This past week has been a blur of one new passport stamp, a 4-hour border crossing, two indigenous territories, countless boat rides down the river, and five nights in different places.
First, we left Las Cruces and headed to the border. This was a loonnng wait, and really brought into focus the difference between the US and developing countries. After hours of waiting in a congested line, smelling bus fumes and urine from a steaming puddle in the ground, we doubled back, had some men poke our bags for a couple seconds, and headed across the border with no proof that we had our bags searched and seemingly nothing stopping us from having walked across the street four hours ago. The way back into Costa Rica took fifteen minutes.
Here was the sign taunting us as we sat in line
The first night, we had lunch, lost yet another hour to the time difference, had dinner, sterilized some water, and pretty much called it a night. We woke up the next day to head to Wekso, a territory of the Naso people. The only way to get to this territory is by riding in a motorized canoe for an hour upstream. This was definitely one of those days when I looked around and it hit me how much I was not in Boston anymore.
Panama, the cheaper and warmer cousin of Costa Rica, is so beautiful! I will never ever get tired of looking at the various shades of blue-green in the mountains. The boat rides were so fun - I was waiting for the water flume drop to come. Before we reached our destination sometimes we would pick up a couple kids waiting for a ride to school, or people trying to get to the other side of the river. The whole community is centered on this boat transportation. In their native language, the Naso call the river their grandmother.
When we arrived at the territory, we got the spiel about how this Avatar-esque scenario is going on, and a hydroelectric dam is being built on the river. It's going to disturb their river transportation, as well as the flora and fauna that rely on the river for their ecosystem needs. It's tough, because after hearing the praises of hydroelectricity sung for so long, now it's the villain here. So even after eschewing fossil fuels there's still valuable livelihoods and ecosystems being destroyed. The Naso people are definitely very active in speaking out against this, but the government still hasn't acknowledged their land as an indigenous territory, so its a losing battle.
We stayed under mosquito nets for the first time in the Pana-Jungla camp. This was basically a camp for elite Panamanian jungle soldiers, until the military was disbanded. However, Panama didn't completely let go like Costa Rica and still has the "military police" which is basically the military with less funding.
We had electricity from a generator every night, but showers were in the ever-helpful river.
Tamales for lunch! We didn't make them this time but we had nice portable ones wrapped in banana leaves to bring on our hike to the neighboring Naso community of Sey Kiem. We of course took boats over there.
At Sey Kiem, we learned a whole lot about medicinal plants. We've been spotting plants on our nature hikes a lot and talking about what they are used for, but these garden walks were all about the uses for headaches, fever, diarrhea, and even soap.
Afterwards, we got to watch some traditional dances, and partake in one.
We even got facepaint with another plant that produces orange dyes. Clearly this day is brought to you by plants.
In case you were worried, we are not done with boat rides. It was a hop, skip, and a short bus ride the next day to our water taxi to Bocas del Toro, which skimmed across the water.
Our first night was spent listening to the constant beat of the island, checking out the Bocas nightlife, and watching masquerading demons in the streets (more on that below). There was no attempt to disguise our trip as anything but having fun - no cultural activities, just the most free time we've had all semester.
The next morning, finally, we got to the clear waters of the Caribbean that I have been waiting for. Sadly, there were no hermit crabs to be found on the beach (I am still on the look out for these huge crab vacancy chains!), but there were some wonderful echinoderms. Starfish beach lived up to its name -- the waters were full of giant, majestic sea stars.
Here's a view from our walk to Starfish beach. It was cloudy in the morning but miraculously it turned into a gorgeous day
Carnaval itself was milder than I expected, but still exciting. I feel like New Orleans would be more crazy (the way our professors were hyping it up it sounded like we wouldn't make it back alive here) but the week long celebration here has such a fun, chill atmosphere, and a whole lot of wild costumes. During the day, the
mojaderas would spray water to the crowd, and everyone was walking around soaked.
The streets were rife with reggae music and dancing demons. These aren't the same kind of
diablitos that we saw in Boruca: these are giant costumes of demons waving around whips and slapping people in the crowd who provoke them. It must be some kind of show of bravado (or too many drinks) to start yelling at them, because the whips look like they HURT, but yes, some people were actually dancing with the devils.
For the rest of day we looked around the shops, found a used bookstore with Harry Potter in four different languages, and soaked in the constant dancing and music. I also got a compliment on my dress (above) from a Rasta man - not bad for finding it in the used clothes pile at Jumbo Drop.
Tomorrow I'll post about our trip to the BriBri territory and the chocolate factory! Right now we're in La Selva, the research station in the middle of the rainforest, and we've gone from almost a mile above sea level to 60 meters. It's damp and humid, but full of animals that we may or may not get to see because we have to study for midterms on Saturday and submit a research proposal. I did hear howler monkeys lurking around this morning, though.
Rasta luego!
Anya
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