Panama and other things

I know this is long past due, I’ve been a little overwhelmed by everything I have to do and I’ve been very sleep deprived. Four weeks ago we left for our week long trip to Panama. We all loaded on to the bus at four in the morning and proceeded to sit on that bus for the next 18 hours. At times it felt like we were never going to reach Panama City. We visited many places once in Panama. We went to Old Panama and Colón, both of which are ruins that I found pretty cool. We went to the Metropolitan National Forest and got to ride in the canopy crane. We got to see a Harpy Eagle, the national bird of Panama, at a zoo-ish place. We went to the Miraflores Locks. It was very cool to see how the ships pass though the locks of the Canal. We also got to see one portion of where they are expanding the Canal. We watched a video of how they plan on expanding it and how the new locks are suppose to be more sustainable in terms of fresh water use. However, by expanding the Canal they are still increasing their demand for fresh water, so the sustainability of it is questionable.

On our way back to Atenas, we had some problems at the border. At first the Costa Rica entrance person gave the first three students a 40 day visa stamp. This was not good because at that time the program was 44 days and a lot of students are staying after the program. Then they told us we needed to have our trip itinerary so they would know when we were planning on leaving Costa Rica. Before we left for Panama the program coordinator made sure we did not need any of this paperwork. Apparently, a law had been passed saying that when you enter into Costa Rica you need proof of when you are leaving in order to get a visa stamp. So, the majority of the students, I included, had to walk back over to the Panama side and go to an internet café to somehow find and print out our flight itinerary. This took awhile with how many of us there were. Once back inline on the Costa Rica side, there was a different person working at the entrance office. When I got to the window, the man didn’t even ask for my itinerary, he just stamped my passport with the 90 day visa. This showed us that the new ‘law’ they created is completely up for the interpretation of the person working at the booth. How ridiculous! Once everyone had gotten their entrance stamps, we had to unload everything from the bottom of the bus and have our bags checked. I think everyone was overjoyed when our bus finally pulled up at the center and we were able to sleep in real beds.

It was an experience worth doing though, Panama was very different than Costa Rica. One of the things I found most interesting was that in Panama, they use US dollars as their currency. I’m still not sure I fully understand how they have control over their monetary system when they don’t produce their own currency.

The week after we got back from Panama was finals. Not too much to say about that. The week after that was all about preparing for our directed research (DR). It involved many statistic classes. Not too much to say about that either.

Now we are in the middle of our DR field research. This week my DR group is staying near Carara National Park so we can conduct surveys about the park. This park has a very low visitation rate, so when my partner and I are here the day is very slow. (Hence why I am writing this right now.) When my partner and I are at the Tarcoles bridge doing surveys, like we did yesterday, it is very different. We are out in the sun all day along, it is very hot, and the bridge sidewalk is very narrow. It’s really only wide enough for one person. The traffic on this bridge is also very high; there are a lot of big trucks that fly by. It’s not really the safest thing, but the foot traffic there is a lot higher than at the park and you can get a lot more surveys.

Here are some pictures from Panama and some from us making a constructed wetland at the center.