Long-ass Road : January 2016

Panama is known to Americans for three things:

1. A canal
2. A hat
3. A song by Van Halen

The thing is, the canal was an American idea, the hat is actually from Ecuador and the song is supposedly about David Lee Roth's car.

So, if these things aren't actually Panamanian what, you may ask, would recommend the place for a destination? Oh, I don't know, how about 981 species of birds in a country the size of South Carolina with a population less than half of most major U.S. cities.

I love Panama, we have been twice before but never to the Darien. Where's that, you say? All the way down by the Columbian border. The region is famous for the Darien gap, not a cheaply priced clothing store in a Panamanian mall but the missing section of the Pan American highway that starts in Alaska and ends in Tierra del Fuego. The missing section was never completed because it's just too swampy, mountainous, remote and expensive to build a road there. The narco traffickers, kidnappers from Colombia and birders from the U.S. seem fine with that for now.

Just look at this nice section of paved road, this won't be so bad, what are people complaining about?

Oh wait, what's that? The road basically turns into loosely interconnected patches of thin asphalt strung together by potholes. Throw in some heavy fog, dogs, chickens, horses, people and kids on bicycles and trucks full of plantains all trying to avoid the aforementioned unpaved sections and you have the recipe for what I like to call a fun four hour ride. And, yes that vehicle is on our side of the road. Everyone on the road just snakes back and forth trying to drive on the paved sections. The road is narrow with no shoulder and continues this way till you reach Yaviza where the road just decides to give up and you enter dense jungle.

Not being particularly partial to spending quality time with Columbian drug smugglers and kidnappers, our destination stopped short of that and we spent a week in the relative luxury of the Canopy Camp, sleeping in safari style tents and drinking wine in hammocks.

I fell in love with these tents. I want one.

I mean c'mon, hard wood floors even

Why is there aluminum foil under the sink? To keep the bats from roosting under there obviously.

After long days of birding you could find me relaxing on the veranda waiting for my cocktail and appetizers

The days started early with strong Panamanian coffee and a light breakfast

That's our guide Domi most likely pointing out the last known sighting of some unsuspecting birder

Lots of large cuipo trees around the lodge. The only reason these weren't logged to make some hipster's headboard is because the wood is too soft.

These would be really yummy fried up with a little olive oil for the 15 minutes before your liver stopped functioning

A lot of the land we birded surrounding the Canopy Camp consists of working ranches. Some of the ranchers are friendly to birders.

Some, not so much

On one of the trails we came upon a working cattle branding operation. I asked Domi if I could take some pictures. No, he said, not such a good idea

This guy on the other hand was great. He traded us some sweet oranges for a couple of cans of Coke

Lunch in the field. Hot coffee, cheese sandwiches and M&Ms for dessert. I asked Domi why the driver did not eat with us and he said in the most polite way that, basically he didn't eat crap like this. He brought his own lunch of rice and beans

Uh oh, better head back early so we can get in some cocktails and study the map before dinner

In the morning, we planned a full day trip up the Chucunaque River to visit an Embera indian village to do some ~~shopping~~ birding.

That's a pirague canoe, hand hewn from one log

Does this look like a man contemplating his soon to finalized retirement?

They don't all have outboard motors but it's pretty slow going without one

The Embera houses are built on stilts with living quarters upstairs. They're open air and draped in neon colored clothing. They all had satellite dishes.

I suppose this village was about as authentic as you can get visiting indians in Panama. It's pretty common to have tourists arrange visits to see either the Embera, the Kuna, or the Wounnan. But this village has only been getting visits from people staying at the Canopy Camp and that's only been open for a year so I don't think they've seen a ton of visitors.

They are pretty shy and they know what their hard work is worth since they typically sell these wares in Panama City

They do not pressure you at all. They stand back and wait for you to pick whatever you want

After you make your selection the woman who made the items steps forward

All 3 of the things I chose were made by this woman. I did get her name but I forgot to write it down. Bigger versions of those baskets can sell for hundreds btw.

In this particular village, the women had stopped going topless but some of them did still cover themselves with plant based black ink which supposedly helps with mosquitos and wards off evil spirits. I won't spoil that myth by doing any actual research on the subject though. The Embera, and all the indigenous tribes used to have a tough time since they were discriminated against by the Panamanians. But since they've figured out how to extract good sums of money from tourists they can now thumb their noses at the big city dwellers and purchase their own satellite dishes.

We took a short walk around to do some birding. This village was downright prosperous what with the electric lines running to some houses and birders paying on a regular basis for the privilege of looking through their swamps.

After lunch, we had a leisurely ride back down the river. Fred scanned the tree tops for birds and I pondered whether the word exdigenous could be used to describe the Embera tribe if they moved to Austin.

My shopping complete, the next few days were spent leisurely birding the roads around the Canopy Camp.

Leisurely means something quite different to a focused birder. For example, this little brown jobber required some muddy slip sliding down an embankment and a thorny climb back up but hey, mission accomplished as George Bush would say

A word here about ants. In particular, leaf cutter ants. I love them and I could watch them for hours they are my favorite kind of ant, vegetarian. Unlike army ants which are evil incarnate and will bite the living daylights out of you and try their damndest to carry you back home as a delicious, fleshy feast. I'm happy to watch them from a distance as they eat every living thing in their path but if even one attaches its pincers to my shin I will howl and flail like I'm involved in a drunken tribal ritual.

But just look how sweet and industrious these leaf cutters are:

The last couple days we drove around in an open topped vehicle waving and smiling at the locals who either waved back, ignored us or gave us a look like they just sipped expired milk.

This guy had roosters tied to a clothes line, I don't think it was to prevent them from falling

This woman was nice enough to tell us we had just missed seeing a harpy eagle 5 days ago

I kinda wanted to chase the guy on the left down so I could buy that basket

The oh-so-helpful Chinese have cleared large swaths of forest to make bird spotting easier

Our last stop on the way from the Darien back to Panama City was on a private reserve, Nusagande. This trail to see a sapayoa, a rarely sighted bird turned out to be less a leisurely walk in the woods and more of a wallow in the mud. The guy who owns the land was kind enough to use his machete to hack us out a few walking sticks. Afterwards, our guide wrangled us a cold shower at that nature reserve in the previous picture. Good thing, otherwise there would have been some unhappy airline stewardesses on our 1:45 a.m. flight back home.

But wait you say, this was a birding trip. Where are all the bird photos? Oh, that. Ok, ok since you asked nicely here they all are: