Ancient Cultures of Panama - Barriles

For those of you who like archeology and learning about ancient civilizations, you will love this post! We drove down to David and back up on the other side of the volcano Baru to a little town called Volcan. Near there was the site of an archeological discovery back in the 1906, with new information discovered as late as 2002 of a unique group who lived in this area of Panama around 600 BC. The biggest discovery came in 1947 when 18 human sized pieces were discovered while preparing the area for planting. These statues, now in a museum in Panama City, shows two different races of people, one with African features and one with oriental features.

 It appears Barriles was a ceremonial center whose influence reached both coasts of this mountainous area. There are three dimensional maps that marks the villages on both sides of the mountain, carved into stone. There are petroglyths that are visible only when wet, stone instruments that automatically grind grain without human might applied, and other amazing cultural discoveries. One cool thing about this site … the stream that crosses the property flows uphill one kilometer to the river. The explanation of this phenomenon had something to do with the coming together of two tectonic plates at this site … one of only three that have been discovered worldwide.

The granddaughter of a man from Holland that came to this area to start a coffee plantation still lives at the site and gives tours. She still have many of the relics that was discovered here, and is very knowledgeable about the pieces. The tour she gave us was amazing and the site was a beautiful place. She is a botanist and has brought in many plants from different countries. The gardens she has grown around the site is amazing as well. This was one of the highlights of our trip.

Panama with a Caribbean Flair – Boca Del Toro

Panama is a very narrow country, which makes it easy to get to either coast. Just across the mountains on the Atlantic side of Panama are some islands called Boca Del Toro… Mouth of the Bull. Originally populated from people sailing from the Caribbean, these are Panamanian islands with a Caribbean flair. From the port of Alemante, we took a water taxi to the main island of Colon. There is a little town there, and cars can come over on the ferry, if you choose. We just ate lunch there and headed over to the island of Bastemento, to the Red Frog Beach area. (For those of you that keep up with such things, it is suppose to be one of the top ten beaches internationally.) We stayed at a hostel there called Bocas Bound, and was a short 10 minute walk to the beach through a jungle path. The beach was very nice, and the water was REALLY WARM … not even a flinch when you first get in the water. We explored several beaches and took some jungle trails, as well as walking around a new housing development there. A large part of Bastemento Island is now a national park.

We took a water taxi over to the old town on the island. It looked just like what you would expect an old Panamanian island town to look like. As we were walking around, we saw a sign, in English, pointing the way to a Thai restaurant. Someone at the hostel had mentioned this great Thai restaurant, so we decided to eat lunch there. Little did we know that we would have a hike to get there. The restaurant was way on top of the hill separating the two sides of the island. When we got there, it was a small cabin with 4 tables and a view of ocean on the other side of the island. But was it worth the hike? Absolutely! It was amazing food, cooked by a woman from Thailand that had moved there several years ago. After our amazing lunch and fascinating conversation with both local expats and other travelers, we ventured further up the trail to a coffee shop in the middle of nowhere. Again, the coffee was great, and so was the conversation as we met people from many different places that had chosen to make Panama their home…. And we finally saw a red frog!

There was a large dock near where we stayed on Bastemento filled with sailboats and yachts. We met one couple that had been living on their boat for a number of years, and had been anchored around the Bocas Del Toro islands for 2 years. He was from Denmark, but they lived in California a long time before he retired. They were probably in their 80's. We got to see their boat and offered to help them sail it back to the states when they got ready to do that. Who knows? Maybe we will learn to sail!
When our weekend was over and we arrived back to Aliamante on the water taxi, we saw some of our new friends from Boquete on a water taxi heading over to Colon. They waved and said they would see us in two or three weeks. Running into people you know is a regular occurrence here. It took us 3 hours to drive over and 2.5 to drive back … overall a wonderful weekend on the water.