Panama, Part I

    "Peligrosooo!" and old, dark skinned Panamanian drunk yelled out to me as I walked down a half-rejuvinated cobblestone street. A young man approached our group of gringos and echoed the same: "No es seguro pasado aquí ."  The drunk turned back to me again and made the motion of a knife being stabbed into my stomach.
    My group and I were in Casco Viejo in la Ciudad de Panama - the jumping off point for my month-long exploration of the Republic of Panama.
    We decided to turn back the other way and get to bed early, before the sun went down. We did a quick loop of the market square and threw together a dinner from items bargained from street vendors - a coconut, green beans, mangoes, guanabana, and some chicken, white rice, and cow stomach from a local carneria.

    Casco Viejo is an old, crumbling part of the city that had been abandoned and turned into slums years ago, but that is now experiencing a major cultural revival. Artists, architects, and those wishing to profit off the tourist industry are fixing up the abandoned concrete shells devoid of anything but a family, a T.V., and a couch that have been used and lived in by people who have nothing else, and restaurants and bars are popping up on every corner. A huge market square area is still rich in Central American traditions - vendors sell everything from cocos to mangoes to pescado from carts that they drag through the streets, and people roam up and down the square in large masses picking up groceries and hopping on Diablos Rojos - buses that appear as if they were stolen from the public school system, had mufflers installed, and were painted in crazy colors. Almost no one speaks English (though our basic, broken Spanish is enough to get by), dogs roam the streets, military personnel in old fashioned red berets and black suits patrol the corners, and the people are all friendly.

    To the West, you can see La Puerta de las Americas - the bridge of the Americas - crossing over the Panama Canal. Beyond lie dense green forests covered in clouds. To the East, the towering buildings of La Ciudad de Panama are visible across the small bay.

    We explored the city a bit more the next day, first taking a taxi that weaved in and out of traffic at high speeds and displayed better driving than most Americans to the main bus station. Next, we took a Diablo Rojo  to Miraflores Locks, where we viewed an alligator swimming in the canal, and watched a massive ship pass through the wonder of engineering that is the Panama Canal.

    We got to bed in Casco Viejo early once again, not only because we weren't too interested in staying out after dark, but because we planned to leave at 4 in the morning with a 4x4 carro to go to Kuna Yala, an indigenous region along the Atlantic Coast of Panama with over 400 islands, some the size of a small house.
    Because of the remoteness of the location, we had contacted Germain of Cartí island to bring us out. I had spoken with him several times via spanish email, and once by phone, but we still did not know if he himself would be picking us up. It turned out that our 4x4 ride was simply somebody he hired to come pick us up.

    The ride was dark for a good amount of time, but conversation flowed surprisingly smoothly between us, practicing our Spanish, and the driver, practicing his English. The landscape soon lit up with the rising sun, changing from shades of grey to every color of green. We were well into the middle of a tropical rainforest.

    Suddenly, the truck made a sharp left turn, and we began to ascend what must have been a 25% grade. We wiggled up and up into the mountains, my ears popping several times, and began to bob up and down among the rainforest mountain peaks. The road got worse and worse - alternating between sections of pavement and large dropoffs of pure dirt and mud.
    We eventually reached the Kuna Yala border, where we had our passports checked before entering the region. From that point, we began to descend down steep slopes to the Atlantic Ocean. From the Pacific to Atlantic had taken us about four hours ... and a lot of elevation.
    We arrived at the port of Cartí, where a short, very stout dark skinned Kuna introduced himself: "tú debes ser Marshall - me llamo Germain, beinvenidos". He lead our group of severely confused gringos around the port for a while as we got our stamps and paperwork done (which basically consisted of paying a few dollars) and he got the boats ready.
    Once getting on the boats, however, everything became pure bliss. We shot out into a sea of crystal-clear blue waters and pristine white sand beaches. Eventually, we made it to the island of Cartí - the biggest and most populated island in Kuna Yala, which can be circumnavigated on foot in about 30 minutes. The island had not an inch of open space on its shoreline - EVERYTHING was consumed by the myriad of types of hand-constructed docks. On the island itself, small corrugated tin roofs were held up by wooden stakes to make wall-less shelters, and narrow dirt alleyways lead the way between each of the shelters. Underneath the shelters, Kuna women swung in hammocks strung between the wooden stakes and sewed. A few of the larger shelters had real walls, making them more resemble houses, and Germain's house was constructed with heavy stakes and included an upstairs, complete with two hammocks and a few beds where we would stay.

  Life on the Kuna islands is pretty darn good. For three days we would wake up in our hammocks, the Sun rising and roosters crowing, and head downstairs to have breakfast with the Kuna family. Breakfast consisted of 'Kuna bread', basically just long loafs of bread, and peanut butter or butter to spread. This is the most non-traditional meal of the Kuna people, bread being introduced to them much later in their long history.
    After eating, we would head out on the boats to various islands. Most of the Kuna work during this time - the women sew and men usually either go fishing for dinner or, for the few like Germain who have decided to profit on the tourist industry, drive tourists around entertaining them. As tourists, all we did during this time was play on beautiful beaches, free dive, and have intense beach olympics.

Haha... Mikey and Jason's faces are so sunburned!

    Late in the day, we would have dinner - certainly the most traditional of the Kuna meals. It consisted of whatever the day's catch was. Most of the time it consisted of lobster and fish, though a few times we also captured some conch and fried them up.
    After dinner, there was usually a bit of time for napping before the evening's festivities.

    "Peligroso!" I was shaken awake by a small, leathery-skinned Kuna man who owned the small white sand island upon which I had fallen asleep (surprised?). I looked around at the turquoise blue waters surrounding the island, which was no more than an acre in size. What could I possibly be in danger of here?

    "Tenga cuidado, porque los cocos se caerá sobre usted". Be careful, or the coconuts will fall on your head. The man was genuinely concerned - it must have happened to people before. Jason was quick to inform me that more people die from coconuts falling on their head each year than from lightning strikes.
    Later in the day, Germain picked us up in the boat and took us back over to Isla del Perro, where Jason was well on his way to becoming best friends with some Kuna children. He picked right back up where he left off and started a game of soccer. Of course, two coconuts marked the goalposts. I cheered for one of the Kuna boys, Mario, who we named 'Underwear Boy' due to his only choice of clothing, ever.