Check out Lobo on YOU TUBE:
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
www .youtube.com/user/travelswithlobo
**********************************************************

Panama: Eight Destinations in Which to Spend the Winter Months

First Time Reader?

Why Panama? – This blog explains the rationale of
the trip and this series of blogs.

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lobo/excursions/1266327384/tpod.html

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bocas del Toro

Destination no. 8 of 8 to Spend the Winter Months in Panama
 
Date of Visit: February 17 -20
_______________________________

Bocas del Toro - The Carnival

Part 2 of 3

Date Blog was Written: September to November 2010
--------------------------------
Prelude

After a two month hiatus from blogging due to my annual 2-month trip back to eastern Canada, it is time to try and get back into the rhythm of blogging by finishing this previously started blog .

Western Canada is great and Victoria, where we live, is hard to beat. Nevertheless my roots lie in eastern Canada where I am drawn to enjoy visits with my brother and his wife in Rochester Hills, Michigan, long stays at our beautiful cottage on Lake Huron, a week's wonderful stay at a friend's cottage near Cobalt, Ontario and visits to my favourite city in the east – Montreal – where Barbara’s family as well as my step son live. It is a great way to spend two months.

Part of this blog is being written as I cross the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Port Angeles, Washington to Victoria, British Columbia on the MS Coho. It is a one and a half hour crossing and I will finally be home after three and half days of endless driving over 2,500 miles from Detroit, Michigan to Port Angles, Washington.

I am extremely glad that this brutal drive has come to an end and after leaving the ferry I’ll be home in 5 minutes .
------------------------------------------

The boat ride from Admirante to Bocas Town was exhilarating. Upon leaving the dock there was the slow chug along a scenic channel leading to the main port where ocean-going vessels were in the process of unloading their cargo. That is followed by a speedy, bumpy, wet, wind blown ride as the launch skims along for about 20 minutes towards the island of Colon and Bocas Town. I was glad to be sitting on an inside seat as I had images of my glasses flying off due to a sudden gust of wind or the lurch of the launch. At some point I decided to relax and just enjoy the ride that was transporting me to one of the most anticipated and glamorous destinations in Panama.

The waterfront of Bocas Town is a hub of activity with the comings and goings of small boats carrying passengers to and fro the surrounding islands of the archipelago of Bocas del Toro. The commercial buildings along the waterfront are doubly oriented as they present a business side towards the waterfront as well as towards the main street of Bocas Town .

Therefore, the transition from the boat landing in Bocas Town to the wide, active main street is swift – it is just about 50 feet to be more precise. Get off the boat and walk out of the storefront type of boat ticket office and you have arrived on main street.

A smile will undoubtedly cross your face as you walk down the middle of C 3, the main street. Yes, numbered "calles" run north-south and lettered "avenidas" run west-east.

While the names of the streets may be bland, main street and the immediate area around it are full of life and activity.

There is the unmistakeable feeling of Caribbean vibrancy and colour. The place extends an invitation to leave behind worry and care and to go with the Caribbean flow.

Bocas was one of the first destinations in Panama to be discovered by the outside world in the 1990’s . In a familiar pattern, the first to come were the back packers that were followed by mainstream tourists and eventually expats.

With the outsiders came a charming influx of infrastructure that resulted in a splendid collection of restaurants, bars and small hotels that today make Bocas Town the charming place that is reminiscent of Key West, Florida.

The original inhabitants of Caribbean origin are characterized by the dark shade of their skin. They originally worked on the construction of the Panamanian railway as well as the Panama Canal and were drawn here by work in the banana plantations.

On this particular weekend the emphasis is on the carnival.

A great time to visit Panama is during the carnival season which in 2010 was held from February 13 to the 16th, meaning it starts on a Friday night and ends on the following Tuesday. Carnivals or “los carnavales” are held throughout the country with various degrees of intensity . As such they are a giant excuse to party and celebrate in a most public way. Stages are erected in the main streets with performers providing lively merengue and salsa music and dance to whip up the enthusiasm. The catchy “tipico” folkloric music is also a standard fare at any Panamanian celebration.

The main activity seems for participants to see and to be seen on the closed to taffic street. A recurring theme in Bocas del Toro was for children and adults to be dressed in devil costumes as “diablitos”.

A highlight of every carnival especially during the hot daytime is the “mojadera” coming from the verb “mojar” –to wet. At first I was puzzled why large tanker trucks were parked at the end of the closed off main street. It was then during the day in one of my many walks up and down the crowded main street that I saw what the tanker trucks were used for. They were the source of water that was pumped through fire hoses at the gathered crowd . I guess it is a Panamanian thing but to be blasted by jets of powerful water to the extent of some people being knocked off their feet was a source of great pleasure for participants and onlookers alike. It vaguely resembled the running of the bulls that I have seen in Pamplona. The brave ones, meaning the young people, came close to the bulls that in this case were the jets of water.

Not being young, I kept myself well back as I could just picture myself being targeted and my glasses flying off never to be seen again. Being in the unfortunate position of not exactly having “eagle vision”, that would leave me “high and dry” so to speak despite the fact that I would be soaked.

My glasses seem to be a recurring theme as this is the second time that I mention them in this blog. I think it all goes back to a nightmare I experienced back in 1976 when I went to Disneyworld and took a ride on Space Mountain. Never having been on a roller coaster in my life this was a bad one to get started on . What made it particularly bad were the total darkness and the blasts of simulated fire that combined to create a most terrifying situation. Due to the darkness one could not anticipate whether the next turn was up, down, left or right. Very quickly there is a sense of helplessness that sets in and the only meaningful idea is “when is this thing going to end”? That question became all the more poignant when during an unexpected down I could see or maybe feel, despite the darkness, my glasses floating out of my shirt pocket. We were warned to remove glasses at the beginning of the ride but no one said don’t put them in your shirt pocket. That left me visually impaired to say the least. The story had a happy ending as we went the next day to the Lost and Found at Disneyworld to recover my glasses.

The highlight is the evening when the crowds are thick and the parades inch their way down the main street. When I say inch, I mean inch, as it is a way to stretch a relatively short parade into an hour-long affair . Various queens glowing with pride and beauty ride at the front of the floats giving an endless royal wave at the enthusiastic crowds. Fortunately in the evening there is no dousing with water and the only dousing that takes places is liberal consumption of alcoholic beverages. Despite this there were no signs of public drunkenness or disorder.

After the pre-carnival spectacle I saw in Chitré, I was full of anticipation to have my senses titillated with more of the delights of a Latin carnival.

Alas in the end that was not to be. This was not to be confused with the carnivals in Rio de Janeiro nor Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

Yes it was interesting to see all the people in the street during the day with their devil costumes and face paintings but in this media age we have all been fascinated with the amount of “skin” that is showing during the Rio carnival. The sensuality is a delight for the senses . There is none of that to be found here, as the Panamanian sense of propriety or modesty is an overriding factor that stands as a barrier to putting on a more salacious show that might be expected by foreigners.

So there you have it – that is my story and I am sticking to it.

Additional Info:

Best Places to See in Bocas del Toro

http://www.panama1.com/places_to_see_in_bocas_del_toro.php

If you still have a need to see more photos of Bocas del Toro have a look at this site.

 http://www.google.ca/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=Bocas+del+Toro&oe=UTF-8&redir_esc=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=pUuiTJ6NGoyknQeWn6SzAw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CDwQsAQwAw&biw=1239&bih=616

If you are wondering whether I visited any other islands in the archipelago, the answer is no . I found the general atmosphere and the people that I met so pleasant that I did not have time to travel to any other islands.

Coming Soon:

Bocas del Toro: The Expat Interviews