2016 Archives - Page 7 of 7 - In Search Of Umami

Where the modern meets the old – Panama City

Panama City is most certainly not like any other city we saw in Latin America. First of all it's really clean, we could walk around in our flip flops without having to jump between mountains of poo. There were way less homeless people lying on the streets. We didn't have to look around anxiously while running through the pedestrian crossings because the drivers were really stopping on red!! And not only a red light would stop them, every time I was taking a picture, they would stop not to destroy my shot. Panama City was definitely a whole other world compared to other cities in Latin America. Rather peaceful, cheerful people and... It was actually really pretty! We are both not particularly city people and for sure we are not in love with cities that we saw so far. But Panama City was so vibrant, colorful and organised. The old city town was charming, full of soul, hip cafes and restaurants and undisturbed by skyscrapers. It was visible that someone thought about the city before building its new part which is completely separated from the old part. They didn't think too hard though as in the middle of the modern part of the city they placed a Donald Trump tower but well ... It still has it's charm. For those who want to drive through the city but skip the narrow streets of the old there is a road that goes above the water. It's faster and it offers incredible views of the old & new.
Honestly we both thought The Canal was the least impressive of all that Panama City had to offer. It was massive but it was nothing special. Big ships passing through a big canal that's pretty much it.
Below few pictures from lovely Panama City:)

In “the Mouth of the Bull”- Bocas del Toro

Bocas del Toro is THE destination in Panama formed by a group of islands. Going on a boat to get there in pouring rain, we couldn’t see anything, except for water under and above us. Soaking wet and cold we reached our hostel and we reminded ourselves of the cold winter in Europe as soon as we entered our frozen room (AC!! :O) and a freezing shower didn’t help.

We knew Bocas Town was THE place in Bocas del Toro so we decided not only to not stay in the city but also not on the main island and it wasa good decision. 15 minutes from there it was idyllic and green. Although it might change if they don’t start to pick up their garbage. As soon as we woke up and the sun came through we saw our Bastimentos, charming little island with stilt houses and just behind them, the green almighty jungle. It even had idyllic beaches, one of them called Wizards Beach probably because you would disappear swimming there as the waves and currents were insane even to look at. But there was enough to do above water. Green hikes, bird watching and the cafes!!! There was this amazing café situated in the middle of the greenness. The food and the atmosphere were really worth the hike up the hill so we spent a few hours there going through their books, talking to the staff and other hikers. And at some point I saw a pictures of a red frog, really pretty with black dots. “Do you ever see those here?” I asked to one of the waitresses, “Yeah, strawberry poison- dart frog, they're here all the time”.

And she left everything to go for a search with us. She explained what the sound is that they make and where to search for them. Afterwards we were seeing them everywhere!! And all of them were eager to pose for a picture.

Too bad the boa that we saw on a hiking path was not as friendly.
It scared us probably as much as we scared him and then he ran away. Thankfully he was not that shy and so he didn’t ran away too far and with a bit of effort we managed to take a picture of him hidden in the bushes.

The islands were truly wonderful for us, just so much variety in nature and so much to do. When we wanted nice hikes, we had them just next to us, when we wanted to chill out on a peaceful island there was Cayo Zapatilla. Just the underwater was disappointing, low visibility and even if it was high, well there was not much to see.

And the way back was a nightmare, we went on a small boat back to Bocas Town to take another boat to get to the main land. And as usual, the boat was small, the life jackets were nowhere to be found and the captain was super chilled out and way above the acceptable speed. Out of the sudden we were covered by a huge wave that he didn’t see as he was too chilled out to see anything. Almost we capsized, we got soaking wet and so did our backpacks. At least my first instinct was to grab the small backpacks and push them above my head to save all the electronics. The captain woke up quite fast to throw all the water out of the boat as his only source of income was about to share Titanic’s fate. Well at least it was a free ride and we were “only” going on a night bus soaking wet. Let’s say we have seen enough boats for a while…

From hell to heaven- on our way to Longo Mai

On Costa Rica in most of the places, it's all about the money. And big money. It's an overpriced country, you pay really a lot and what you get in return is not so great. With big money come big people in this case, taken straight from McDonald's. I guess their wallets are as big as their stomaches as prices can get really insane, let's say vacation in Holland would be cheaper and not nearly that crowded. On Costa Rica you won't miss any animal in a national park because there will be a huge crowd staring at it, taking pics in "oh and ah" atmosphere and another crowd next to the first one asking what is there to see. It's difficult to find a place that would be different. That's why it's such a pleasure to end up in the middle of Longo Mai and feel that is all about community and nature...
But before that would happen for us (Ton and I) we rented a car. And hit the road really late. We were already behind the schedule so we didn't want to waste any precious time. Google knows best so we obviously trusted Google on the navigation. When googled proposed a shortcut we gladly took it. Driving up and down, from one hole to another with a speed of maybe 10 km/h we started question our navigation guru. We were intensively thinking about turning back when I saw a shock on Ton's face. The brakes stopped working... Middle of nowhere, no one to ask for help, no one to even rob us... So it was high time to call the rental company. Obviously all of the people there asked us the how and why question and while say "cuz Google sent us..." we felt more and more stupid. But finally they decided to coke and rescue us. There was not much to do so we took a nap and at 3.30 am when the guy came we all went to sleep in a bigger car in a wait for the sun to rise.

Half a day later but with new brakes we arrived at Longo Mai. True paradise after a night from hell.
Longo Mai is a extraordinary community project that gave shelter to refugees from aboard (mostly from San Salvador) but more then that nowadays it's all about environmental projects and eco-tourism as an alternative of preserving the incredible nature in the area and an opportunity for income for still quiet poor community. There are definitely natural beauties all over the rainforest over there: rivers, natural swimming pools, weird plants and bugs. And in the middle of it Antonio's mom. She is an incredible woman very much into all the projects there. To help, to inspire, to teach. An artist on so many levels. We were truely in heaven and it only got better from there. We were gonna make chocolate!! Being completely honest Antonio did the majority of grinding so the most difficult part since I don't have any muscles and Ton's are only to show off. But we helped him eating for sure!:)

Isla Venado

Isla Venado is one of those fewer and fewer places where kids play football barefoot, where they play with each other and not with a PlayStation, where people talk and don't whatsapp and where life is simple, cheerful and slow. It's a place that very recently had marriages between 13 year old girls and men in their 30ties and it was nothing extraordinary or weird. That's how we came to the island. Childhood neighbor of Antonio (friend of my ex-housemate Ton) came from that island to the main land when she met her own John Smith in the person of a Spanish artist. She was a little girl and he was a man in his thirties. Back then the island didn't have electricity, not a single car and school every now and then when the teachers had a sober day. Thanks to her and Antonio we (Antonio, Ton and I as Jandirk was still in Colombia) stayed with her brother and his family. It was an incredible time filled with fishing, talking, appreciating the simplicity and beauty of the surrounding. We went lobster fishing and we actually caught some huge lobsters and we learned how to peel and open a coconut Castaway style, although with our speed we would probably die of hunger and dehydration anyway. From the coconut shreds the family made "apretaditos" simple ice cream which is sold in a plastic bag. Absolutely delicious but the process of making was a true challenge with a home-made knife which cuts the shreds out from the coconuts. I gave up after 5 minutes, covered in sweat and I could tell that the mother of the family thought I was too slow anyway. Next to Isla Venado there are other beautiful small islands one of which was actually a jail (Isla San Lucas), today a tourist attraction and Isla Tortuga where we went to enjoy sun, beach and snorkel... Even though there was nothing to see underwater.
Another income on the island is definitely shrimp fishing which we absolutely wanted to try. I love shrimp and what could be better than to see how it's done and have it fresh. How naive. So in the evening we went for a fishing night, we dropped our net (well Antonio, Ton and I were more of a watching crowd, Freddy our host did the manual part obviously) and cruised around for a couple of hours. Then it was finally time to lift the net and see what we got in there. As soon as the net reached the boat level I saw we had hundreds of small fish in there... The whole content of the net went into a container and the 3 of us had to start selecting shrimp and bigger fish and crabs as our prey and the rest had to be thrown back into the water. To my horror almost all of the fish were dead... Fish, few rays, few eels, many jelly fish. All dead. I felt extremely sick and shocked that for few kilos of shrimp we killed so many kilos of fish and other water creatures. Antonio explained delicately to Freddy that we felt sick and we wanted to go back. But it wasn't over, the shrimp still needed to be sorted from other dead creatures so we did that on the shore standing in water full of dead fish... The shrimp we ate on the next day did not taste the same and probably they never will.

Peaceful time in Salamina

The best travel experiences are the best because of the people you meet every single time. Even if you are in the best place in the world and you're with a group of people that you don't enjoy there is no way you will enjoy the experience. At least for us. Our experience in Salamina was one of the best ones because of our Airbnb hosts Martin and Angelica. The idea in Airbnb
is to exchange experiences, knowledge and learn about each others culture while staying with locals but let's face it.. it's also a business. In final end you pay so many people don't care about local bla bla bla and many locals don't care about the guests more than a hotel crew. This was actually our first truly, deeply amazing experience via Airbnb. Martin and Angelica are insanely cool people ! Yep cool because nice is an old lady in a hotel giving you towels and showing you around. And they were cool, sharp sense of humor, genuine interest in people and hypercreativity all that in 2 people. And we genuinely became friends. So no wonder that instead of 3 days we stayed 10 and instead of hiking around we mostly stayed there. It was a destination on it's own for us. One of those places where I get an illusion that I can be an artist too and I started an artistic project. Over there I started doing crochet and it's actually going quite well, so there is hope 🙂

But we did see Salamina and it reminded us of Filandia. Beautiful architecture, good coffee and wayyyy less foreigners as it's still not in Lonely Planet. And an hour away there was actually Samaria Valley, a wax palm valley very similar to the one near Salento. We obviously had to see it so we rented a jeep with a driver with a Canadian couple and we hit the road early morning. The driver was cheerfully explaining us things that we were passing by but he was not really interested in us, he didn't ask questions or anything. That's why I was surprised when he announced that we're gonna come for dinner to his place. Honestly I thought I misunderstood him or I thought that it was just one of those sentences "We have to meet...someday". I was even more surprised when he stopped and said he needs to buy potatoes tonight and bought kilos and kilos. Then when we arrived in the valley he asked a local farmer to give him some beans for us for dinner. So it was very much on and till the rest of the trip he was talking only about what his wife is gonna do with those delicious potatoes and beans. In the meantime we enjoyed the views on the palms and mountains just like the one in Cocora Valley but there were noooooo hikers, absolutely no one. Just this local farmer in his twenties explaining us his vision about the place. So it turned out his family had a beautiful patch of land there that they were planning to convert in the cheesiest touristic place ever. He told us how amazing it's going to be to fish trout from a tiny pond and ride a pony... I could imagine it being fun for a 5 year old but I couldn't understand how could it be nice to actually fish in a tiny pond when you have a river full of trout 5 min away. But Colombian tourism is different I guess.

After the trip our driver dropped us at our place and told us he would pick us up "Si Dios quiere" (if God wants) in the evening. I already thought it might not happen as in Colombia God often doesn't feel like doing anything. But I got surprised again when he came to pick us all up for dinner. The whole night was actually a bit of a shock since his vision was very different from ours... Let's say we were ready for a potato/ bean feast, Jandirk was practicing how to say politely that he can not drink because he takes antibiotics. Once there awkward silence set in... So I started what I do best. Asking questions and talking. Finally the dinner was ready and we got invited to the kitchen. But there were only four seats so we started bringing seats from the room. Our driver surprised said that they already ate and that it's only for us. We sat down all four of us, so me, JD and the Canadian couple and as soon as we sat down everyone of us got their "feast". Skinny girls from the "Devil wears Prada" ate more. On each plate there was one cooked potato and I mean little one not huge and half potato with a bit of something yellow on there and then an unidentified tiny piece of pork. I knew that was the worse part so I basically swallowed it first, once I felt that chewing wouldn't get me anywhere. To drink we got an unidentified glass of something white. That was the most awkward dinner ever and the tiniest too. We thanked for all of it politely. Our driver mentioned that we could tell our friend how amazing we we;re received so that they would come as well to be his clients... That day I promised myself never to except that sort invitation from people that don't talk to us. Obviously if they are not interested in us and they invite us they have to be interested in our euros. Travels learn us things every day.

P.S. If someone is wondering how I found the Airbnb place in Salamina (It's called Alto Bonito). I have no life and a sea of time so I went through all the Airbnb properties within our price range. I know many people don't have the time so here is the link https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/2290380 🙂