Fried Green Bananas
Trip Start
Jan 16, 2008
1
6
35
Trip End
Apr 19, 2008
Bocas Town,
Panama
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Food here in Panama is pretty good. Of course, we're living on an island, so it's mostly fish, seafood and the ubiquitous chicken. Tasty sauces on everything. There is a big African influence here in Bocas - originally from slaves brought in to work the banana plantations I think, and the whole place has more of a Caribbean feel than most of the region. Dish of the day which is usually some sort of meat, salad and rice or patacones (those fried green bananas I was talking about) goes for US$3-4, so living cheap here is pretty easy. Of course you can splash out now and then and have a whole pile of beers, ceviche and creole style octopus. And at US$25 for all that, I think the budget will survive at least this part of the trip :)
We both went diving last Wednesday with Bocas Water Sports
033. Don't forget the water
. Kristinas first dive since we were in Thailand last year - almost exactly a year in between in fact. She did a refresher in the pool before we left home, but this was the first time actually diving since then. It went well. She has problems equalising and doesn't really like the whole going down thing, but we took it nice and slow and after 5 or 10 minutes she was fine. The vis isn't so great here at the moment, still lots of rain, which washes sand and silt out into the sea. On the first dive we saw a couple of crays, the odd small fish, a pair of feather stars and plenty of coral. Second dive was a little shallower 5-10 metres and there was a bit more to see - a fair number of fish (but not up to the levels in Thailand), heaps of coral and bristle stars and even some fairly large starfish. Oh, and another large crayfish. Nice easy diving here, and if the divemaster hadn't been trying to win the fastest diver competition then I think the macro life would have been really interesting to see. As it was, these were great shake off dives, getting back into the swing of diving in a shorty in 28 degree water (a little different from diving in 5 degree water in a dry suit when its -2 degrees at the surface :)).School is going well. We are studying at El Paraiso Spanish Language School here in Bocas del Toro. The school is run by a Czech lady who lives in Canada, traveling between there, here and their other school in Costa Rica. On the first day it seemed a little odd. The 'schoolhouse' is just a normal house, with a tent in the backyard which is the class room. We were only 3 students this past week, so we've basically each had our own teacher. Cecila, Darwin and Nixia are the teachers and they're all great. They've had differing levels of experience, with Nixia being the newest teacher, starting here after having worked in a local kindergarten
034. Hop on in
. Yesterday we moved out of the families house to a hospedaje (small, family run hotel/inn). The main reason we wanted to stay with a family was to be able to practice Spanish by talking with them and that's hard to do when they aren't home. The standard at the hospedaje is much better, still cold water shower, but much cleaner, and the owner is around a lot and is keen to sit and talk, so thats cool.
Yesterday we walked to one of the local sites - La Gruta (the cave) - 20km there and back. Nice walk through rain forest, didn't see any sloths, but plenty of birds, including a hummingbird on the way back. The cave is known for its bats, and we weren't disappointed, plus there was a HUGE spider up on the roof. I've got a photo which I'll load up at some stage.
Last night it absolutely bucketed down, and its still raining a little, so our plans to hire a kayak and explore the local islands are on hold at the moment. We'll see how the day turns out - the weather here is pretty changable, so it can be pouring down one minute and gorgeous sunshine the next.
Hasta luego...
