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!