Panama and the carnival
Jackamy
Paul & Derry Harper
Thu 18 Feb 2010 10:48
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On arriving at La Playita anchorage it
wasn't long before the Miss Tippy girls were calling on the VHF
radio requesting to talk to Amy. As it is so hot and humid here
they arranged to meet up for cold drinks later in the evening and kindly invited
us and their parents along with them. The cold drinks then turned
into a meal where Pete from Fai Tira joined us. It was a lovely welcome to the
Pacific Ocean.
The next day, Saturday 12th, was the first
day of the Panama Carnival. Although not as famous as the celebrations in Rio de
Janeiro or New Orleans, Carnival in Panama City is celebrated in exactly
the same manor during the 4 days preceding Ash Wednesday. From Saturday until
the following Tuesday, work is abandoned and masks, costumes and confetti are
brought to the fore. For 96 hours, almost anything goes! Officially, the
craziness starts slowly, with a small parade on Saturday. To cool the sunbaked
masses, fire and garden hoses are turned on the crowd at every opportunity. The
amount of water sprayed on party goers during these 4 festive days equals the
amount the city uses during the previous 4 months! The madness peaks on
Shrove Tuesday with the biggest parade of all. The carnival officially
closes with the first rays of sunlight on Wednesday morning, when the hardiest
celebrants appear on the beach of the Bahia de Panama to bury a sardine in the
sand - a symbolic gesture intended to convey the end of wordly pleasures for the
Lenten season.
Of course we visited the carnival, in fact
we went twice! We ventured into the city on Saturday afternoon with a group of
other ralliers and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Bags and bags of
confetti were purchased at 25 cents for two bags and silly string
and foam spray at $2, we were armed and ready for what the carnival was
going to throw at us. Every few metres we walked the locals would attack us with
their sprays and confetti and we would attack back. Paul, Pete and the kids
loved it although they were at an unfair advantage as the locals also had water
pistols. A Panamanian family started a war with us later in the evening that we
thought we just couldn't win, it lasted over an hour on and off. We finally won
the battle when Paul tipped a bottle of water over the mother! The music was
great, as was the food and with a can of beer costing 75 cents (50p) who
could complain! The fun continued all the way back to the dinghy dock where
Chris from Blue Magic climbed into the dinghy, sat on the side and promptly fell
backwards into the water. Paul wouldn't allow her to clamber back in to the
dinghy until photographic evidence had been taken. Sorry Chris!
 
 
 
 
 
 
  The BWR team arranged a trip to
Gamboa which is up on the Gatun Lake for the monday with the option to
take a cable car trip over the rainforest canopy and other guided tours.
Unfortunately when we arrived at the resort all the trips we wanted to do were
fully booked, although this might not have been such a bad thing as people who
went on the Monkey Island tour, which lasted over an hour, only saw
one monkey! Paul and Amy had a little trek through the rainforest and spotted a
couple of woodpeckers, a caterpillar and hundreds of soldier ants, they
didn't manage to spot any monkeys though. They could only hear
the howling monkeys that sound like lions roaring but are apparently
only about a foot high! We then ate lunch at a lakeside restaurant whilst
watching turtles and a crocodile eat a bird who had been sat in the
water minding his own business.
   
 
 
 Tuesday we ventured back in to the carnival
for the final celebrations. After being greeted with a queue of approximately a
thousand people we almost turned around and came home but thankfully a gentleman
who worked for the Tourism office spotted us and managed to get us to the front
of the queue. This time the parade was much more impressive with lots of
colourful floats but the atmosphere wasn't quite the same as Tuesday. All the
other ralliers left us to it so we had a stroll down the main street but felt
quite intimidated so we soon left ourselves.
  
 
 We haven't made it in to the city yet as
things keep cropping up. There has been a bit of bug spreading around the fleet
and I've been the unfortunate one today, although I am feeling much better
now. We need to do a lot of provisioning here as French Polynesia is very
expensive. A trip has been arranged by Excelsior Tours to visit the cash and
carry to stock up on drink and we'll also make a visit to the
supermarket in the multiplaza to stock up on food. Although we are still yet to
explore the city centre our views so far are that Panama hasn't been a
particularly nice place to visit and I think we'll all be getting ready to leave
over the next few days. In the meantime we'll continue to have fun and enjoy the
company of the racoons (they're similar to racoons, not sure what they're
called) and the sloths that frequent the trees at the marina.
 
 
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