“Homeless for Santa Semana...”

The sun had long since set, and here we were again, driving, after dark, in the middle of Panama, throwing caution to the wind. Well, if you’re not going to obey the “don’t drive at night” advice, then why obey the speed limits either? After all, we had had a long day, and just wanted to get home, so every now and then I may have tripled the speed limit through little towns on the highway, but with nobody in sight besides a cane toad hopping across the road for his life and a scary looking white possum, the pedal was down. We had spent the evening in the city of Chitre, which was a little further away than I had remembered when we passed it on our way to Pedasi a few days before.

Our last night in Santa Catalina was relaxing as we walked from our oasis of Surfer’s Paradise out in the country towards town for supper and a quick email and blog update at the internet cafe. Upon reaching town the first time I had realized that I neglected to put a few pictures on the memory stick that I had wanted up on the blog. We had foregone carrying the entire computer to make the trek a little easier, but due to my forgetfulness, ended up having to walk the few kilometres back to our hotel to upload the pictures before returning once again to town. We updated the blog as the sun dipped below the horizon, then proceeded to eat in front of the ocean for our last meal in Santa Catalina. Our walk home was mesmerizing as the full moon cast an eerie white glow over the barren landscape, revealing kilometres of dry pasture and deforested land in every direction. We walked out in front of the hotel and set our eyes upon the white water of the crashing waves over the reef before going to bed.

The next morning we were up and loaded the car to continue our journey into the unknown, leaving the Veraguas province behind for the promises of empty waves in neighbouring Los Santos, more specifically Playa Venao. A long distance on the map by Central American standards, our journey was made quite quickly due to the superb quality of Panama’s infrastructure. The road to the emerald city is not some yellow bricked affair, but instead a double lane paved freeway. We were treated to speed limits up to 100 kilometres per hour, and once upon the Interamericana, the directional signs improved greatly from our previous experience traversing the lesser known Panamanian roads. On our way through the city of Chitre, we passed a big top tent set up in an empty lot with elephants, llamas, camels and horses out front. The circus was in town. We would return the very next day to partake in the festivities, but for now, our goal was to reach the coast.

Both Los Santos and Veraguas provinces are very similar in appearance, and nothing like the tropical wonder of the Caribbean side of Panama that we had first experienced a few days prior. Most likely the result of wide-scale deforestation and cattle grazing, the southern side of Panama is very dry, and although there are a few rolling hills, the highways are relatively straight, making for a landscape much like that of Arizona, or even the interior of BC or southern Alberta, with slightly more trees, and of course, the ocean. Once the speedometer climbed up to a comfortable 120, I began to feel quite at home. Having arrived at our destination in good time, we proceeded to secure some lodgings for the next few days, knowing that it would be tough with few options to choose from and the looming Santa Semana, or Saint Week, which we call Easter. They take Easter quite seriously here with such a large contingent of practicing Catholics, yet to my dismay, not one chocolate bunny to be found. The hotels right at the beach were quite above our budget for not that fancy of accommodations, so we headed back towards the town of Pedasi, and found a sign for a hostel in the tiny village of Ciruelo, five minutes outside of Venao. Denielle walked into the house and talked with the young lady from North Carolina that apparently owned the house. She passed us along to the guy that runs the place for them, as they were just “visiting”. He showed us a really nice master bedroom suite, not what one usually encounters in a Central American “hostel”, and I instantly thought that the price would be much over our heads. He said $66 per night, and I replied that while it was a very nice place, that it was more expensive than what we needed, so then he offered $44, and we took it.

After unloading all our gear, we went back to the beach to catch some late evening waves. The nice thing about Panama right now is that they are one hour ahead of Costa Rica, in the same time zone as Ontario, so we are treated to sunsets at almost 7 instead of 6, which is great when you grow accustomed to sleeping in. So I was able to get out into the water with plenty of time to spare, while Denielle fought the blustery offshore winds that continued to blast her with sand while I went out and tucked into a few suicide barrels. A little surfing math: low tide + beach break + howling offshore winds = closeout beach barrels. I had fun, as the waves were much smaller than the overhead and double overhead offerings of Santa Catalina, so knowing full well that I would not be coming out of any of these barrels, I crouched down and tucked in to a few closeouts for that brief sensation of being inside the hollow wave. One time I got pitched forward by the lip of the wave, and all I could see below me was my surfboard waiting to break my fall. Preparing for a nasty impact to the ribs, my muscles clenched and my eyes closed, but miraculously I hit relatively soft water. My surfboard somehow got out of the way just in time like a good steed and prevented a nasty bruising.

The next day we went around the town of Pedasi trying to get a place to stay for the holiday weekend. Our current place was occupied Thursday night, so we would have to leave. Unfortunately, all of the hotels were full in town, I’m sure well in advance, given the looks that we received. I suppose people thought that we had just flown down from Canada right at Easter without booking anything and were now stuck in Panama. So we figured we could just camp at one of the campgrounds by the beach, and continued along to the real goal of the night, the circus in Chitre. I can’t remember the last time that I went to the circus, but I was pretty excited. Not only that, but Chitre had a McDonalds, so we went there for supper before the main event, and also picked up a few necessities at the grocery store. 18 beer, comprised of 3 six packs of each of the main Panamanian brands, a bottle of Boones, pina colada flavour for the Mrs., a red pepper, green pepper, tomatoes, some zucchini, and a pineapple for the ridiculous price of $16.15. The beer was $2.49 per six pack. Outrageous.

Thankfully we had purchased our circus tickets upon entering the city, as now when we returned the line up stretched back towards the parking lot. We eagerly awaited entrance into the big tent as a fat midget clown tried to entertain the kids while working his scary image into my future nightmares for sure. We had purchased the middle grade tickets, which gave us semi-preferential seating, but not front row padded cushion seats. Unfortunately the event was not sold out, so we could have had the same quality of seats for half the price, but $6 per person seemed like an okay investment to make on a circus in Panama. Looking at the tickets, we soon realized that the circus was actually from Guatemala. Imagine getting stuck behind that mess at a border crossing! The show started a little behind schedule, but was well worth the wait when 5 large tigers came running into the single ring. The trainer led the large cats through a series of half-hearted tricks, the most entertaining of which was not a trick at all, when the tiger would swat a big fat paw at the trainer’s head when he got too close. One day that tiger will make contact with that paw, and the crowd will get a real show. I became a little anxious when the crew started disassembling the metal fencing, held together with thin ropes, before the last tiger had left, but no animals escaped.

The rest of the circus went on with few hitches, although I’m sure the young boy on the trampoline that missed a landing and was forced to do it until he got it right may have awoken quite sore the next morning in his cage. The main man, for whom the circus was named, Renato, was a very talented jack of all trades, appearing on the trampoline act, playing 5 different instruments in one of the clown acts, doing the trapeze with the greatest of ease, as well as the motorcycle globe of death. All in all it was a great show, although the animals all looked terrified as they were being whipped into place, and the cast and crew all looked a little nervous towards Renato’s need for perfection. The show carried us to almost 10 pm, which resulted in the high speed dash through the country at night to get back to our hostel for some much needed rest. Today we slept in late and then went to inquire at the camp grounds for the weekend stay. To our dismay, the campgrounds were full, so we continued down the road for about an hour to Playa Cambutal, pretty close to the end of the road. To our delight, we found a sign for a hostel up the hill, overlooking the beautiful beaches, and although expecting a laughable “sorry we’ve been full since 1986 for this Easter, what kind of idiots don’t book ahead for Santa Semana”, we found that they indeed had room. We paid for the first night, and continued to talk with a man from Vancouver that owned the next lot over about the real estate situation. It all sounded very promising for those interested in owning beachfront property for very cheap. We then ended the day by returning to Playa Venao for some very tasty waves before coming home to some delicious pasta that Denielle cooked in the kitchen.

Tyler.