Day 11, January 23rd, 2011

Day 11, January 23rd, 2011

One last day, mostly a travel day, but not before a couple of stops. The group decided to meet for breakfast at 7, but Polly and I didn’t get the memo, so we met them at 7:30. The bus rolled out at 7:45, we were off for a stop at the park in the middle of Panama. It is a national park, 500 acres of rain forest, last chance for some bird watching. After 10 days to looking up into the trees, my neck is soar and I just couldn’t look for anymore birds. Yet, the moment someone says, “hey, there’s a sloth” and I just deal with it. So, on our walk today, we saw a 3 toed sloth, Tamarind Monkeys and a rarely seen nocturnal bird named a Potoo; I swear it looked like it was carved into the branch it was perched on, it was asleep, of course, so it was perfectly still and very difficult to see. The park ranger worked really hard pointing it out to me, in broken English, luckily I finally saw it, got a couple of pictures too.

Next up and our final stop before the airport was a little tour of Panama Viejo (Old Panama). The area we went to was the ruins from building built in the 1560’s. This was the area of Panama that was the first settlement on North America from the Pacific side, landing here in 1514; 400 years before the Canal was finished. The buildings were quiet large, with thick walls and of some importance, since they were built with stones, making them expensive as well. Most all of the houses from that time would be similar to the wood and thatch buildings that the Embera People live in currently. The area was inhabited by the Kuna Indians at the time, known for having a large population of albinos. At one point in history, the Smithsonian did a study on the “White Indians” in Panama, it wasn’t until later, after the study was complete, did they identify this inbreeding abnormality. The albinos are highly regarded in their culture and are treated as though it were a special gift. During our tour, we saw a group of modern Kuna Indians, dressed in their native clothing, on display for what appeared to be the filming of a documentary. They wore vibrant colors and the women wore beaded bands on their legs, looking more to us as stockings or leggings, it was fascinating to see. There were even 2 albino included in this group, one girl and one boy, yet the boy was not part of the filming. But shortly after we arrived, they all changed into “street” clothes and went on their merry way, talking and texting on their cell phones; jokingly we said they were probably on their way to Mc Donald’s, haha.

We casually strolled around the area, absorbing the history and taking interesting pictures of the Viejo and Nuevo Panama together; the tall skyscrapers piercing the blue sky back drop of the ruins. Someone on the bus proclaimed the modern Panama City to be reminiscent of Dubai, although never having been there themselves. I strongly disagree, Panama and Dubai have a charm each of their own and al though Panama does have very tall buildings, it is a far cry from Dubai and I hope it stays that way.

Off to the airport, we swiftly floated through the few lines of ticketing and security and the group disbursed to separate lunch spots. Polly and I had pizza, nice way to ease ourselves back into our world. Short afterwards, we bid our phenomenal adventure farewell and boarded our plane to Houston. 12 hours later, we were home and cold, saying goodbye and wishing everyone well. Until we meet again, friends, fare forward travelers.