Panama Tales 2 + Host Family!

My memories of Panama are already far back in my mind. I will tell you a little and progress to tell you about my host family without delay.

The three places we snorkeled in were coral reefs.  It is hard to describe, they are of all kinds of colors, with anemones, sea cucumbers, Christmas worms, purple fans growing on top of them. I took pictures with my disposable underwater camera, but I can only take pictures out of it when I get back to the U.S. because they do not have a way to do it here in Monteverde. It was fun to follow schools of fish. There were blue ones, yellow, and grey ones. When the waves were strong the school of fish would also change their direction. It was funny to watch. Parrot fish busied themselves eating algae from the corals, they keep them corals clean. Among other fish we saw a nurse shark, ray, lion fish (invasive), and sea urchins (not a fish). Orange and potato chip-like in shape, we swam right above fire coral, which can sting horribly. I tried hard to avoid it (and did). It was sad to see broken off and bleached corals. Corals on the Caribbean coast of Panama are considered endangered.

The fourth place was the most magical: Mangroves. From the surface of the water you see red roots of the trees with lush green foliage but underwater...All kinds of rainbow colored fungae grow all over the roots so much, you do not see the roots's original colors anymore. Some things are shiny of silver or golden colors. Corals do not grow here, but everything that grows on corals does. The water is shallow and turtle grass grows nearby. Some schools of fish reflect light coming through the roots, glowing silver. Sword fish swam here too.

We also visited the "bird island". It is a tall rocky island overgrown with bushes and trees. Literally only birds live there including the tropical red-billed tropic bird with its long showy tail, brown boobies, and frigate birds. We saw few nests.

The morning of the day I moved to my host family's house, I felt nervous. My host mom's welcome seemed insincerely polite, and the house - too heavily decorated. But with time all these doubts evaporated. Few days ago, I already cooked corn tortillas with my host mom. Everyday we ask each other about each other's days and eat breakfast and dinner together (most of the time). We have talked about many things and shared a lot with each other like close friends. She showed me her crafts, and I showed her pictures of sunsets that I took. She is a stay at home wife. She already has 3 grown up sons and a daughter who sometimes brings her daughter Valeria over before going to work. I played two times with her 3-year old grand daughter Valeria. We did each other's hair and the other time we played barbies. She is surprisingly intelligent for her age and likes to give out orders. I enjoyed conversations with my host dad about Arizona and soccer, who drives tourists all over Costa Rica. He actually studied tourism in Arizona and knows Arizona better than I do! What a coincidence. I met her daughter Sigrid, son Luis, and my host mom's parents among others. My host mom has 9 siblings and so far I've only seen three of her siblings.

All is well also with my independent research project. In fact I am about to put in data for the Clusia leaves I collected.

Hasta luego, friends!

The view on the way to the biological station where I am doing my project.

Inside the forest.

The Plant that I am studying, the one with the big oval leaves: Clusia

sorry I couldn't rotate it here : (

Panama Tales 1

So, tomorrow turned into a week later...Sorry for the delay of my Panama story, friends. A lot has been going on. I moved in with my host family!

A river divides Panama and Costa Rica at the border. Everyone has to cross a rickety bridge  with occasional gaps between the boards, or when a truck crosses - a rusty path on the side. Once across, loud merengue music played on the radio in the "Francophone" store. We stood around yawning, waiting for our coordinator Cathy, and then went back to sleep on the bus. We did not stay long on the mainland. After driving by chiquita banana plantations and the beach with white sand, we loaded the boats with our stuff and took a wet ride. We even had to cover ourselves with a plastic blanket. Our jaws dropped when we arrived at the island. It was picturesque. The crystal clear water had that perfect blue-green tint, coconut palms lined the coast and leaned over the white beach.The island we lived on for 5 days is called Colon, it is surrounded by Boca del Dragon (the water) and is part of the Bocas del Toro. Yes it gets a little complicated. Here we stayed in little cute 2-story houses painted in bright colors: blue, yellow, and orange.

There is not much to say about our first day here. We baked under the sun while writing down information about species, most of which we found right outside of people's backyards. But afterwards, I went for a swim in the Caribbean (so tempted to spell with two r's instead of 2 b's). Swimming in the Caribbean can be so effortless. The water here is saltier than on the Pacific side, so if you relax, you can stay afloat on your back. Long soft turtle grass grows on the bottom (my species Thallasia testidunum), and sways with the waves. It prefers to grow here because it is sheltered by the coral reefs. Also, green sea turtles eat it. The most exicitng part of our Panamanian trip was snorkeling of course. We swam in four different places. The underwater world is so different. It is like seeing another universe from above, even though it is small and right under you, not even meters away. 

To be continued...