we stank when we arrived in Panama, like wee, and we are still telling ourselves it is dog wee and not human. While filling out forms at the border we put our bags down, and it must have been in a puddle. gross. Every bus we then got on we got some very nasty looks, smelly backpackers they were all thinking!
We headed to Boquete, a small mountain town in Panama which has recently seen a massive influx of retirees, mostly from the US and Canada. It is a beautiful little town, a river running through the middle and lots of Indians wandering around in their traditional dress. We moved into the nicest hostel we have stayed in for a while, Hostel Boquete run by an friendly American family, and after one night we scored a cool little river front room with a balcony overlooking the mountains and river. A couple of days were spent being lazy, walking through town, making use of the well equipped kitchen and cheap cheap food - a nice change after the expensive of Costa Rica for basic ingredients! Made friends with a guy from NZ who was in Boquete recovering after being badly beaten up on the island of Bocas del Toro. He had his cheek bones smashed in, broken nose etc. Not good. We kept him company for a few days and he mentioned to us a animal rescue and rehab centre that was a must do, so the next day we walked up the big steep hill to check out Paradise Gardens.
Paradise is the perfect word to describe this place. Owned by a British couple of immigrated to Panama 3 years ago, the gardens were started basically by accident. Paul and Jenny bred birds in the UK, and with them to Panama came a number of macaws, cockatoos and so on. Once they built the enclosures for their birds, local people started bringing them injured wildlife - and from here Paradise Gardens as it is today has grown, totally by accident. And for people that moved to Panama to retire, I barely saw them sit still the entire 2 weeks we were with them! An incredible couple.
We met Jenny and she introduced us to Els, a Belgium girl who would take us on our tour. She nailed it with us, and we fell in love with the whole notion of Paradise Gardens - rescue, rehab and, those that can be, release. We asked if we could help and it turned out we were to spend the next two weeks taking tours and making friends with Paul, Jenny, their daughter Neimis and Katie, a scot staying with Paul and Jenny while studying howler monkeys, as well as countless other local volunteers.
THE ANIMALS -
Howler Monkey - Masie. We first met Masie, an 18 month old howler monkey who had been raised by Paul and Jenny and then released into a sanctuary owned by their friend Steve. A wild dog had recently attacked her and she was back recovering when we arrived. She is a beautiful animal, pretty and with a gentle nature and we straight away fell in love, she loved Kim as she likes riding on the shoulders of tall people and spent many tours holding onto one of us! Over the coming days and weeks she discovered we were good for different things, kim for some playtime and me for a warm spot to nap, as she took to climbing down my tshirt for a nap after lunch when the rain came! Masie was released the day before we left Paradise Gardens and on our final day Paul and Jenny took us to visit her in the jungle, she came down to say hello and was straight down my shirt for a cuddle!! Was lovely to see her back where she belonged, and in the company of Yahoo who was another orphaned howler found at the same time as Masie and released with her in the beginning.
Capuchin Monkeys - Monty and Billy. These guys are very tiny, agile and cute and so so smart, just like humans with their hands, nails and gestures and so on. Being allowed in to play with these two was what clinched the deal for us to stay at Paradise Gardens I think. They would climb on us, help us find them worms and treats etc. They were both very curious and masters at grooming, sitting on your shoulder and checking your hair for ticks and so on. Kim was lucky as they took a particular shine to him and he spent an hour or so with them each day, playing with them and being a bit of a monkey himself. I was not so lucky, as with Monty coming into maturity he had a bit of a thing against girls, and would pull my hair and give me little bites and get generally overexcited, which wasn´t healthy for them so I didn´t go in with them much after the first few days. Had a couple more cuddles but had to gauge their mood carefully before I visited!
Geoffreys Tamarins - The Tamarin Monkeys were insane. Like little creatures from star wars and with a big fat boss keeping everyone in check. We never went in the main cage, knowing we would be eaten alive! but there was one tame monkey that loved to cuddle, she was kept up on the porch and we had a few cuddles with her!
There was a big bird house with lots of beautiful flowers, and plenty of bright coloured birds, including humming birds, all native to Panama.
Hyacinth Macaws - bred by Paul and Jenny in England these two live to be 120 years old and are worth a lot of money, somewhere in the order of $45,000. They are hugely endangered and those bred in captivity need a passport to travel with, to prove they haven´t been taken from the wild. Hopefully these guys will breed together, but they are only 7 and 11 at the moment and if I was them I would put off having children until they are at least 80, dad, can you imagine putting up with kids for 100 plus years!!!! There were 3 hyacinth macaws at Paradise Gardens, one boarding and she was tame enough to have on your shoulder but knowing they have the strongest beak in the bird world was slightly scary! I like my fingers!
Scarlet Macaws & Green Winged Macaws - bright, beautiful, majestic, loud and colourful. These guys are also highly endangered and while the Green Winged Macaws were bred by Paul and Jenny, the scarlet are native to Panama but sadly there are basically none left except on some of the islands, and they 7 at PG will never be released because if they were, people would catch them and sell them as pets. The selling wild animals is a big problem in Panama, and many of the residents of PG have been rescued from such situations. Hoping natural selection will work and these guys will pair off and breed. You ´can´t actually tell the difference between male and females without a DNA test.
Margay Cat (basically looks like a leopard) - Lottie and the kittens. Lottie was taken from the jungle as a kitten, and kept by a local family as a pet. When she got to big and scary to play with the kids anymore she was put in a tiny cage and kept in the back of a shed and it was ten months before Paul and Jenny found her. She is a majestic animal and so so beautiful but can never be released because she wouldn´t know how to survive in the wild. Paul has diverted a stream to run through her cage and she gets little fish to catch sometimes and also baby chickens. Any bird that gets in, does not get out. She is friendly, but only Paul can go in with her because she is just so strong and playful, yet it could be a very dangerous game for humans. Two kittens, both 3 months old, were also at the gardens and kept together where they slept most of the day, but came out at night and while they are only still the size of a domestic cat, they are vey strong and still very wild. It is hoped they can be released in the future so they will not have much human interaction as they need to stay wild and learn how to hunt, again, with baby chicks to start with.
Red Backed Squirrel Monkey - Benji. the adhd monkey! He greets guests and dosen´t take long to find his way into pockets, the master pick pocket that he is! very tiny, energetic and great to watch, especially when he and masie where playing. As Benji is kept on a long rope that runs on a pully system he had fairly free range of the front garden, but Masie would hang from his run and pull him up her, poor beji would just get lifted up and would then have to wrestle Masie to regain control of himself! very cute to watch.
Kinkajues - Fozzy, Sumi and Nikki. They have a head like a teddy bear, a body like a possum and a tail like a monkey. They come out only at night and are so so cuddly. Very friendly and we were lucky to stay at PG one night after dark and go and play with them.
Toucans - Bonnie and Clyde - resuced from the roadside and to be released as soon as their adult feathers grow in.
So many other animals, turtles, many birds including cockatoos, parrots, and so it. We feel so blessed tohave stumbled into Paradise Gardens, it isn´t yet in any of the guide books (but a lonely planet photographer did show up while we were there and loved the place!) Paul and jenny were so kind to us, as where the people at Boquete Hostel, and we made tons of friends and will hopefully see some of them at home in the future!
Lize had a girls night out one night, waaay to much tequila was drank and we were all very sick the next day and put to bed by Jenny, an ex-nurse, but it was an absolute blast to gossip with girls again! But otherwise we stayed in, fairly exhausted from working all day!
To thank us Paul and Jenny drove us to our next destination, Boca Chica where we would cross onto the island of Boca Brava. We stopped into pick up Katie and visit Masie at the sanctuary, and headed to Boca Chica, stopping by to see a American couple who are friends of Paul and Jenny.
Sam and Fred moved to Panama a year ago and have built themselves a piece of paradise. Their home is mostly open plan and looks over the entire valley below them, and out to the mangroves, across to David, and takes in the islands in the sea. They have a jetty with hammocks that pokes out over the valley and the living area, kitchen and dining is all in one big open room which soaks up the view. It is full of interesting things collected during their lives and has much character. We enjoyed a pasta lunch whipped up by Sam and she and Fred generously offered to have us stay the night in their converted shipping container, which had air con and surround sound TV.
After lunch Kim and I headed over to Boca Brava for a couple of hours, a basically deserted island of the coast. We walked through the jungle, finding a troop of howler monkeys on the way and then a deserted beach at which we took a swim in complete isolation, luckily, because we forgot our bathers! Afterwards we walked back to the place we had landed and enjoyed a beer, watched the sun set and had a fish dinner before jumping back in the little boat to be taken back to the mainland where we were met by Sam and Fred. We were settled in with a couple of movies and some popcorn, a real treat to watch a movie in bed before a great night sleep was had by both of us.
The next day we had breakfast with Sam and Fred, soaking up their view one last time and then grabbed a lift with them to David where we caught the bus to Panama City.
Scary is one word to describe this place and interesting is another - Panama City is a bit of a mixture. There are so many slums here and people clearly living in absolute poverty and then there are huge high rises being built and amazing shopping centres.
We are staying in the dodgy area, seems that the high rise buildings are a little out of our prices range. we don´t go out after dark but are generally having a good time here. We have been to the Panama Canal and enjoyed seeing the ships go through, was pretty scary to discover it costs in the order of 80,000 for each ship to pass and they have between 32 and 36 through each day, now I see where this wealthy side is coming from, especially as Panama only regained control of the canal from the US in December 99.
We also visted the old town of Casco Viejo, where the richest lived in the late 1800 and early 1900. It is stunning area and gradually being restored so you can see just how grand it once was.
We have spent the last day in Panama in the giant shopping centre where we have FINALLY been able to upload some pics to facebook, still no love on the journal sadly but email me for the link if you would like to see and you don´t have facebook.
We leave for Peru tomorrow, the final leg on our Coast 2 Coast adventure.
