was very moving as families surrounded these empty graves, some in tears - the genocide was only 22 years ago so the memories are still fresh and raw.  & there is still work ongoing to find further remains and carry out the DNA testing required to identify them.  A difficult task, as the re-burial of many victims, in an attempt to hide the evidence of the massacre, was crudely done such that many partly decomposed bodies were broken up in the process.  I heard of one victim whose remains have been found at five different sites.  A later visit to the Srebrenica Gallery and the Museum of Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide in Sarajevo provided more information - including gruesome photos and videos.  Hard to believe that this happened in Europe, in my lifetime.

Maybe in part because of the history, I found myself a bit ambivalent about Serbia, but totally smitten by Bosnia & Herzegovina.  It's easy to focus on this recent history as the evidence is all around, from the museums and memorials, the tunnel in Sarajevo (used to get people in and out during the four-year siege by Bosnian Serbs), the mortar holes in buildings, and even a monument erected in the Republika Srpska (one of the three constituent parts of Bosnia & Herzegovina) to the war criminal Ratko Mladič - the underlying tensions between the different ethnic groups did not go away just because a peace accord was signed.  However there is also beautiful countryside, great architecture (including several UNESCO World Heritage sites) and a great ambience in Sarajevo and, although very touristy, in Mostar.

Really oddly, I cannot post my best photo of this famous bridge in Mostar, as every time I try to upload it I get the message "Upload failed: server rejected" (has blogspot been hacked??) but this is a different view of it, taken from the top of the minaret of the Koskin-Mehmed Pasha's mosque.  One of the only places in the world where the minaret of an active mosque is open to the public.

Another stunning place was the village of Počitelj with its ruined fortifications:

An enjoyable half day was spent travelling up a terrible track to the village of Lukomir, the highest settlement in Bosnia & Herzegovina (at 1,500m), a place that is only occupied for half the year because of the deep snow that cuts if off over the winter.  The houses are built of stone and sit next to the stunning Rakitinica canyon.  The picture shows one of the old buildings (they seem to function as houses and barns at the same time) with the edge of the canyon behind.

Just one more picture from Bosnia & Herzegovina, forgive me, the Kravica Falls:

I shouldn't ignore the other two countries, however. Even Serbia had some reasonable Roman ruins and the beautiful winding Uvac Canyon with its nesting Griffon vultures and 6km long Usac cave full of stalactites and stalagmites.  Kosovo is low key, but very nice, the most impressive parts for me being the old painted monasteries.  No photos were allowed inside Gračanica monastery, but in Visoki Dečani we were allowed to take non-flash photos of the amazing frescoes.  It's impossible to capture the impact in a photo of all those amazing paintings surrounding you, (you really do go "wow!" when you enter!), but here is one pic looking up at part of the ceiling.  The frescoes date back to the 14th century, and the monastery is protected by KFOR (a NATO international peacekeeping force), since as recently as 2007 it was attached by Kosovan Albanian insurgents - as noted above, ethnic tensions have not gone away even though there is currently peace.