Egret Greeters at Palacio Presidential in Panama

Resident of the Presidential Palace

A couple of pet egrets mill around the Palace's courtyard entrance, seeming to stand guard at Panama's equivalent to the White House. The Presidential Palace in Panama City is prominently poised on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The elegantly white 17th century building is just at the entrance to the Casco Viejo, the historic district, just where the shoreline curves away from Panama's explosively edgy skyscrapered section. In order to see the birds (and the courtyard, for that matter), you need to smile and ask the guards to let you walk past the security barriers for a glimpse of the birds. Or, tours can be arranged in advance.

Courtyard of the 17th Century Moorish Palacio Presidential in Panama City

Panama Publics: Too Cool for School

Public Bus in Panama City: Very Cool Recycled School Bus

The public buses on the streets of Panama City are recycled school buses which used to chug along suburban streets in the United States some thirty years ago. Plain yellow has been traded up for brilliantly multicolored designs of birds, flowers, sexy women, Carlos’s name…whatever…  The city is phasing them out, slowly replacing the old school rattlers with sleek air conditioned coaches with sun-glazed windows.  In the meantime, the city buses are shots of brightness, sometimes even trimmed with flashing disco lights at night. 

Carlos

Lady on the Hood

Words on the Window

... and I wish I had gotten a photo at night, when purple flashing lights pulsate the perimeters

Tree Tomato Treat

Tree Tomato Sliced by Farmer in the Boquete Market, Chiriqui Province

In the farmer’s market in Boquete, in the Chiriqui province of Panama, I tasted my first tree tomato.  Yes, it is a tomato that grows on a tree. And no, it hardly tastes like a tomato. It’s more like a sweet fruit. You don’t eat the peel; you slurp the juicy pulp out of the skin.  Tree tomatoes have just recently been introduced to Panama from Columbia. 

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamarillo

Sweet Tomato Meat

Gated Communities are Eating Panamanian Coffee

I toured the Café Ruiz coffee plantation in Boquete, in the Chiriqui province of Panama.  The three-hour tour promises so much information about coffee growing and the coffee business that when you will finish, you will come away with a PhD in coffee.  Just about.  It’s a very informative tour of the fields, the sorting, drying and packaging areas and everything in between.  Panamanian coffee is highly regarded for its high quality and superb taste developed from growing in the cloud forest. Coffee plants love the climate in the cloud forest around Boquete. Unfortunately, so do retirees from the United States, who are buying up coffee plantations as land developers offer a relative fortune to the generations-old businesses.  Irresistibly tempted by the prospects of a cash windfall that dwarfs potential revenues from the coffee businesses, the farm owners sell their lands to housing builders.  Café Ruiz is a holdout, but its customer base shrinks, as the coffee production from nearby farms needing processing gives way to gated communities populated with retirees from North America. Our coffee education from Café Ruiz didn’t sugar-coat the reality of what Boquete’s popularity as a tourist destination means for the coffee business. However, Panama’s well-earned reputation for outstanding coffee means that its boutique status is growing even more rarified. 

Coffee Beans, Farms Slowly Giving Way to Gated Communities

Coffee Beans Drying in the Sun

Chacara Shoulder Bag - A Panama Must-Have

Chacara Bag worn by Ngobe Bugle (say "no bee BOO glay") Man in the
Chiriqui Province of Western Panama, Near the Costa Rica Border

The mountains of western Panama near the Costa Rica border are peppered with farms, growing coffee, onions, potatoes...just about all being harvested by hand.  The town of Cerro Punta is tucked in the mountains framed by hillside farms and twisty switchback roads.
The migrant farm workers in that area are indigenous people called Ngobe Bugle (say "no bee BOO glay"). They are nomadic, following the crop-harvesting opportunity. You see the women wearing bright colored dresses, walking along the roads or waiting for the bus. The men work the fields. Or, in the case of my Chacara bag, they sell hand-made goods along the roadside. The vendor is wearing the bag I bought from him.  Chacara bags are woven from fibers of wild pineapple plants. Deceptively flimsy looking, the bags are used to haul heavy loads - crops, school books, even babies.  The bags ball up into a lightweight nothing and are as industrial strength as luggage.

Buffy Tufted Cheek in the Panamanian Cloud Forest

Buffy Tufted Cheek

I went on a bird walk through the La Amistad International Park, a cloud forest in western Panama, very close to the Costa Rican border. In fact, most of the park is located in Costa Rica. We walked in the morning with a fantastic local guide named "Chollie". We met up with Chollie in the little town of Cerro Punta, Panama, where he has lived all his life. Chollie was decked out in camouflage clothes and lugged a tripod and optical equipment that looked like he could double as a sniper. We set off up a stony trail, into the cloud forest. He stopped frequently to point out interesting plants (warning about the poisonous ones to avoid touching), all the while keeping his eyes and ears open for birds.  We had hoped to see a Resplendent Quetzal, the region's signature beautiful multicolored bird with an extraordinarily long tail, but Chollie chortled that it was much too late in the day. He pointed out a rotten tree trunk where some Quetzals live, but apparently our leisurely breakfast meant we missed the Quetzals, who retreat into their tree homes just after dawn. However, Chollie spied a Buffy Tufted Cheek - and it was just as much fun to see the bird as it was to see how excited he was to find it. Apparently, this particular Buffy Tufted Cheek guy was unusually puffy and unusually buff. 

Very Serious Birding Equipment

Umbrella Plant - So tough and big, it could be called "Golf Umbrella Plant"

Where Quetzals Live, and you can see them - maybe - if you go looking in the early morning