Day 3: First Stop

I am about to set my feet on foreign soil for the first time in my life (not counting Agua Prieta and Nogales because they don't really, really count.)

WELCOME TO PANAMA

Crossing the plank we see several people holding signs for excursions that people have signed up for, and solicitors trying to hook you on their excursion. Our group of 10 has 2 extra friends. We are essentially glued together looking for "Mario." One of the guys in our group set the excursion up for us online through a private company, not associated with the cruise line. A man with a thick local accent starts saying "mario, mario" along with someone else. We follow him to a nearly empty parking lot. He looks at his partner and leads us in another direction.

Some of us are developing heist anxiety. We ask for him to read our names from the list of people who signed up so that we know he is legit. He does not have it. He begs us to follow him. Still no one named Mario. We follow him anyway and he leads us to the proper busses with a tour guide who reads all of our names from a her list. Whew!

We drive for over an hour through the bumpy streets of Panama as the two tour guides take turns describing different facets of panamanian culture and canal history, to which my eyes relax. I find the strain of keeping up with the passing scenery to be too strenuous.

Still, my bladder keeps me awake, trying to contain the supergreens, even though we stopped at a grocery store fairly early on to stand in line for a single restroom. I would not find relief until we reached the slatted (non-private) shack with a hole in a concrete slab at the village of the indigenous tribe we were to visit.

We were greeted by dark men in colorful loincloths. They led us to a hand-carved canoe on the especially low waters of a river somewhere in the rainforest. (It was the dry season.) The primitive man pushed us off with a long pole and then started the outboard motor. (Who wants to teach a bunch of tourists how to row?) Still, we had to get out of the boat in the shallowest spot to free it from its attachment to the bottom of the river.

We docked at the bottom of a high, rounded hill. Tribe members greeted us atop with the music of coarse reed fluts and rythms of turtle shells and gourds. We were honored guests. The chief himself played an instrument. After two canoes (long ones) full of people took the aforementioned potty break, they served us lunch. It was fish and, perhaps, corn-breaded plantains. The "plantains" tasted better with every bite, and the fish was the most flavorful I have ever had. It was served in a banana frond folded into a cornucopia.

We were then invited to watch sacred dances of celebration and healing, as well as join in. We were then given a few minutes to peruse tables of handmade crafts: beadwork, weaving, and sculpture.

The canoe then carried us further upstream where we would begin a hike to a waterfall with a large natural pool. We only had about 10 minutes to enjoy the cool, if not clear waters. We dried as we walked back to the canoes, which took us back to the busses, which then carried us to the heart of the Panama Canal.

The ship that was passing through the barges was massive. Just the width (which fit snugly into the canal) had standard rail cars stacked 17 wide, I didn't count the length of rail cars, but it might have been as long as a regular train (60-80 cars). The average toll for passing through the canal is over $7,000.

Within a mile or two of the canal we passed an LDS chapel. It warmed my heart--and was the closest I got to Sunday activity. Church was already out, or I might have made the bus let me off and pick me up when it came back through.

It was a magnificent day.