Playa Blanca Resort - They can do better.

We visited Playa Blanca resort on the Pacific Coast for a long weekend. Our estimation - don't waste your time. For $220/night you get indifferent service and a crappy buffet. We're hoping to find the ideal resort for all of our friends and family to visit. Watch this space!

MEDRETE in Chitre

I went out with our Public Affairs section and some Panamanian journalists to observe the MEDRETE in Chitre. SOUTHCOM sponsors several of these Medical Readiness Training Exercises all over Latin America every year. The idea is for military doctors to get some experience for for needy Panamanians to receive free services. It was amazingly organized, with the locals lining up at the gym of a local school and standing in line to be weighed and measured and then speaking to a doctor to determine their particular need. Then, they moved to the medical "offices" which were set up in classrooms. They had everything from optometrists who handed out glasses on the spot to pediatricians, dentists and gynecologists. By the time I arrived, several days into the Chitre MEDRETE, they had already served more than 5000 persons.

Panama Fish Market - $25 for 10#s of tuna and a 3# crab

The Panama Fish Market, which is located on the way to Casco Viejo, is packed with people on Sunday morning buying fish, crabs, shrimp, langostinos (think of a big, flat shrimp with skinny, long, little pinchers), squid, and anything else pulled from the sea. The market is stocked by fisherman who pull up their 25 foot wooden boats that are in desperate need of paint to the peirs behind the covered Japanese government built fishmarket. The fifty or so stalls (of varying levels of sanitation) hold stacks and buckets of fresh seafood. The whole operation is supervised by a flock of pelicans, turkey vultures, and black vultures.

Today we bought a 10 pound tuna from the Pacific and a Centollo Crab from the Caribbean for $25. After 5 minutes in boiling water, the crab was tasty, but not as sweet a Maryland Blue Crab. Ideally, I want sushi quality tuna, but the tuna is not sushi quality. Why? 1) I don't believe the fishmonger when he said the tuna was caught in the small hours of today. 2) The tuna flesh was not high enough quality - probably because it was too young and hung out in warm waters; therefore, it did not have enough fat in the flesh.

Out and About with Curlers

There is clearly no shame in wearing your curlers out to the market or out for a stroll on a Saturday or Sunday. The picture shows a woman in curlers talking with our local crabmonger on a Sunday morning. This is an extremely common sight.

Portobelo

Portobelo, which is about a half hour east of Colon, was named by Christopher Columbus in 1502 and is aptly named. During Spanish colonial times, Portobelo was used to transport most of the new world gold back to Spain. Due to these riches, pirates plundered Portobelo repeatedly. As a result, there are still many fortifications located around Portobelo and it is a beautiful little town to village. Right next door to some of the fortifications are houses of locals. As you can see in the picture, there is a fetid little stream running by the fortifications; all waste from the local houses fall into the stream and the little structure by the house over the stream holds the family pig.

Portobelo - Christo Negro

The Black Christ of Portobelo has been venerated by Panamanians since the 17th Century. There are a number of different stories about how the statue arrived on a ship from Spain during a time of plague or disease and refused to leave Portobelo, by causing storms in the harbor. Eventually, they decided to leave the huge statue (it is 8 feet tall) in Portobelo and it is believed to have cured whatever plague/disease was killing the community at the time. Now, every October, thousands of mostly Afro-Panamanians converge on Portobelo - I am told that thousands walk from Panama City a(53 miles) s a type of pilgrimmage and some crawl the last few miles. The first picture above is of the statue, and the second one is from a restaurant in Portobelo.

A bad day (aka our first day of diving)

Last weekend, Kel and I had two days of intensive scuba diving classes; all of it was in the classroom and the pool. This weekend, we had 4 dives planned with our great instructor (Christian Gomez with ScubaPanama).
Saturday was not a good day for me.

While following Christinan on the way to Punta Ventura (which in on the Caribbean about 30 minutes northeast of Colon), I was involved in a dangerous road situation involving finding myself suddenly in a road land that was “under construction” and then attempting to get back on the highway in front of one semi while swerving out of the way of another at 45 miles per hour. Scary and not the greatest judgement on my part. Then 10 minutes later, I was pulled over on an empty stretch of road while passing a semi (going 20 miles per hour on a highway) in a no passing zone. The cop let me go with a verbal warning. Then parking on the edge of the road by the scuba shop/resort/restaurant, I tapped a concrete block that I did not see. This was a wonderful start to the day of my first open water diving experience and my worst driving day in 13 years.

Kel and I went out with Christian, a couple other instructors, and eight students on our first open water dive. Eric (an American studying at that Florida State Univ campus in Panama) and I did an awesome synchronized backward dive off the boat. Our instructor said it was very Navy Seal; he did go to a military college in the US. Eventually, I was the first of the eight to submerge down to our testing area at 25 feet. While I was the first to start my descent, I was the last to get to 25 feet. The reason was that my right ear refused to equalize no matter what I did. Nothing like a little ear pain. Eventually, I reached the bottom and tried to meet up with my buddy – Kel. I started swimming for Kel and almost reached her. Unfortunately, I am unnaturally buoyant. No matter how hard I tried, I was positively buoyant (meaning I was going to the surface). As I was travelling to the surface at an uncontrolled rate, I thought about the following: is my BCD working, will I get the bends, will my ear drums rupture (since they hurt like hell on the way down), are my air bubbles going faster than me (I think we were at the same rate), am I a dumb ass for scubadiving, am I still breathing properly (so my lungs don’t break), did my eye surgeon leave any air bubbles by my artificial lens, … I am always amazed at how much you can think about when the adrenalin is running. Of course I was fine, but it was not a great scuba experience.

After being brought back to the bottom by a friendly diver, I received my fourth weight for my weight belt. After starting back for the surface again, I received a fifth weight and finally was set to dive at positive, negative, and neutral buoyancy. Needless to say, my first dive was not great, but I was still able to perform all the necessary tasks like taking off my mask, putting it back on, and clearing the water out of it.

The second dive was fine, but not great. Once I surfaced after the second dive of the day, I was told there was blood on my mask. Great, I blew a blood vessel somewhere in my nose or nasal passages while trying to equalize the pressure in my ears.

I was happy to return to shore to have a beer while looking out at the beautiful scenery. I was looking forward to a better tomorrow even if I was dreaming of the bends and permanent hearing loss.