Panama Birding

26 Monday Mar 2012

For those of you following both my blogs this is also posted at the Accidental Birder blog. For those of you only following this blog this will update you on our day yesterday in Certo Punta. Enjoy!

The Accidental Birder

It was a big day of birding today. We had breakfast at 6:30 then met our guide, Ito, and headed just up the road past where we are staying to the cabins, also owned by Los Quetzales Lodge. We took Ito’s truck since our little Hyundai SUV hybrid couldn’t make it on the treacherous road going up the mountain.

I have to say this was probably the worst road I’d ever been on. Ito took it very slowly and thank goodness he did. I thought we just might not make it out of there in one piece. It was a rocky ride both up and down.

Would love to give more details and be able to edit and post some more photos but we have a 5:30 start in the morning and I’m going to have to call it an early night.

Buenos noches everyone.
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Journey from Bocas del Toro to Changuinola, Panama

23 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by Ms. Boice in Trips

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Almarante, bird watching, birding, birds, blogging, Bocas del Toro, Bocas Water Sports, Changuinola, David City, journal, Los Quetzales Lodge, Panama, Playa Tortuga, reynauds, scleroderma, scuba diving, taxi, travel, writing PADI

I’m writing this post on a very hard bed in a $30/night “hotel” in the town of Changuinola, Panama. If you’ve ever eaten a Chiquita banana it likely came from Changuinola.

Those of you who know me well know that #1 I would never be at a $30/night hotel, and #2 if I were, I likely would not admit it. Let me explain how we got here.

We were supposed to check out of our hotel at Bocas del Toro tomorrow, but realized that we should probably get to Changuinola earlier so we could pick up our car to drive the 4-5 hour journey to our next stop at Los Quetzales Lodge in Guadalupe, near the Boquette volcano area to begin the birding portion of our Panama adventure. Turns out, no matter how much research one does ahead of time, you really don’t know how things really work until you get there. After a couple of days on the island and with a little bit of intel from locals we figured we should get to Changuinola a day earlier to get our car and make the drive through the mountains so we didn’t have to search for the Lodge in the dark.

Just after checking out of Playa Tortuga–our Bocas accommodations–it began to rain. No, correct that–it was a downpour.

I almost aborted our dive plans today because of the rain. No, I’m not chicken. It’s just that I get easily chilled on the boat when I can’t get dry. (Blame the whole scleroderma / reynaud’s thing I’ve got going on.) But I’m glad I did the dives anyway. It was warm in the water and Panama–Bocas del Toro in particular–is a great place for beginner divers, which I still consider myself. (I only had 30 dives under my belt when I arrived. Now I have 36!)

The water here is calm and tranquil. I took advantage of that and practiced putting on my BCD in the water rather than strapping it and the tank onto me in the boat. I actually like the backward roll off a boat, but I hate standing with that tank and BCD. Not sure I could to the BCD thing in the water at othr places. Sometimes the water is just a little too rocky for me. But in Panama it was nice.

Visibility in the water is not spectacular. It’s no Belize or Cozumel, that’s for sure, but I saw some new species, including loads of star fish, trumpet fish and squid.

The other good thing about diving in Bocas is that it’s so economical. We paid only $54 pp for a two-tank dive. Plus, the boats are smaller, which means fewer people/divers in your group. The attention you get is so much more personal. We dove all three days with Bocas Water Sports. Loved them! They’re a PADI operation and the owner, John, from the States, is a hoot.

We had lunch at Under the Palm Restaurant after our dives. If you’re ever at Bocas del Toro I highly recommend it.

It was away from Hostel Row and the food was pretty darn good and it was quiet. It also has the most awesome bathroom in town with really soft, Charmin-like toilet paper.

Following lunch we made our way to the water taxi to get back to the mainland. Water taxis are pretty cheap–only $5 pp. I was a little worried that our luggage at the very back was going to fly off at any moment. Not sure it was strapped down. Wondered what I would do if it did end up in the ocean. Trying not to worry, I turned my attention to the mangroves and the occasional motorized canoe going by. (At one point, I spotted a little family of three in their canoe. Mom was in the front paddling and older brother in the back paddling while little sister was in the middle with a little white bucket bailing out water. Not a good sign.)

As soon as the water taxi arrived at Almarante we were met by three very enterprising young men, about 16 years or so who asked us if we needed a taxi and as soon as we said yes, each grabbed one of our bags and started walking. “We’ll get you a taxi,” one of them said.

We obediently followed the three on a gravel road for about five yards, then one of the young men hollered to a yellow taxi, which was about 30 yards away and about to go another direction, but he backed up and then drove toward us. Like little worker bees, the young men dumped our luggage in the trunk of the car and I gave then each a $1 tip for their help. Quite the little operation they got going there.

Off we go! It was to be about a 40 minute drive to Changuinola and only costs $20 by taxi. Bargain. Except as soon as I got in, I noticed no seat belts. I was hoping that we didn’t need them, but this wasn’t my first time as a passenger in a Panamanian taxi. Hence my nerves. The drive was hilly and thank goodness the road was good, even if the drivers weren’t. For awhile there I thought I was living the real life version of my favorite app game, “Tiny Wings,” and resisted the temptation to yell out, “Wa Hoooooooo!”

At one point, it began to rain pretty seriously and so our driver pulled over and reached into his glove compartment to pull out a wrench. “Holy cow,” I thought. He’s going to kill us Clue style or the car is dead. Just roll with it.”

Glad I rolled. Turns out the only way to get the windows up was by wrench. He opened my door and where there was no handle crank to roll up the window he used the wrench to turn the little piece of protruding metal so the window would go up. “Automatic windows!” he exclaimed.

Ha Ha! His car might be a piece of crap, but he’s got a sense of humor about it. I should too. (Though I have to tell you that as we descended from every hill I was praying they guy’s brakes were working.)

He made his way around the car and did the same for Steve’s window. Okay, so now it will be warm in the car (no air conditioning, natch), but hey, the guy made sure we didn’t get wet. He deserves a good tip!

Our driver did get us to our hotel in Changuinola safely and I did give him a good tip. We chose the hotel because it was where the Avis rental car company is. We would stay the night here and then leave first thing in the morning with our car for our long drive to Los Quetzales Lodge.

Turns out, Avis, in spite of my initial confirmation upon booking several weeks ago and second confirmation from them via email just 3 days ago, there is no car. There’s an Avis representative, but he has no cars. (What the what?)

SO glad we left Bocas to get here a day earlier. Otherwise, we’d be in a world of hurt. Turns out, there’s a bus that goes to David City, where there’s an airport and it’s just outside of where our next accommodations are, so the agent here (who clearly has nothing else to do since he has no cars) called David City Avis and got us a car booked. Well, fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, I’m sitting on a very hard bed (it seems to be a foam mattress on plywood) writing as our scuba gear and swimsuits dry out–we have it all hanging around the room, so we look very third-world ourselves and Steve is sleeping/snoring while I type and eat a package of Chips Ahoy cookies. The air conditioner is so loud that it’s actually drowning out Steve’s snoring and I can’t help but be amused by the wall art in our room.

Why a $30 hotel? Folks, it’s truly the best place in town. We had no choice and remember, we’re not in Panama City. Changuinola is still pretty third-world. Maybe second-world at best. All I care about right now is that we got here in one piece, we have a place to sleep, we have transportation via bus to David City and we have a rental car waiting for us there. I do know that Los Quetzales lodge has a spa. I’m so booking a massage once I get there.

Now time to watch “Hillbilly Handfishin'” in Espanol on the telly (“Pescadores Lunes!”) Seems to be all that’s on. I’m just rollin’ with it.

Hello Panama!

22 Thursday Mar 2012

Posted by Ms. Boice in Trips

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Amador Causeway, blogging, Bocas del Toro, iPad, Isla Colon, LDS Temple, Mormon, Panama, Panama Canal, San Felipe, scuba diving, travel, writing

I love Panama! Let’s move here!

Steve says that I say that for most every place we visit. I wanted to move to Cozumel, Mexico. And then I said that for Belize. Also said it for the Okanagan Valley in BC. But this time I mean it! Retiring here is very awesome for those who want a very cosmopolitan city, warm weather, inexpensive living and, well, loads of birds. We like the birds, natch.

Here’s the view from our hotel in Panama City

Our first day we hired a man for a tour of Panama City. Fernando first took us to see the famous canal and gave a good oral history along the way in his comfortable air conditioned Montera SUV.

We heard that the LDS Temple was nearby so we asked Fernando to take us there. In fact, it’s really close to the canal locks, so it wasn’t too far and Fernando had heard of it.

Our next stop was the Amador Causeway–a playground for multi millionaires. That is, there are loads of yachts parked, some four star restaurants and spectacular views of the city. We took a few photos and had some pretty awesome gelato before we hopped back into Fernando’s air conditioned car to escape the humidity. (Hey, it’s tough when you had just left a big snow storm the day before.)

Next, Fernando took us to San Felipe, the old Spanish Colonial city of Panama, which was built in the 1500s. We basically just drove through, as traffic was crazy. It’s undergoing a bit of an upgrade with a lot of renovating going on. As Fernando put it, “first it was the wealthy who lived here, them the middle class and then the poor. Now they want the poor to move out and they’re making it better for the rich.”

I guess they’re going full circle.

Next poor Fernando fought through lunchtime, traffic to drop us off at the Allbrook airport where we would catch our AirPanama flight to Bocas del Toro.

That flight to Bocas del Toro was a bit of a curiosity. We landed on the mainland and we were supposed to be going to Isla Colon. For a minute I thought we had gotten on the wrong plane. But they then assured us that this was just a stop where a few passengers got off and then a few got on. And then up in the air we went again for an 8 minute flight to the island. Crazy.

Bocas del Toro reminds me a little bit of Ambergis Caye in Belize, but with fewer great restaurants and fewer nice hotels. A van took us to our lodging further away from the main town. It’s actually quite nice, as the lodging around the main town seems like its 80% hostels.

This morning I had one of my “impatient traveler” moments when there wasn’t any scrambled eggs in sight at the breakfast buffet. I have to remind myself that this isn’t the Marriott. This is Latin America and really a third world country when you’ve left Panama City. Things don’t roll they same way they do, say, in Hawaii.

So, I allowed myself to scowl for 30 minutes And then cheered up once we caught our taxi to town I search of a dive company.

Okay, here’s a hilarious thing about Panama: your cab you call isn’t just your cab. He can pick up other passengers who put out their hand. That happened to us twice today.

After our two-tank dive (only $56 for a two-tank dive!) we grabbed a snack and caught our cab (and other passengers) back to our hotel where we hung out at the pool for awhile. We eventually lingered back to our room, showered and then headed to dinner at a little grill over the water. Burgers, ceviche with plantain chips and a Coca-Cola Light for me.

Speaking of, it’s now lights out. I’m tired.

I typically blog on this site once a week. While in Panama you may see more frequent updates. Oh, and bear with me. I didn't bring my laptop and instead I'm using my iPad. It goes a little slower this way. Plus there will be typos, which no doubt you have noticed.

Topping the Hair

18 Sunday Mar 2012

Posted by Ms. Boice in Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

bandanas, hair, hats, Helen Kamiski, travel

That headline is really just trying to be punny.

The post about my hair seemed to get everyone into a tither. But I warn you: It’s tough to top that one.

Speaking of topping, because I’ve struggled with my hair, I turned to hats. And bandanas. Anything to remove hair out of the picture, and out of my face.

I’ve always had a fascination with hats. My earliest memory of hats is this awful picture from my fifth birthday.

Mom says she made these “hats” by following instructions out of a magazine. I’m suspect about what magazine she was consulting. I showed this photo to a friend a number of years ago and she asked, “Why are you wearing your underwear on your head?” (sigh) I didn’t know any different. It was a “hat,” I was having a party, and I thought it was normal. (My mom and I have laughed about it since and I promised her I wouldn’t write a book ala “Mommy Dearest,” in exchange for her to never attempt at making me a party hat again. I loved that tambourine, though.)

In high school I enrolled in a marketing class and one of our projects was to create a “store” in a mall and we had to create a marketing plan. My store was a hat store. Of course I did no market research that would have told me no one was buying hats in 1982. Unless you were Devo, of course.

My most expensive hat is this Helen Kaminski hat given to me as a thank-you gift after being a keynote speaker at a previous employer’s Worldwide Sales Meeting circa 1998. I’m so fond of this hat and still keep it in its box and bring it out for special occasions.

This next hat I actually made for one of the Gatsby Summer Afternoon events I attended in San Francisco Bay Area. I regularly attended this event sponsored by the San Francisco Art Deco Society. While making it I was trying to stretch it and didn’t realize it really is one ribbon all sewn together and it fell apart in my hands. I frantically sewed it all back together and you would never know by this picture it was previously in shreds. I’m so proud of this hat.

I don’t know about this next hat. I think I found myself without my hat at Bryce Canyon National Park and so I got this at the gift shop. I look like a dork. Totally doesn’t fit over all my hair.

And to shield the sun when birding, here are my adventure hats. Okay, just a regular hat I got at REI and a baseball cap.

At Lake Louise, Banff

At Waterton Lake National Park in Alberta

At Tikal in Guatemala

This next hat is my go-to winter weather hat. Thank you Lands End for making the perfect polar fleece hat!

At Grand Canyon in December

San Francisco

Just outside Calgary, Alberta

At Zion National Park only hours before I broke my leg. Little did I know what was about to happen.

Here’s another favorite hat. I bought this at a little shop in Carmel, California. It’s velvet and I always get compliments on it.

When traveling I always take a stack of bandanas too. I learned early on, especially when visiting tropical humid climates, it’s better to not have to worry about the hair. They are a complete lifesaver.

Believe it or not, this is the photo we slipped in with our wedding invitations. I was told I was brave. I just didn't want a "posed" photo with matching outfits. We were having so much fun here.

We’re leaving for Panama very soon. Look forward to lots and lots of pictures with me in bandanas. It’s how I roll these days.

Most Outstanding Achievement in Hair Over Four Decades award goes to me

04 Sunday Mar 2012

Posted by Ms. Boice in Uncategorized

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

1980s hair, beauty, botox treatment, brazilian blowout, curly hair, dark curly hair, different hairstyles, fashion, hair, humor, marcia brady, musings, pat nixon, Seiren salon, straight hair, style

Hair.

It’s troubled me since I was a child. I’ve always envied lovely, beautiful, trouble-free hair beginning with my mom’s fight with my hair every morning before kindergarten as she vigorously brushed through my “rat’s nest” (her words), to my youthful longing to have Marcia Brady hair, followed by the desire for Dorothy Hamill hair to the coveting of the crème de la crème of all hair–Farrah Fawcett.

Growing up, no one had dark curly hair unless they were on Soul Train.

Still to this day, my hair troubles me. So, last week I chopped off my hair. I went from this:

To this:

I got lots of interesting reactions from the change. Most people exclaimed, “I love it!” Then there were those who said, “Don’t take this wrong, but it’s really slimming.” I’m okay with that, I think. (Wait, are you calling me fat?) It’s better than the opposite, I suppose. The most interesting reaction was when someone came into my office, closed the door and said in a delicate, quiet voice, “Your hair looks great. Is everything okay?”

I laughed and assured her, “Oh for Pete’s sake. No. I’m not going through a divorce,” because that’s what brooding, downtrodden women do when breaking up. I continued, “Steve and I are still madly in love, though he’s out of town and hasn’t seen this yet.”

(I imagined this for the husband airport pickup: Stand next to all the limo drivers who hold signs for their passengers and I’d have my own sign with “Don’t worry sweetie, it will grow back.“)

So, as I was looking through my iPhoto catalogue I noticed that I’d been through a lot of different hairstyles over the years and felt some were deserving of awards. Here I present the Most Outstanding Achievement in Hair Over Four Decades awards (cue drum roll):

Best Pat Nixon Look at Age 3
What a perfectly coiffed three-year-old!
Most Outstanding Skin Smoothing Technique
In order to make sure that my hair stayed in place all day, my mom put me in ponytails that were so tight, I would never have to face a Botox treatment later in life.

The Best Achievement in Layers
Layering the hair certainly helped with the rat’s nest issue,
but it mostly just helped me achieve frizzy hair faster.
(Sorry about the tiny photo. This was my Senior photo from my high school yearbook.)
The “Why Am I Not Dating? Award” goes to…
Just days before I went away to college I chopped off my hair. Bad call.
This hair explains why I didn’t date at all my Freshman year.
That and the unfortunate argyle sweater I’m wearing in this photo.

Best Big Hair Ev-uh!
Thank goodness for big hair girl bands. (Heart! You girls are my heroes!) And shoulder pads. Frankly, the whole 80s! And guess what, I didn’t have to tease my hair to get it to be big and poofy. It just did it all by itself. I went from growing up envying others to having girls envy me! This photo is from my Senior year in college.
As you can see, I let it grow out since my Freshman year.

Best Use of a Barrette Award
The barrette became my best friend. I pretty much had this same hairstyle during all of my 20s, once I moved to California. It was easy peasy to take care of.
Shampoo, run gobs of product through hair with fingers, put in barrette and
go out the door. I didn’t even own a hair dryer.
(And no, going outside with wet hair does not give you a cold.)
Most Likely To Succeed Award
This is my “professional” ‘do that I started sporting once I decided to get serious about my career in my 30s. This photo is a little deceptive. It looks a little bit coiffed, but it’s not. I still maintained my same ritual as above–shampoo, run fingers through with product
and out the door. Still no hair dryer needed.

Best Achievement in Luring a Man
This is me in Scotland. I had just met the man who would two years later be my husband. If ever there was a time that I needed the best hair on the planet this was the time and it certainly delivered. Look at how perfectly those curls rest on my head!
Oh shame to have scorned them when I was younger.
Steve (the man) kept referring to them as springs. (sigh)

Your Hair Is Taking Over the Planet award
This, my friends, is my biggest nightmare.
After I met Steve, we dated long distance for two years, visiting each other in five different countries during that time. This was in Calgary, AB the day after a big snow storm. But the day was warm and the snow melted/evaporated so quickly the humidity in the air created this crazy mess. My hair is like a Chia Pet. It gets bigger as the day goes when moisture is added. It’s a wonder Steve still married me after this.

Best Wedding Day Dream Hair
Bless her heart–that Annie at Sieren Salon made my hair look fantastic on my wedding day. I wish this could be my hair every day.
Every girl should have awesome hair on her wedding day.

Extreme Makeover — Hair Edition
I can’t tell you how excited I was when I learned about the Brazilian Blowout. I did this for almost a year and I loved it. Too bad it’s really, really bad for hair stylists. Frankly, it’s not safe. It’s got formaldehyde in it, much to everyone’s chagrin. And the FDA ruled it not safe. But I’m waiting for a product to come out that’s much safer and when it does, I’m there in the chair again!
Here’s a version of the straightened look, but using a curling iron to give me a few sassy waves. Hey! It’s almost like Farrah’s hair!