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| Plaza de la Independencia, Casco Viejo |
For better or worse, my memory of Panama will forever be intertwined with the nastiest blister I’ve ever had. I made the fateful decision at the beginning of this trip to pack light, 32 liters light (thanks Gavin for letting me use your pack). This meant two pairs of underwear (I wash one everyday), minimal clothing, one very light jacket (much to my regret on the frigid overnight buses), and in lieu of proper closed-toed shoes, just a pair of Havaianas plus a pair of Chacos. My Chacos have served me ever so faithfully for three years or so now. Ever so often they would get extremely pungent, but they’ve always been sturdy and, dare I say it, comfortable, through the toughest of hikes.
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| Cafe Coca Cola, Panama City |
On this trip however, my fervor for my Chacos finally burned me. After walking and hiking in them for four weeks, they decided to finally give me a blister on the balls of my left foot. When I left Nicaragua, it was just a slight pain and a barely visible white speck, however by the time I crossed through Costa Rica into Panama, it has grown to the size of a nickel. The thing about having a blister on the balls of your foot is that walking becomes intolerably painful. After googling medical advice with blisters, I decided foolishly to try to wait for it to dry out and recede on its own (this is apparently the safest way to deal with them).
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| Wearing a Panama hat at the Panama Canal |
So for three days in the beautiful Caribbean islands of Bocas del Toros, instead of exploring the paradisiacal Dolphin-inhabited waters and ideal surf breaks around me, I stayed in the hostel watching world cup games and waiting for my blister to let up. Instead of drying up and fading however, it just got bigger day after day. After three days in Bocas, my blister got to the size of a poker chip, filled with two distinct types of pus, white and clear, that occasionally mixed around each other in a lavalamp-like effect. On day three I finally decided that the trend was unsustainable and popped and drained this lavalamp blister (I’ve included pictures of my blister before/after draining at the very bottom of this post, fair warning to stop scrolling in time if you don’t want that image seared into your mind).
The day after, I decided to try to take advantage of my last day at Bocas and went scuba diving. Unfortunately, that meant exposing the open wound that is my recently drained pokerchip blister to plenty of salt water and sand. By the end of the day I could clearly see sand trapped in the drained blister pocket, and was quite nervous about the possibility of getting my foot infected.
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| Panama City fish market |
Fortunately, after I got to Panama City my foot just stank a lot but showed no signs of pathogenic invasion. The gratifying feeling of newfound mobility made my stay in this Latin American capital quite a lot of fun. I slept in a delightful little hostel called Magnolia Inn in Casco Viejo. This is the historical district of this otherwise thoroughly modern and cosmopolitan city, and is home to the Presidential Palace, museums, and historical colonial architecture galore. Before the turn of the millennium the area had a seedy reputation, and the presence of uncouth lingerers at night as well as spades of muggings kept the tourists away. Soon after year 2000 however, the site was declared an UNESCO world heritage site for preservation of its lovely architecture. The government then created a special police force to reclaim safety in the newly declared historical gemstone. What followed since has be a rapid commercialization of the area. Almost every building has been or is being renovated into posh hotels, restaurants, cafes, and bars.
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| Fish for dinner |
This development has been a boon for Panamanian tourism, and Casco Viejo is now indeed a joy to visit, however the problems that gentrification brings everywhere else is also very much at issue here. It is a bit strange to have visited right in the thick of the greatest period of change. At this point there are still remnants of the old and very much working-class community here occupying the few remaining un-renovated buildings. These families are making their modest meals just meters away from brand new restaurants with European chefs and entrees priced at several times the day wage of working class Panamanians. One can’t help but feel a strange discomfort and perhaps guilt knowing that these residents will soon be displaced and their homes turned into venues that cater to travelers like yourself.
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| San Blas |
My last stop on this Central America trip were in the San Blas islands on the Caribbean coast of Panama. Shoutout to Eve for telling me to set aside time to visit, it would have been a damn shame to have missed out. Simply put, these islands are paradise. San Blas is an archipelago of over 300 islands occupied by the semi-autonomous Guna Yala native tribe of Panama. The larger islands host most of the Guna, but the smaller islands range from the size of football field to roughly the size of a tennis court. These islands are made of heavenly white sand, dotted with palm trees (one island just had a single lonely palm tree) and surrounded by unreal Dolphin-inhabited turquoise water. The clouds are also very striking in that they are strangely low to the ground, which gave me the distinct feeling that the boundary between earth and sky was somehow made less real here.
The only reason that this paradise is still in such a pristine state is the political autonomy of the Gunas (on a sidenote, this autonomy was won from the Panamanian government with direct help from the US, these people have a fascinating history that’s worth a google search if you’re so inclined). Only Gunas are allowed to live in the territory, and besides limited amounts of tourism they are a largely self-contained society. Soaking in the beauty of this place, I couldn’t help but daydream of buying one of the islands for myself and having my own private slice of paradise. Luckily, the political protection of Guna culture has prevented likeminded people of means to act on that impulse and in turn prevented this place from turning into the private playground of the super-wealthy a la the Hamptons.
Thanks for reading everyone! I can’t wait until I get another occasion to add to this blog again, but until then, please enjoyed the promised blister pics 😀
last warning….
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| Before |
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| After |
Jack Wang 