It's been a busy few days exploring the Isla Linton area of Panama. It's always fun to get into a new place and meet some new people. This is an interesting area - there are about 20 boats anchored here - many have been here for months and some even years. A lot of people build homes and settle in this area.
Isla Linton (to the northwest of the anchorage) has an old research building, now deserted, on the island. It was a Florida State University project (or so the sign states). There are spider monkeys on the island that come out to the dock regularly and we hear can chase people and sometimes steal things from their dinghies. We've seen them once and they are quite tall and walk very upright with their long tails straight up and curled behind their heads. It's quite a site. We went over to the dock to see if we could get them to come out - but no luck.
So with no luck seeing "monos," Michael decided to do some tricks himself. That would be a slow motion fall out of the dinghy, backwards. We were trying to get the outboard on the dinghy and it was rolling pretty good - and so he did the 10 point backwards flop into the water…fully clothed. That meant a quick shower and change before we could continue the trip to meet some friends at "Hans' Restaurant." Here you can get a really frosty tall neck Balboa beer for 75 cents.
You tie up to one of his small mooring balls and then pull to shore with the help of a rope hanging from a tree and tie a second line to shore at the restaurant.
Barbara joined some women to play dominoes on Tuesday afternoon at a home on shore. The house is an animal "sanctuary." There was a magnificent toucan (named Sam). Seeing that bird close up is really something - the design and colors on its beak and feet are really quite like an art piece. There was a parrot that spoke Spanish and sang in English. About six dogs (they baby sit dogs for yachts that leave for periods of time), chickens, chicks, and I understand a sloth every so often (but didn't see that myself). I guess one of the neighbors has about five sloths as pets!
We took a long walk (up a few hills - I admittedly missed those hills while in the San Blas) and saw a remarkable huge butterfly with bright blue wings on the top and dark on the underside. We also saw some hummingbirds and bright colored unidentified birds. We can hear the howler monkeys in the evenings and mornings - and boy do they howl.
Yesterday (Thurday), we did the Colon trip adventure. Colon is about two hours away by bus. The bus picks you up close by Hans'. We caught the 7:30 bus (getting there way too early). It's a brightly colored (inside and out) old school bus. They pack them in - luckily we got a seat. You bounce along these curvy streets, going quite fast. The trip in took almost two hours - two hours of wild sightseeing. The area is mostly hilly and very green. Lots of cows of different varieties graze the fields. There are pockets of "ex-patriot" houses - these are the big American homes in gated communities, which stand out from the "locals" smaller homes along the roads. We got dropped off at the bus depot which is quite a sight with all these very colorful school busses. Each bus has different paintings on the outside from mythical to Disney to religious to scenic to a mix of everything. The bus we road in on had fuzzy dice hanging from the mirrors and lots of purple feather decorations inside.
Colon is an interesting city. It has a very bad reputation as seedy and it looks it. They say to be very careful in Colon and there are many stories from cruisers of getting mugged in Colon. We wouldn't want to spend a lot of time there - and certainly not after dark. We went to get some wire, hose and check on battery prices. We also wanted to see what the busses were like and where to catch the bus for Panama City when we head back next week to catch a plane back to the states. Looking for our re-provisioning options in Colon was also on the list. We got a name of a place (Garcias) to get the wire and luckily as the bus went through town, we saw it and walked straight to it from the bus depot. We found the wire, hose and fittings there - unfortunately they didn't have any of the wire size Michael wanted in stock. What's fun about these adventures is that our Spanish is weak - and very few of the people in these stores speak English. So we do lots of hand gestures (and Michael brought along a piece of wire and hose to show which really helped). But there always seems to be a customer nearby who speaks some English and steps in to help. People can be so nice. We got the hose and some fittings here - and then went across the street to "Casa de Batterias" (house of batteries) to look at batteries and see if they had the right size wire available. Batteries - very, very expensive. Wire - very, very expensive. So we went back to "Garcias" and Michael decided going up one size in wire would be okay. But, they also didn't have that size. He opted to go down a size (it was still much, much better than what he currently had running) and luckily they had that. So we got that and they crimped on one side's fitting. Then we were on the search for a new Panama flag as ours was totally blown apart. We asked at Garcias where we could find it (Our Spanish good enough for this question). They told us where and we had them write down the store's name. And believe it or not - we found it! And they had one flag left for $5. A bargain! So far all was going smoothly, quickly and we hadn't been mugged.
We did a little veggie shopping in an open air market and searched for a "Tropic Gas" to American tank propane/butane fitting and hose. This would allow us to be able to get Tropic Gas tanks and fill our American style bottles for cooking fuel. We found a hardware store with a man who knew exactly what we were looking for - but that he didn't have. He directed us where to get it - but it was a long way off.
We found a bakery for some bread and then we figured we could catch the 11:30 bus back. What was good was that we didn't need any cabs in Colon and safely made our way through the list of things we needed to get. We decided it was too far to go and check out the groceries as we were loaded down with wire and hose and didn't need anything immediately. We'd figure that out later as we had several weeks before we'd actually do the shopping and could talk to a lot of people prior to that adventure.
At the bus depot, we found our bus - checked with the driver to confirm - and then went in search of something to eat as we skipped breakfast. Michael found a nice fresh fruit cup with papaya, watermelon, melon and pineapple for 35 cents. We had packed some granola bars and went to the bus. Lesson learned - get to the bus early, and put your stuff on a seat to reserve it. We should have done that as we were stuck in a small seat (designed for two very small children) over the wheel hump. So we crammed into that as two larger adults and curled up with knees up and bags on top of us.
The trip back was on a smaller bus, less comfortable (and the trip in wasn't exactly a luxury ride) and more crowded. The bus was for very small people and the seats were hard. They packed them in and kept stopping to pack more in. Of course, everyone is also loaded down with stuff because that's why you go to Colon - to get stuff. By the time we got back - we were ready for one of those very cold Balboa beers at Hans'. The bus trip is $2.50 each way which is a bargain for that length of a ride.
After uncurling from the bus and shaking out the leg and butt cramps, we looked forward to our beer. "No beer" said Hans' daughter. "What?" we cried. This was truly devastating. We settled for some very tasty, freshly made watermelon (sandia in Spanish) juice. We also splurged on a huge lunch at Hans' - three pork chops with onions, rice with beans, French fries, salad. Our bill for two huge meals and two fresh juices was $14. That would be our lunch and dinner.
We survived Colon and learned a lot. It was another fun-filled adventure day. They just keep coming. We also think a bat ate some of our bananas that we had on deck. Cool.
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