Bravo! What a show!

The day was off to a cool-ish, overcast start which may have allowed for the morning spectacle that we enjoyed this day. While having morning coffee on the veranda, we were first joined by one silent toucan briefly landing in the tree overhead before continuing on to the forest in the Northwest.  Next, two giant black, red-headed (I’ll just say it - very ugly) vultures rested in the same tree while about 6 hummingbirds zipped and zoomed around the garden.  Sometimes two of them would dance or wrestle - I’m not sure which - in a kind of free fall, separating moments before reaching the ground. I finally gave up trying to catch them in a photo and just enjoyed their antics while thinking of my friend Carrie, who LOVES hummingbirds. 

Over the next hour or so, birds of all colors and sizes flittered by. Tiny, bright yellow finches the size of a walnut (smaller than the hummingbirds) clicked their wings, sounding like a human snapping their fingers.  Large, brown birds whose tail feathers splay out like a fan when they fly and a myriad of other wing-flappers joined the fun. And if this bird filled performance wasn’t already Oscar worthy, the grand finale was a group of 4 or 5 toucans exchanging daily gossip with each other in the tree directly overhead. I had trouble getting a good video. This one shows their backsides because they were directly above us but you can hear their conversation below. The Keel- Billed Toucan (pictured above) is beautifully colored but sounds like a toad croaking after a nice rain.  The more melodious notes come from a Chestnut Mandibled Toucan who is less colorful. (I haven’t caught a picture of these guys yet but will keep working on it.) It seems God found different ways to make them beautiful.

After brunch, I returned to the veranda and while the birds were more subdued, sounds of happy humans replaced them. A gentleman a few houses over, shared his joy through song in a language other than English or Spanish.  Once in a while a female voice from a different house intersected his and a yard worker whistled while he worked down the hill from us. We could hear a neighbor running a vaccum cleaner as part of weekend chores and there is always the sound of a weed eater here or there. Ivan, Jr was inspecting the changes he made to his Jeep the previous night and discussing the next task to be tackled with Ivan. These are so different from the sounds of home.  We have numerous birds that sing in the mornings, sometimes raising quite a ruckus.  The other sounds that come to mind are of cars and trucks on the highway, trains whistling through the intersection south of our house and the occasional maintainer or piece of large equipment moving to a new field. Gamboa and our farm really are complete opposites. 

Many day to day things are unlike home as well and living in this amazing place is so different from vacationing here. When on vacation, other people do the cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, filling the car with gas, navigating from one place to another, etc. We spent the first week navigating these chores and were puzzled by many things that now make perfect sense.  Following are a few:

We searched the shelves for a package of cookies - not small bundles of cookies like you pack in your kids lunch - but a package of cookies. Finally giving up, we shook our heads and did it the Panamanian way, taking home the Costco style snacks - many small, individually wrapped packages inside a larger package.  A few hours after opening a bag of Cheetos, the idea lightbulb switched on over our heads as the crispy, crunchy Cheetos we expected were more chewy than crunchy. Oh the humidity. Now we are thankful for those little wrapped packages of 8 Ritz crackers - they will be the crunchy goodness we are looking for every time we grab them as a snack.

The only thing a salt shaker is good for is an arm workout. You can shake it until “the cows come home” and you will never get any salt dislodged and sprinkled on your food.  The solution we found is to take the top off, scoop some out with a knife and settle for clumps of salt that unevenly season our food.

Being a new coffee drinker, I take mine with milk and a bit of sugar. We soon realized that even though the sugar is individually packaged and stored in an air tight container, it is impossible to get its liquid-ish state out of the paper wrapper.  Luckily honey is easily obtained at the fruit stand halfway between Gamboa and Panama City and does a much less frustrating job of sweetening things. 

I’m a bit embarrassed to admit I had to Google how to do dishes with this product.  The blue-green substance in the container is hard.  We use a fork to scoop some out and then wisk the dishwater like scrambling eggs to get it to dissolve and make suds. 

There are mini markets and super mini markets in smaller towns, often bearing the owners name.  In more populated areas there are supermercados named Xtra, Super 99 and Rey’s, which has the best pork rinds according to Kirby and is where you want to purchase meat products so that you don’t have to make a jungle trek to off-load spoiled beef.  😊 In Panama, you can buy Ivermectin over the counter at a pharmacy but not from a veterinarian and people buy individual cigarettes, cans of beer and medication by the pill. Discovering these differences is half the fun of being here.

As this day winds down, we are once again drawn to the sounds. While sharing a few brews by the canal we hear the warnings of howler monkeys in the forest, the squawking of parrots who have voices like longtime human smokers flying two by two, and the whistle of a train delivering containers from Panama City to Colón along the same route as the canal. Thanks for another interesting day, Panama!