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The baby aspirin years

~ Ms. Boice falls in love, travels and eats her way through life in the post-40 years.

The baby aspirin years

Tag Archives: Panama

When in Isla Contadora

25 Tuesday Apr 2017

Posted by Ms. Boice in Trips

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Tags

Isla Contadora, memoir, Panama, Pearl Islands, travel, vacation

Isla Contadora Panama Pearl Islands

It’s all about timing. I was straddling the front edge of the boat that was bobbing up and down in the water as waves pushed ashore and then quickly receded. I had to stick my leg into the two feet of water onto the shore once the wave finished pulling back so I wouldn’t get dragged away from the boat, but not too late that another wave came crashing through and I ended up in chest-high water. “When I say ‘three’ you go,” barked the man in the boat. And before I could think about how I would go about doing this I heard, “One, two, THREE!” and a hand pulled up on my backpack of camera gear that was strapped over my shoulders, and like a crane I was lifted and dropped gently into the water.

I slogged unsteadily through the water toward the sandy beach and looked for Steve who was already ahead of me, dragging our bag of dive gear, leaving a trail of parallel tracks in the sand, tatooed by the bag’s wheels. Another man was behind me with one of our suitcases balanced on his right shoulder while carrying our other suitcase in his left hand. We looked terribly overpacked for this trip.

Most people who go to Isla Contadora are locals who visit the island for the day to lounge around the beach, drinking cervezas as they chill out to an endless library of Latin club music on their smart phones playing through little portable speakers. They don’t bring suitcases hurled over their shoulders. At most, they might have a beach bag or daypack. But we were here for four days, not just a day trip, and we were overpacked with our gear and khaki wardrobe from a week of birding around Panama’s mainland. We were ready to trade the treking through the humid jungle for four glorious days of relaxing beach time, whale watching, snorkeling and scuba diving. And of course, it looked like we were moving in.

The man with our bags dropped them on the ground at our feet and I put four dollars into his palm. “Gracias!” he said before he ran back toward the boat and hopped on it gazelle-like as the boat was chugging away with departing passengers for the ferry. I scanned the beach trying to figure out who was meeting us. This was Perla Galeon, the beach where all pick ups and drop offs for the ferry from Panama’s mainland happen. There were people queued up to leave for one of the transfer boats while others, like us, were being dropped off, except everyone else seemed to know where they were going as they made their way across the sand to the stairs leading up to the street.

“Where do we go?” asked Steve, who always looked to me for our next step on these trips since I always took care of the logistical planning.

“Um, I’m not sure. Someone is supposed to be here to meet us,” I answered as I scanned the beach for anyone who appeared as though they might be looking for us. Maria, the owner of our hotel, Perla Real, wrote in an email to me that someone would be there to meet us, but I didn’t know who. I didn’t even have a name.

Unfamiliarity is familiar to us. We crash into it every time we travel to a new place. It doesn’t matter how many times we’ve traveled or how many times we’ve been to Panama. Every place is different, but the one thing that remains the same is this: Take a deep breath and just try to figure it all out.

Before I could even finish my deep breath, a young woman in her twenties, wearing a polo shirt and shorts was walking toward me and as we made eye contact she asked “Perla Real?”

“Yes!” I said with relief. “Hola!” And then the skinny man and a boy no more than 14 years old who were with her grabbed our bags and we followed them as we made our way across the sand and up the stairs on to a golf cart that took us to our hotel.

She drove the golf cart, piled high with our bags and it plugged up the hill like The Little Engine that Could. Steve and I have been amused many times when we’ve seen small pick up trucks in Central and South America, packed high with towering crates or hay or other wares–as if carrying the Tower of Pisa in the back of a little pick up truck, with one arm hanging out the window, clinging on to a rope that that is haphazardly wrapped around the goods. “Ha! Look at that!” we would say. “Isn’t that nuts?” But our own tower of luggage weighing down our golf cart here in Isla Contadora seemed more ridiculous as was apparent by the puzzled faces and raised eybrows we passed on the way to our hotel. Yes, we were the ones who were nuts.

Perla Real Hotel Isla Contadora

Lost in translation

The woman at the hotel front desk asked if we spoke Spanish. “Un poquito,” I replied and she rolled her eyes at me and gave me a heavy sigh. Not only did we over pack but we also didn’t speak Spanish. We were her least desirable guests and I quickly learned that I should have been a little more diligent with my Duolingo and Rosetta Stone apps before coming to Isla Contadora. This was our third trip to Panama, but our first to the Pearl Islands and I was accustomed to the many English-speaking Panamanians on the mainland, so I’d become lazy and had unrealistic expectations when venturing away from the main cities.

I signed all the necessary forms and then she handed us our key with it’s carved wooden fob. She gave us directions in Spanish, pointing to the courtyard, then to an open galley next to the office, overflowing with stacked beach chairs and umbrellas and a row of small coolers. I didn’t understand a single word and there might have been instructions about not doing something, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. I just nodded and kept repeating, “gracias.”

Golf cart Isla Contadora

The only way to get around on Isla Contadora is by golf cart. For about $80 a day you can rent one, whether it’s from the Visitor’s Center near Playa Galeon or in our case, it was through our hotel. Our rookie mistake the first day was thinking we could get around on foot, but after going up and down the hills and turning the wrong direction—not once, but twice—Steve and I huddled and decided that we were going to suck it up and shell out the $80 each day for transportation. Getting the key to that golf cart was like opening the door to freedom. Once we had the golf cart at our disposal we were able to roam around the island, stop by the mercado to get snacks and drinks, sample the various restaurants and get lost as often as we liked.

Counting pearls

After our breakfast at the hotel our first morning, we packed our golf cart with two beach chairs, an umbrella, a cooler with ice and a bag of granola bars, some fruit and drinks for our lazy beach day.

snorkeling Isla Contadora

Sitting on the sugary sand with legs stretched out at the edge of the ocean was like sitting in the tub at home as water washed up, licking just the top of my legs. I admired my coral-painted toenails in the water before the waves retreated into a foamy whisper. We were in a small cove, which was protected and the water gently rocked in and away from shore as though inhaling and exhaling. As I stared at my pedicure, my mind wandered and I wondered where exactly on this island that the natives counted pearls. In the 16th century around the time the Spanish were conquering Central America they enslaved the islands’ natives to harvest the pearls in this area now called the Pearl Islands and I imagined buckets piled high with pearls. Counting reminded me of spreadsheets, which reminded me of work. I don’t deal with spreadsheets much in my job—my career is in communications and I deal with words, not numbers. But it seems like everyone around me is a master at Excel and I couldn’t imagine anything as dull and boring as numbers. I imagined the native people of Isla Contadora probably hated the monotony of counting tiny pearls. We do a lot of monotonous things for money, I decided.

The blue snorkel sticking out of the water in the distance was Steve’s. I pushed out to float, turned, pulled my mask over my eyes and put my face in the water, blowing air in and out of my snorkel and I had forgotten how my breath seemed strangely amplified when snorkeling. The tiny fish the size of my fingers didn’t seem at all bothered by my presence. The water was kind—It didn’t toss and throw me against the volcanic edges of the shore. If I floated close to the edge I could put out my hand and gently push away from the rock. I located Steve’s fins ahead of me and I followed him as we swam near the rocky perimeter, pointing at orange and black fish that shimmied in the water, darting left then right and then disappearing behind me.

Pearl counting isn’t how I originally learned about the Pearl Islands. I learned about this archipelago from watching the reality television show, Survivor, which had filmed three of its seasons in the Pearl Islands. The clear azure water and brightly colored fish were the same as what producers and cinematographers depicted on TV and the waves crashed against the rocks with the same dramatic effect. I floated around with the realization that I could swim around without thinking that someone was trying to vote me off this island or stab me in the back. I knew that if I was ever on Survivor, I would be one of the first people voted off because I would suck at the challenges and spend too much of my time bird watching instead of building alliances.

After a morning of snorkeling we dried off in our beach chairs and ate our granola bars and pears. Steve fell into a nap, his snores muffled by the sound of the water rhythmically lapping onto the shore. Another umbrella popped up on the beach and a mom and dad set up their picnic while the boy and girl ran into the water squealing. I closed my eyes too, and dreamt that Survivor castaways and I were counting pearls together on this beach.

Looking for whales in silence

Don’t completely discredit our lack of Spanish language skills. There’s something to be said about the element of surprise when you are not exactly sure what you agreed to when you were only using hand gestures and drawing pictures. Apparently one morning we had agreed over breakfast to hire a private boat to go whale watching during a bit of charades with the cook at the hotel.

Humpback whale and calf Panama Pearl Islands

The young Panamanian man didn’t speak English and we didn’t speak Spanish, which was beginning to be a theme on this trip. I wished I had paid more attention to Mrs Potts’ Spanish lessons in high school instead of doodling pictures in class. I should have focused more and learned to conjugate verbs. I regretted not knowing the words I needed and felt the lost opportunity to communicate and learn more about the area. I’m a chatty traveler and want to know about an area, but I couldn’t ask any questions and I fault myself. However, the young man did understand when I simply asked, “Survivor?” He nodded and then steered the boat to the different islands and pointed to each island that was used for the different seasons of the show.

The other word we shared was “whale!” The young man would shout this word and point to the water where a mother and its calf would expose their backs out of the water before they submerged again into the ocean. Our boat chugged through the water with its load motor as we approached a safe distance when the man stopped the boat. The lapping of the water against the boat was the only sound that interrupted the silence.

The humpback whale and it’s young calf were closer and they would swell out of the water and then slip back into the ocean. Up and down maybe twice and then they’d disappear. It would be another five mintues and the pair had moved to another location where they’d lift their backs out the water and then submerge again. We looked to see if they would rise again. If nothing, then our man in the boat would take us to show us more islands. He pointed and we would nod yes and I was sad because I couldn’t learn any more than what pointing told me. Our language differences were a silent wall that I had not yet climbed.

Herding cats

At every restaurant on Isla Contadora there is a cat or two that will rub against your legs and beg for food. I would scratch the top of its head and it would lean in its head to rub my leg and then I would look around to see if anyone was looking and drop a little bit of chicken from my fajita and the kitty would gobble it up.

Isla Contadora cats

“Look, Steve. The ear is clipped,” I pointed out with the first cat that befriended us. It was an interesting feature, but then we noticed it on the yellow tiger-striped cat at the restaurant where we had lunch and then at another restaurant where a gray striped cat begged for food as we slurped mango smoothies.

Cats had been a big problem on Isla Contadora, with new litters of kittens every six week from the feral cats, a local who spoke English told me. With all the new litters of kittens popping up, the feral population’s threat to song birds grew exponentially.  It was the businesses on the island that decided to pitch in money to bring over a vet from the mainland of Panama to get the cats spayed and neutered to help control the population.

The locals on the island rounded up over 400 cats their first attempt and now when the vet comes over they only need to spay or neuter three or so, which means they’re catching up. Part of the process of managing the cat population is clipping the left ear so they know which cats not to catch when they’re rounding them up.

“Good kitty,” I cooed as I scratched behind it’s clipped ear. “Now just stay away from the birds.” If I could toss a few scrambled eggs his way maybe I could keep him from killing a bird for a meal.

Finding Guillermo

“He’s never there,” a woman complained to us when she saw Steve and I standing outside Coral Dreams’ locked door with a “Closed” sign displayed. “Try to come back at 4:00. Sometimes he comes back then.” Finding Guillermo was getting to be impossible. He’s the Argentinian owner of Coral Dreams, the only dive shop on Isla Contadora and this was our third time finding his shop closed.

Diving Isla Contadora

We went back at 4:00 and the door was open. “You are lucky,” he said when we asked if he could take us diving the next day. “A man from Germany wanted to go, but I said, ‘I don’t take out just one person,’ so he will be happy.” The German would be happy and so were we.

All night the thunder shook our hotel room and the rain poured out of the sky. At 6 a.m. I turned over in bed and asked Steve if he thought our dive trip would be cancelled. “Just wait,” he assured me. “Rain doesn’t last very long here.”

Steve was right. When we boarded the dive boat the water was calm, the sky blue and only a few puffy white clouds dotted the sky. Brown Pelicans and Magnificent Frigatebirds soared in the sky, playing in the gentle breeze. The man from Germany spoke excellent English and kept thanking us for booking the dive trip so he could dive too. We all spoke English on this boat and I wanted to ask questions, but the roar of the motor was too load and I didn’t want to scream my words into the beautiful scene of this string of islands.

After a 15 minute ride in the boat Guillermo turned off the boat motor and gave us a thorough review of what we might see. With gear and a tank strapped on, I sat on the edge of the boat and let the weight of the tank pull me down into a backward roll into the water. The sea was warm and gentle. Once we all were in the water we let the air out of our BCDs and followed Guillermo down into the ocean.

It was silent except for my breathing in and out of my regulator. The world of water and the language of diving is simple: Just a few hand gestures and follow Guillermo and look. I didn’t need to know Spanish—or even English—as I glided slowly through the muted blue, watching needle fish, schools of yellow and black fish and bright blue fish skim around us.

Guillermo turned and faced us and floated, as if sitting in a chair and just as he motioned us to stop hundreds of sliver fish surrounded us and I felt as though I was floating in the middle of a mixer. The fish swam in counterclockwise circle, looking  at us with their big eyes with curiosity. I was floating inside nature’s spinning heart.

The silver fish eventually tired of us and moved on their way like a crowd in a train station moving to catch their next train. I didn’t want it all to end, but eventually Guillermo motioned us with his thumb up that we were going to surface. We waited out our safety stop at 15 feet and I hummed the alphabet song six times, which is how I time 3 minutes. This is not in the dive training, but it works for me.

On the boat ride back to the island Guillermo sees the ferry come in with more visitors for the day. “I hate them. They come and leave their garbage. The residents on the island don’t like them,” he complained.

“Do you think Survivor will come back?” I ask him.

“No,” he tells me. “There are not enough hotel rooms on the island to house them. They have a huge production staff—over 300 people.”

The island once thrived with several resort properties, but now Isla Contadora only has a couple hundred residents—a mix of local business owners of restaurants and services and those who are wealthy with big estates. The services could use the business of overnight visitors as opposeed to the day visitors. And the residents with the grand estates would prefer to have the island to themselves. For whatever reason, many of the hotel properties that were once were filled are now boarded up. Ask three different people why this is the case and you’ll get three different answers. Any story is an interesting footnote, but I wasn’t sure which one was the closest to the truth.

But for now, no more reality TV in the Pearl Islands.

Being stuck on an island is not a bad thing

We departed from Isla Contadora much the same way that we arrived on Perla Galeon, except this time there was confusion with our round-trip ferry ticket. We had our tickets in advance, but it wasn’t recorded on their list and we were told there were no more seats. There were frantic phone calls made by a man who stood behind a wooden desk set up on a concrete slab that looked like at one time it might have been part of an open-air cafe. We were scolded for coming late, even though we were 20 minutes early, as if that was the problem. This was the last ferry going back to the mainland and we had a flight early the next morning. I started imagining how I would have to send texts to my boss at work to explain that I was stranded on a tropical island and I’ll be a day late coming back to work and how suspicious that looked.

One more day and night on this island was not a bad idea, I thought. I was just beginning to feel like I got the hang of charades instead of speaking, and it was freeing to be on an island that is not commercial like the islands I’ve visited in Hawaii. It’s not a “canned” travel experience with perfectly beautiful buildings with elegant landscapes. Four days earlier everything was massively unfamiliar and I was just beginning to feel at home with the unpredictability of everything. Figuring everything out was less of a frustration and more like detective work, or trying to make out a word with Scrabble tiles of all vowels. It’s difficult, but rewarding when you find a solution.

The man behind the table, hung up the phone, called us over and said we were fine and told us to stand in the line with the other people waiting for a boat to take them to the ferry. It was their mistake, I was told, and we have seats.

When it was our turn to get on one of the boats that takes us to the ferry I slogged through two feet of water, threw my leg over the side of the boat and a brown-skinned man held my hand as I pivoted into the boat. Steve followed and sat next to me on a bench and the embarassment of all our luggage being loaded on the front of boat returned.

As the boat made its way to the ferry I looked back to the shore of white sand, leaning palm trees and mangroves and the reality of pearl counters, kitty wranglers, diving with a school of fish enveloping me and Survivor memories was already shrinking away in the distance.

My Spanish lessons, I thought, begin as soon as I get home.

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Hotel Love Affair

13 Friday Jun 2014

Posted by Ms. Boice in Trips

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

hotels, Instagram, lodging, media, Panama, service, social media, travel, Twitter, Waldorf Astoria

It felt a little like the book series, Griffin and Sabine. We exchanged little notes here and there as I traveled around Panama. We had met only once, but I had left for just a little while. So until my return I was going to be traipsing around the jungle looking for birds with my husband.

My new suitor was the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Panama City. I met the Waldorf Astoria upon our very late arrival in Panama City where it had just opened its doors six months earlier. Our holiday in Panama was going to be primarily in the jungles and forests of Panama, and because we’re birders, we don’t typically look for triple-sheeted beds or accommodations with room service. Birders mostly go to lodges in the jungle and endure bugs. I’m okay with that, mostly because people I work with think I have great adventures and it makes birding seem pretty bad ass. Yet, I like to book-end our trips with a little luxury and this time I selected the Waldorf Astoria to get me just that kind of toque especial I needed.

So when we arrived on our first night in Panama I got a little giddy about the robes in our hotel room, because I knew there’d be no more little luxuries for the next 9 days—and like any social media addict, I posted it on Instagram.

.

And that’s where it all began.

An Extraordinary Correspondence

I had tweeted out my Instagram photo above and wrote, “We’re being fancy for one night and then it’s jungle all the way.” The Waldorf has a very savvy person handling their social channels and two days later started engaging me in a genuine conversation.

Waldorf Astoria 1

I had a new admirer.

I thank my lucky stars every day that I’m able to live in the era of social media. I love Twitter because I’m a news junkie, Instagram because it’s a window into a lot of beautiful places in the world and Facebook for keeping up with news of family and close friends. But most of all I love engagement. I love learning from others and sharing. Essentially it’s what communication is all about and while social media gets a bad rap about taking the human connection out of communication it’s because people are doing it wrong. Social media has connected us in ways unimaginable 10 years ago.

Essentially, social media engagement has allowed the people who are doing it right to connect to people and businesses they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to reach. And once they reach each other wonderful connections happen.

So having a luxury hotel become completely interested in my birding adventures was a marvel to me (mostly because people I work with have grown weary of my bird tales and simply just walk away scratching their heads). And to be quite honest, made me feel pretty damn special.

Waldorf Astoria 2

Waldorf Astoria 3

Waldorf Astoria 4

Little engagements have their rewards

At the end of our stint in the lush jungles of Panama we returned to the Waldorf Astoria for our last night where they handed us our room keys and escorted us to a special bank of elevators that took us to one of the highest floors. We followed our porter down to the end of a long hall where he directed us into a large suite with floor to ceiling windows that looked over the ocean dotted with ships waiting their turns into the Panama Canal. “You have a very good room,” he said.

Yes, he was right. The room was extraordinary—a full kitchen, dining room, a sectional sofa facing the view and the big ass flat screen TV. A deliciously adorned king size bed in another room, a walk-in shower that could fit the Brady Bunch (if they were into that sort of thing) and a walk-in closet.

And this tasty treat was waiting for us on the granite countertop.

Macarons from Waldorf Panama

I was lying on the leather sectional, looking at the million dollar view when the doorbell rang. Yes, the doorbell.

Holy cow, this place is huge, I thought.

I opened our door to a young woman who handed me a book. “This is a gift from the hotel,” she said. “We thought you would like it.”

“Oh, wow,” I gushed. “Thank you so much!”

“No, thank you,” she insisted.

Well, there was no better gift than this book.

Birds of Panama checklist

A customized experience

Tourism is extraordinarily competitive. Just look at what makes Trip Advisor tick. Fake reviews aside, when I look for a accommodations I’m looking for service, whether it’s in the jungle or a 4-star hotel overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It’s beyond the free breakfast and, dare I say, the free wifi. The type of service I’m looking for nowadays is if the hotel remembers me. When I’m rewarded with a customized experience I feel like I just unwrapped the golden ticket that covered my chocolate bar. As loyalty point programs have become more complicated and diminish in value from year to year, it’s come down to the personal touch. And the Waldorf Astoria in Panama City has this figured out.

Look, that book probably cost less than $20, and all it took was some obvious connecting of the dots for the person running the Panama City Waldorf Astoria social channels to be imaginative about what would make me happy. Sure, I was promoting them in my Instagram feed and on Twitter. They probably checked out who some of my followers were (a lot of birders and a lot of people in the travel industry, including some media). My guess (and it’s not a stretch) is that it was a small token of appreciation for the shout outs in a very competitive hotel market in Panama City. All of those obvious points notwithstanding, the book is a treasure to me.

Waldorf Astoria 5

Of all the fabulous birds we searched out and found on that trip, it’s this experience that was the most memorable. Well, that and the robe. I bought one to bring home, since it’s the robe that started our whole affair.

Waldorf Astoria 6

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I wouldn’t mind re-doing 2013 and it’s not just because of the typo

22 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by Ms. Boice in Trips

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

2013, bird watching, birding, birds, Canada, Ecuador, nature, Ottawa, Panama, photography, Toronto, Wildlife, Year in review, Year wrap-up

Curse the typo.

In the last couple of weeks I have at least three friends who posted on Facebook that after they printed their holiday cards they noticed a typo. It’s a shake-your-fist-at-the-sky moment for anyone who has done this, and I venture to guess that we’ve all done this at least once in our lives.

As I write this post there’s a present under the tree for Steve, which is a calendar I made for him using iPhoto on my Mac. I’m sure he knows it’s there because he requests this each year.

The printed calendar arrived from Apple last week and I was beaming as I opened the crisp white packaging (because it’s Apple, ya know) to check out my creativity, my work of art, my museum piece.

And then I saw it written right on the front in 60 pt. font: 2013.

%&#$@!

Thankfully, I did produce the calendar with all the proper 2014 dates and holidays. It’s just that I wrote 2013 on the front. Oh, for Pete’s sake.

And then this thought popped into my head: I’ll just tell Steve I loved 2013 so much I want to repeat it.

So yes, let’s repeat 2013 because it really was a great year!

So good that I have here the highlights in a little photo essay.

Stuff I bought at NatGeo

When in DC for business I swung by the National Geographic headquarters to visit someone I met on Twitter and also saw the Birds of Paradise exhibit. Oh, I got all this stuff, too. Oh, and called Steve and made him a little bit jealous.

My mention in Nat Geo Traveler

And what a coincidence that the day I was visiting the National Geographic HQ their latest issue of National Geographic Traveler hit the streets and I was quoted in it.

Patagonia State Park

In February Steve and I escaped our winter homes and headed south to Patagonia State Park in Arizona to do some birding.  Yes, it is just this beautiful.

Birding at Whitewater Draw

We are smiling because we’re at Whitewater Draw, AZ and just saw a gazillion Sand Hill Cranes. Oh, and there’s sun on our faces and we’re not wearing winter coats. Yeah, that.

On the canopy walkway at Sacha Lodge

In March we headed really south to Ecuador where we climbed towers and canopy walkways in the Amazon…

Custom boots made in Quito

…got me some custom boots made in Quito….

holding a hummingbird

…held a beautiful hummingbird in my hand in the Andes…

kissing across hemispheres

…and kissed across hemispheres (Steve never crossed over to the south. Okay, he did. But barely.)

SL birding festiva

In May I went on my first birding field trip without Steve. This was the Salt Lake Bird Festival and these Yellow-headed blackbirds were at Bear River National Wildlife Refuge. Yeah, I was pretty proud of myself that day. 

Canadian Parliament building

This is the Canadian Parliament building in Ottawa where Steve and I visited late May as I toured the area where he spent a lot of his childhood. I have to say I’m rather fond of Ottawa. In the summer, of course.

TBEX writing workshop

Hey guess what, I want to be a better writer! So I went to TBEX (Travel Bloggers Exchange) in Toronto and I learned from these great writers. I have more to learn, but this was a big milestone for me. No more throwing up adverbs all over my posts. Promise.

mom and me with makeovers

During the summer I invited my mom to move in with me while Steve is in Canada. It’s been loads of fun. We go to Las Vegas, get makeovers at Nordstrom and probably shop a little too much on QVC.

Jasper National Park

In the cold months Steve comes south to Utah to visit me, but during the summers I go North and this is why. This is Jasper National Park in Alberta and it’s what heaven is going to be. If not, I’m going to change my ways.

Buffalo at Antelope Island

This is what buffalo look like when they’re trying to look pretty. It’s why Steve and I visit Antelope Island State Park in Utah during October. It’s not so birdy at this time of year but the yellow salt bush makes up for that.

On the Continental Divide in Panama

Why, of COURSE we went back to Panama in November This is me standing on the Continental Divide at La Fortuna. Steve and our guide are looking at a hawk and what do I do? Well, I take a selfie because I have no idea what kind of hawk it is.

Rufous Motmot

But when birds in Panama are this gorgeous (like this Rufous Motmot), you don’t take selfies. You pay attention.

So, let’s do 2013 over again, shall we? Really, I wouldn’t mind.

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Want to hear some Howler Monkeys?

13 Wednesday Nov 2013

Posted by Ms. Boice in Trips

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Costa Rica, Howler Monkeys, nature, Panama, video, Wildlife

Last big trip for the year is coming up: Panama (cue Van Halen song)

My twitter pal, Natalie (@_nctaylor) is in Costa Rica right now and has had the pleasure of discovering Howler Monkeys, which of course is cool, because I love it when anyone finds Howler Monkeys interesting. (Who wouldn’t?)

Sharing in Natalie’s excitement over Howler Monkeys, combined with my own thrill in preparing for our upcoming trip to Panama prompted me to dig up this video from last year’s trip to Panama. You can hear (but not see) the two groups of Howler Monkeys battling it with their lungs in a bit of a territory dispute as we listened atop the tower near the Discovery Center at Pipeline Road. They’re in the distance, but imagine being in the very same jungle with these guys. My heart was beating very fast with both joy and terror. But mostly joy because I wasn’t in the way of these howlers.

The real treat, though, is Steve’s spot-on impersonation at the tail end of this. Go ahead, give it a play. It’s short and totally worth it if you’ve never heard a howler monkey before. (Or if you’ve never met my husband either.)

Yeah, that’s my husband. He’s a Howler Monkey. And this is him birding, too:

ZZzzzzzzz

ZZzzzzzzz

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The fear of scuba diving and why I do it

09 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by Ms. Boice in Trips

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Belize, Costa Maya, Cozumel, Hawaii, Honduras, Kona, Maui, Mexico, nature, outdoors, Panama, scuba diving, travel, vacation

As I breathe through the regulator, I can’t help but think that if my line gets tangled or caught somehow, or even ruptures I will lose all oxygen and drown.  I will sink to the bottom of the ocean and die.  Maybe Steve will be able to rescue me, but what if he can’t? These are my thoughts, yet the bigger question is, “Why am I even doing this?”

scuba diving in Hawaii

scuba diving in Hawaii

Scuba diving. I never had an interest in it until I was dating Steve, and then, it wasn’t because I was interested in the sport as much as I wanted to impress Steve with my willingness to try something new.  For about a year here’s how the conversations would go:

Steve: “So, do you Scuba dive?”  Me: “Uh, no.”

That little exchange was repeated about four or five times until finally I answered, “No, but I could maybe look into taking lessons or getting certified or whatever.”

“You would?” he asked with excitement in his voice.

And I did. Turns out that even in Utah there was a dive shop three blocks from my home. So, twice a week for a few weeks I took the class, did the drills in the pool and then over a weekend I certified in Open Water Scuba Diving through PADI in a geothermal spring at a crater in Heber, Utah.

All that for love, my dear.

So, let’s make a list to see why I do this

For me, diving is one of the most paradoxical activities I enjoy, endure, do. It’s so conflicting for me that I found myself on dives wondering if I really want to be doing this. So I’ve made a list to figure out where I stand on this whole scuba diving thing.

  • It’s something my husband enjoys so I do it too. His immense curiosity about the world—both above water and below—has opened up my world in discovering and learning so much.
  • I love looking at the earth’s phenomenal underwater world. Did you realize there are really cool things down there in the ocean? Like freaking huge sea turtles, big ass groupers, schools of wildly colorful fish, sea horses, which always seemed mythical to me before I saw one for the first time, eels of all types and even iridescent squid.

    Giant Sea Turtle on the wreck dive we did in Maui

    Giant Sea Turtle on the wreck dive we did in Maui

  • Cool storytelling: We saw a 14 foot Tiger shark TWICE on our dive in Kona, Hawaii (cool story, but a little too terrifying for me. I sucked through my air pretty fast). We also did an amazing night dive with manta rays, which I count as one of the top five things I’ve ever done.
  • I love being on a boat. I don’t get sea sick and I love sitting in the sun with the wind blowing all that hair I have out of my face. Look how happy I am on this boat!

    On our dive boat in Belize

    On our dive boat in Belize

  • I’m still not very good at diving. My buoyancy sucks, I can never remember how to clear my mask and I’m always worried my regulator’s line will have a pin prick in it and I’ll drown.
  • Diving has taken us to some truly wonderful places. Since we’re also birders, we often combine diving trips with jungle birding adventures.
  • It is kind of cool to be able to tell people, “Yeah, I’m a diver.” But the wet suit and neoprene hat, I realize, don’t really make me look cool.  Or do they? Let’s say they do.

    On the dive boat in Kona, Hawaii

    On the dive boat in Kona, Hawaii

  • Diving constantly challenges my fears. Steve is more fearless than I. If I didn’t dive I’m actually convinced I would just stick to routine and become boring in my middle years.

Bottom line, I still like it

I do really like diving. I like that I learned how to do this in my forties and even though it took falling in love with a guy to nudge me to do this, it is one of those things in which I surprise myself. My first real dive (after certifying at the crater) was in Cozumel, Mexico on our honeymoon. Since then we’ve been diving in Belize, Honduras, Costa Maya (Mexico), Cozumel again, Panama and Hawaii (Kona and most recently Maui). The dive companies we go with are as varied as the people we meet on the boat. Some dive companies I like better than others, but overall, I’m glad I’m a diver and I’m motivated to get better at it so I’m not so scared.

But really, it’s not a bad thing to do something that scares you.

Scuba diving on our honeymoon in Cozumel

Scuba diving on our honeymoon in Cozumel

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Aside

Finding the Right Guide is No Accident: Interview with a Panamanian Bird Guide

10 Sunday Jun 2012

Posted by Ms. Boice in Trips

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Beny Wilson, bird watching, birding, birds, interview, Panama, story telling, travel, Wildlife, writing

Here’s an interview with Beny Wilson, which I wrote for my other Blog, Accidental Birder. Beny is a fantastic guide and read here his story of how he started birding through an inebriated neighbor, how he learned that by staying back to help an 81-year-old who couldn’t keep up brought him great emotion, and why he feels hiring local guides over international guides is important. He’s a great story teller and makes my job as an interviewer easy. Thought you would enjoy!

Click here to go to the story: Finding the Right Guide is No Accident: Interview with a Panamanian Bird Guide.

Beny Wilson, Panamanian Bird Guide

Via Finding the Right Guide is No Accident: Interview with a Panamanian Bird Guide.

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Conquering the post-vacation blues

16 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by Ms. Boice in Trips, Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

bird watching, birding, birds, Fly Delta, Hawaii, Panama, travel, vacation

It happens.

You have a fantastic two-week adventure, trying new foods, meeting new people, getting immersed in the culture, chasing birds (okay, maybe that’s just us), and you come home and BOOM! You’re back at the office digging out of mounds of email and at home going through piles of regular mail you had the post office hold for you so you could be reminded  of the dull things in life like paying medical bills and reading letters promising you better car insurance coverage.

It’s all just so…ordinary.

I travel for two reasons:  For escape and for opening up my world to new experiences, and that’s why I generally have another trip in the queue.  Well, that’s usually the case.  Somehow this time around I was so crushed with other things going on (called “Life”) before our Panama trip that I didn’t have another trip planned before we left.

Egads.  What that means is that when I looked at my cute little (free) “Countdown” app on my iPhone I had nothing in it.  Or as my newly-found Panamanian friends would say, “nada.”

Same goes for my “Fly Delta” app.  There wasn’t a trip in there.  Not even a business trip. My apps were empty and I was feeling the same way.

It got insanely busy at work the moment I arrived back at the office and I was prepared for it. The ordinary life can be draining. That’s not to say that my travels are all about lying on the beach sipping umbrella drinks and reading a book. In fact, you probably won’t ever find Steve and I doing that except maybe after a long flight or at the very end of the trip when we’re just so tuckered out we can barely move.  We don’t scale mountains, but we are both maximizers and we’re up very early in the mornings to chase after birds or get into the water to go diving. We’re on our feet all day when we’re birding and all that hiking–especially in the heat and humidity–often takes a lot out of us. It makes you feel your age very quickly. In fact, after this last vacation we fell into that category of folks who insist on needing a vacation to recover from vacation.

So here I was back at home, all cleaned up and in my own bed and all I could think about were those apps on my iPhone.  I had no trip planned.  It was that same feeling I had in college when I hadn’t declared my major.  It’s the not knowing what was next or what journey I was going to have. Or right after you get married. You come home from the honeymoon and not only is life not centered around you anymore (admittedly, I missed that a lot), but what the heck do you plan for now? Everything before the wedding was all about planning the big event and now that you’re back there’s no more planning. No more obsessing. No more researching.

I’m a planner at heart and I didn’t have anything planned. Was I just to keep going to the office every day with nothing to look forward to? Was I going to just hope that some adventure falls into my lap? What was I going to research now? After nine days back at home I stayed up late one evening after a long day at the office and booked our next trip. I couldn’t take it any longer.

So, the “Fly Delta” and “Countdown” apps both show a trip to Hawaii in our future this year.

Today’s lesson: Always have a trip in the queue and your life won’t seem so ordinary.

(Note: Links on this page are linking you back to relevant posts on my other blog, The Accidental Birder.  You can also get to that blog by clicking the Accidental Birder tab in the menu above.)

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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. 20120323-173910.jpg

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.

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

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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.
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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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The Accidental Birder

Follow my birding-around-the-world adventures on The Accidental Birder blog

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