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.