Panama, madness or magic?

our residence permit, part 18476396

2011-04-17T13:12:00.000-07:00

The application for our residence permit seem to have no end at all. We had fulfilled al the requirements and completed more than the required number of forms, or at least so it seemed, but the end seemed as far away as ever. In 2008 we got a temporary residence permit for a year after we had invested the required amount and submitted all the receipts. That was more or less as it should be. After a year, our reforestation project would be evaluated and if the evaluation was positive, a permanent residence permit would be issued. In December 2009 the project was evaluated and we got a three month residence permit while our application was processed.

In March 2010 Kees came back to Panama hoping to receive the permanent residence permit. Unfortunately, no luck. Our application was put on the backburner while the migration service attended to more pressing issues. We got a new temporary residence permit, this time one for a year. Useful, since Kees was travelling quite often between Panama and Angola, but also a bit worrying, apparently our proces was destined for quite a long time on the backburner.

In the end, it turned out to be not too bad. On 20 December 2010, our application for permanent residence was approved by migration. Our lawyers said there was no hurry, so we had a good time and went to Panama City in January 2011 to pick up our ID. Not quite. We were again presented with a temporary ID, but this time at least it stated that we were permanent residents. Our ID, that would be the next step, which would take ‘a couple of months‘.

In March 2011, indeed a couple of months later, we were told that we could come to Panama for our ID. But this time we had to present ourselves at the ’tribunal electoral‘ the registration office for all Panamanians. Luckily Kees was scheduled to be in Panama in April, so no problem. On 1 April we presented ourselves at the ’tribunal electoral‘. After waiting half an hour we were allowed to proceed to the relevant office to check whether all our personal details were correct. The relevant office also compared our faces to the photos to make sure it was really us. Just as well we had not acquired to many additional wrinkles in the last three years.

We then received a receipt and were told to visit the next office where they would take a photograph and then we could collect our Identity Card in seven days. All Panamanians have told us that those 7 days usually take 2 to 4 weeks. So this was just another photo taken and yet another step in this process.

Were all our personal details correct, you will want to know? Well yes, apart from one small detail. Although we presented a certified and notarized translation of our wedding certificate at the migration service, we had not registered our marriage at the ’tribunal electoral‘. So for them, and thus according to our new Panamian ID-card, we are both single again...

Looking for a new home

2010-12-22T12:48:00.000-08:00

No, we are quite happy in our home and Bed&Breakfast (www.hotelheliconiapanama.com), but a pair of great green macaws (Ara ambiguous) in Cerro Hoya NP, near Flores, is urgently looking for a new home. The old one has succumbed to their constant remodeling efforts. The pair kept enlarging the natural nesting hole in a large cuipo (Cvanillesia platanifolia) and this year, the tree just broke off at the nesting site during a storm.

Great green macaws like to nest in natural holes in trees, which they make larger if needed. And that is usually needed, because Great green macaws are big birds (80 cm long) and they like large nesting holes. At least 90 cm diameter. And they like to be high up in a tree, preferably more than 25 m above the ground. Such places are scarce and once they have found one, macaws tend to use the nest year after year, like the pair in Cerro Hoya. Finding a new nesting hole is not easy. Due to large scale deforestation, large trees are very scarce and large trees with natural holes in them are even scarcer.

To help them out, a nest box had to be made. Not just any nest box, but one with a diameter of 90 cm, a false ceiling to fool forest falcons (who love macaw chicks). Said nest box has to be hoisted 25 m high into a tree that only starts thinking about producing branches when it gets about 30 m high.

To get this done, the Panamanian NGO Avifauna Eugene Eisenmann (www.avifauna.org.pa) organized a team of specialists. We had two tree climbers from the USA (Joe and David), an American specialist in Macaw Ecology who lives in Panama (Gwen), a Cuban specialist in parrot nest boxes and parrot breeding ecology (Maikel), a Panamanian specialist in artificial nests (Angel) and a few assistants from Panama and Holland.
In August a first attempt was made to get a line into the Cuipo tree, but that failed. The tree was standing on a steep hill side, there was a lot of vegetation around it and it was pouring down. The only one who climbed a tree, was Justino, who had to remove a branch from another tree to give a better view of the target branch. But Joe and David came back in December and this time, they managed to climb the tree. In the end, the first branch was about 40 m high, which also explained why it was difficult to get a line up.

The week before Joe and David arrived, Justino and his brother had already built a nest box, but Maikel still had to install a false ceiling. And we had to drill some drainiage holes. Macaws are not known for keeping a clean home. A second nest was made out of a 210 liter plastic drum and a third was built according to the Cuban method. This method consists of building a frame out of sturdy wire mesh and draping hessian cloth soaked in cement over the frame. Once dry, a second layer of cement mixed with saw dust and wood glue is applied to give the nest a more natural look and to improve insulation against heat. It also results in a very heavy nest box when you make it 90 cm diameter. We estimate the total weight at around 50 kg.

To put a nest box like that you need more than a few rusty nails or a piece of rope. Especially because macaws are very destructive. So we needed some proper steel cable, covered in plastic to prevent rust. That type of cable cannot be tied in a knot, so you need special whatsamacallits and you need some serious cutters to cut the right length. So Loes and Beatriz (director of Avifauna) went on a shopping trip. In the mean time, a line was put up in the second tree. That was no easy task, the second tree had its base covered in lianas and other vegetation. This earned the tree a name we cannot publish here.

But in the end, we managed to put the two nests up. Kees also climbed up the first tree and can affirm that the view from up there is very nice. On a clear day you can see Coiba island from the nest. By Friday we had two nests up and the third nest was drying. That one will be put up by the end of February 2010. Perhaps not in tim e for this breeding season, but we will be in time for next year.

After all this hard work, we went to Cobachon, at the other side of Azuero to have a look at a natural nest. The macaws were not yet there, but the view from there was beautiful. It is obvious that macaws like a room with a view.

You can see pictures n www.flickr.com/photos/tanagertourism

The Azuero Painted Parakeet

2010-07-09T18:44:00.000-07:00

June is the month of the Azuero Painted Parakeet or Pyrrhura picta eisenmanni.

This bird is endemic to Cerro Hoya meaning it only occurs there and nowhere else in the World. It was discovered and described only in 1979 by Professor Delgado who also told us that we should meet Juan Velásquez. The birds come to Juan’s finca that limits and is partly located in the national park Cerro Hoya. Somehow Venicio – a bird guide and member of the Audubon Society – found us on the web and he brought two Canadian clients. And since he saw the birds he told it to the world on facebook on xenoris on you tube… and told all his friends and the members of Audubon Panama…

So we have been very very busy with the hotel.

And after three groups went to the bird party with success leaving after the breakfast from our hotel heliconia – I decided to come along with the fourth group of birders. Because after all you have to know what you promote and up to then I had not seen the bird (nor had Kees) and we also needed some good photos for our new website (still very much under construction at www.hotelheliconiapanama.com ) and despite all the beautiful digiscopes a lot of people do not have a very good camera to put on it. When I went I did notice that some serious photographers were part of the party so right now the web is flooded with the azuero painted parakeets…

Juan and Fanny and the two children are very happy with all the attention from the tourists as we had agreed that people pay him and they do - often with extras. So hopefully he can now continue with the building of his new house overlooking the river Playita… it is right there that the birds in flocks of 10 20 or 50 come by and eat the fruits of the Nance and fig trees that grow along the river.

And because the birds are sleeping elsewhere – like the birders – the very decent arrival time of eight thirty is convenient for everybody.

Now I have seen the birds too and photographed them and the next project is to make t-shirts for sale … and the t-shirts are going to be as beautiful as the others I have made so far. The latest is of the rufous-tailed hummingbird. For photos of both the azuero painted parakeet and the t-shirt (and many other photos) see as usual: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanagertourism

If you read this and would like to order a hand painted t-shirt than write me an email (tanagertourism@gmail.com). The price is $50 plus the costs of posting one. The rule is that it must be a bird or animal or tree occurring in Panama…

Guestblog: Mangle pinuelo

2010-06-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

We came to Tanager Tourism on the suspicion we might find the rare and beautiful plant, Pelliciera rhizophorae, in the nearby rivers. We were operating on more than just a hunch; by chance, Loes had posted a picture of this elusive plant in a previous blogpost. We knew there was at least one tree in the area, but would there be more? Would there be enough trees to study, to help us understand their role in the complex mangrove ecosystem?
Pelliciera rhizophorae is a mangrove, a term describing woody tropical plants that grow in the intertidal zone. It is unusual for plants to live in flooded soils, and it is also uncommon for plants to grow in saltwater. Mangroves can do both. Pelliciera rhizophorae is known as mangle piñuelo in Spanish. It is an odd-looking tree, with fluted, buttressing roots, star-shaped flowers and garlic-shaped fruits. (See photos on http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanagertourism )
As biology students, we were curious why the mangle piñuelo only thrive in a small portion of mangrove habitat, rather than stretching from Florida to Brazil as the red mangrove (Rhizophora mangle) does. It is more commonly found on the Pacific coast of Central America than the Caribbean, but is still harder to find than most other mangrove species.
With Loes’ directions, we set out in search of mangle piñuelo. After a few potential sites turned out to be barren of mangroves, we turned down a dirt road full of muddy puddles, where grass and tree braches scraped the bottom and sides of our car. Minutes from leaving the comfort of our air-conditioned car, we spotted it. There was our elusive friend mangle piñuelo, standing upright next to the water as though it had been waiting for us. And the first tree was not alone. Before us lay a vast forest, containing many trees bearing fruit. The large scale of the forest coupled with the abundance of fruit signified that the trees were healthy and the forest had potential to continuing flourishing as the older trees die.
Reaching and maneuvering through the forest proved to be an easy task; this was a big advantage over other Pelliciera rhizophorae populations, some of which are only accessible with a boat. We spent the better part of a week there, mapping and making observations in the mangrove forest. Very little is known about the ecology of the mangle piñuelo, so any observations we note will contribute to the scientific knowledge surrounding this species. Though we do not yet know what makes it rare, we were able to at least observe some of the animals that interact with mangle piñuelo trees, including crabs, wasps, ants, caterpillars and a so-far unidentified mammal.
Our days in the field left us covered in mud, sweat, and a combination of sunscreen and insect-repellant. In our exhausted state, we gladly returned to the ranchos of Tanager Tourism. Loes and Kees have reforested the farm where Tanager Tourism sits, and their land has turned into a wildlife refuge of sorts. Hummingbirds buzz through the air all day, geckos dart across the paths, and in the evening a chorus of frogs serenades us. After washing the mud and swamp smell off in the open air shower, we often get a nighttime lightning show accompanied by long rolls of thunder. But we are safe in our rancho, dreaming of mangroves.

By Emily Dangremond and Sierra Flynn, 13 June 2010

Back Again

2010-03-08T12:59:00.000-08:00

Back again in Panama for another well-earned holiday. Well, at least I like to think so. First activity was another visit to the department of Migration to renew our carnet. This time we got one that is valid for a year. Usually you get a three month carnet, but the department of Migration receives so many applications, that they need more than three months to process each application. So rather than spending a lot of time renewing three-month carnets, everyone now gets a one year carnet and they contact you when the application has been processed. Lucky for us, since I still have to spend quite a few months in Angola.

The bed and breakfast is now essentially ready. There are of course still some things to do, but we are ready to receive guests. The main constraint is now our licence. We still have not heard whether the ministry of finance will accept our application for registration under law 8 as investors in tourism in tourism develoment zone 10. The ministry thinks we are just outside zone 10. And when I say just, that is exactly what i mean. It is a matter of yards. We hope to get a reply this month.

The main task now is to clean and plant the front garden. Since we are at the height of the dry season, which is not the best moment to plant anything at all, so clearing is the more obvious task. Because, even though the builder did a good clearing job, building rubble is still present around the house and has to be cleared away as much as possible. I am not sure where it comes from, but sometimes I have the distinct impression that building rubble appears by spontaneous generation. The moment you turn your back on a cleaned part, reinforcement iron, broken tiles and chunks of concrete mysteriously reappear. However, it does seem to come back in smaller quantities and smaller pieces, so we just have to keep going.

On a happier note, dry season is also the season that hummingbirds come in large numbers to our feeders. We often see three species feeding at the same feeder and there are often as many as ten hovering around the more popular feeders.

What makes a feeder popular is still something we are trying to work out. Location is obviously an important point. But once the paint of the feeder starts to fade, it does seem to lose some of its attractiveness, even if the sugar solution is identical to that in a newer feeder.

For photo's check out www.flickr.com/photos/tanagertourism

Guestblogger Diana Roche - February 2010

2010-02-05T09:34:00.000-08:00

I am a great believer in first impressions and mine for Panama started in Tocumen airport, arriving from the frozen north. Because I am used to Mozambique, the smiles I received from the airport officials confused me. “There must be a hidden agenda here why are they smiling at me?”
An orderly queue, which rapidly progressed, and I was out of the airport with my luggage in 15 minutes. Warmth enfolded me and Loes was quickly spotted, welcoming me. I am not a city person but I felt comfortable in Panama city. I especially enjoyed the Casco Viejo (San Felipe) an old part of the city that is being tastefully restored.
The journey from Panama city was a bit of a blur, the bus to Santiago only slightly more comfortable than those in Mozambique. It was dark when we finally arrived at Hotel Heliconia and by then I was in no fit state to notice anything but my bed.

For photos see:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanagertourism

I had seen photos on the web but nothing prepared me for the sight that I looked upon when I finally opened my bleary eyes. The hotel building has simple but pleasing lines. The four bedrooms are light, airy and spacious with well-appointed bathrooms. French doors open on to a veranda with a back-drop of trees climbing a hillside. Hummingbird feeders on the trees enable guests to sit on the veranda and watch these exquisitely coloured birds sip at the sweet water.

The land of 8 hectares is very hilly and much work has been done to plant new shrubs and indigenous trees. Two ranchos have been built, together with a kitchen rancho and bathroom at some distance of the hotel. These are for travelers on a budget or those who want to get closer to nature. A walking trail has been mapped round the property where many birds, animals and insects can be spotted.

Within easy distance from the hotel are beaches, each distinctive from the other. A mixture of sand, pebbles, shells and driftwood make them a treasure-seekers paradise. Kees and Loes have made strong links with the local communities and can organise various activities and tours. A lot of hard work and thought has gone into the place and for the past 19 months, whilst Kees has been working in Angola, Loes has shouldered the day to day responsibilities.

Go and see for yourselves, give your senses a treat, sample Panamanian life, the unique flora and fauna and the welcome and comfort of Hotel Heliconia.

roche.diane@gmail.com
Email: tanagertourism@gmail.com or phone: +507 6866 9652

More birds and beasts on our land

2010-01-13T21:19:00.001-08:00

The last time I was in Panama, was 6 January, some ten months ago. I came back in November 2009 and a lot had changed in those ten months.

Our reforestation project is getting more and more exiting. The trees we planted have grown very fast and many trees, especially cecropias and guava trees have germinated spontaneously on our land. The latter two grow fast and develop rapidly. Some are already flowering and bearing fruit. We also see more and more flowering shrubs and the heliconias and gingers we planted are al growing well and flowering nearly continuoously. The Stachytarpeta cuttings we got from the US are also starting to flower.

There is thus much more nectar andd fruit availabe on or land and that attracts insects, birds and other animals. During my last stay I found a few new bird species on our property (American pygmy kingfisher, striped cuckoo and thick-billed Euphonias). And species that used to be scarce, like the lineated woodpecker and the longbilled starthroat, are now much more common. We also start to s bird-parties (a group of birds from different species that search for food together). Especially tanagers seem to enjoy these parties.

Whether there are also more reptiles and mammals around is difficult to say. Many mammals are nocturnal and shy and reptiles also tend to be discrete. But we often see squirrels. Some of our trees are now touching trees in life fences of neighbouring farms and allow squirrels free access to al the tasty guaves on our land. According to Justino we also have many rabbits on our land and a population of rabbit eaters. We have seen coyote tracks and the boa constricor, a threathened species, is getting some respite on our land.

We are also hosting a norhern ghost bat (Diclidurus albus) on our property. These bats occur in a large area (Mexico to Eastern Brazil) but are scarce everywhere. They are easily recognised by their white fur (possibly the reason for their common name?). Not much is know about these bats. They apparently fly quite high and eat mostly moths, up to a 1000 per night.

Back after ten months

2009-12-20T11:42:00.000-08:00

The last time I was in Panama, was 6 January, some ten months ago. I came back in November 2009 and a lot had changed in those ten months.

Our Bed and Breakfast is almost finished. And it looks great. Beautiful materials and excellent workmanship, lots of room, just brililant. While I was in Panama, doors were fitted, the ecological waste management system was installed, hot water connected and the tanks for harvested rainwater were cleaned. I have tested the verandas extensively and can assure you that they are cool, spacious and dry.

But the B&B is not finshed yet. A few more details need to be attended to, the junk has to be cleared away and a garden has to be planted. We are constructing a pond at one side of the restaurant, partially to camouflage the fact that that area is quite high above the surrounding area. We are also going to construct a bridge which allows people staying at the rancho to go there without having to pass close to the B&B. The idea is that everyone has enough privacy.

We are asked almost constantly when the B&B is going to be opened. Well, probably in January 2010, but maybe only in March,. We still need to convince the ministry of Finance that we are really located in Tourism zone 10. This is important because we can apply for tax deduction if the ministry acepts that we are in zone 10. Now zone 10 ends at the other side of the road, so we are on the edge, but definitely inside zone 10.

Unfortunately, the ministry of Finance bases itself on old maps or old coordinates and claims we are outside zone 10. We have had some visits from provincial institutions such as the Panamanian Tourism Authority, who agree with us that we are actually inside zone 10. Our lawyers are working on the issue and as soon as the ministry of Finance agrees we are in zone 10, we will let you know.

Vamos a introducir ... y despedir

2009-08-06T08:27:00.000-07:00

We are Noor and Rike two tourism students from the NHTV in Breda. Since January 2009 we are both working for Tanager Tourism. Noor came to Panama to write her thesis about community-based tourism involvement. She has been working with the population of Palmilla, the tiny village in which Tanager Tourism is located. Rike is doing her internship with Tanager Tourism, and mainly works with the community of Flores with the objective to make the Cerro Hoya National Park easier accessible for tourists.

When we arrived in January 2009 we settled ourselves in the community of Malena. Mainly because of the experiences of Rob, the intern who stayed there in 2008. He was more than enthusiastic about Malena. As soon as we entered the community for the first time, our imagination about this village was confirmed. Malena is a friendly and centered village. Nevertheless, our first days were harder than expected….

fotos on http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanagertourism

….There we were: Two blond girls, two backpacks, no house, and plenty of Latinos whose language we were hardly able to speak. However, when we arranged our own house, with a latrina and open air shower we could settle. The cockroaches and bats were included in the rent and soon we realized: You are never alone in Panama! If one of our lovely pets was not giving us great company, one of the locals, mainly the men, would come to visit. We truly got in touch with the way of living of this religious fishermen’s village Malena. Especially after we finally managed to accept our goodbye to the luxury goods of the civilized world, such as, 24 hr speedy internet and cell phone reception. The closest internet spot is happily only four kilometer away, but public transport is scarce in the area. We quickly fell in love with the most common way of public transport: Hitchhiking. It does not matter if we find ourselves in the back of an empty cow truck, or in the cabin of a foreign investor, we always enjoyed ourselves. Usually the first car would pick us – muchachas rubias! – but note that sometimes only 1 car passes in an hour.

We also got more and more familiar with our new lives and found a rhythm for our daily working life, because was that not the actual reason why we are here? Our daily life here included: Taking care of the tourists and the “finca” of Tanager Tourism, visiting the communities, working in our house on the given assignments, food shopping in Mariato and to maintain our social relation with the Malena community, we started to participate very soon in the event of the day “Beach-volley”.

In the last seven months, we exchanged, step by step, the luxury goods of our daily life in the Netherlands towards a life like any member of a rural community. And yes, most of the time we were really happy with this life. Still, we are two girls that like to party and explore. Therefore, once in a while –work permitting!- we left to explore other parts of beautiful Panama. Highlights were Coiba, Santa Catalina and our road trip to the eastern side of the Azuero Peninsula.

Everything comes to an end and so has this adventure. We face it with mixed feelings. On the one hand friends, family and the hot shower wait for us in the Netherlands. On this side, we leave amazing people behind and the chance to see them again is lower than seeing those faces we said goodbye to in December 2008. Nevertheless, we will leave this place in August with a bag full of unforgettable experiences and knowledge. We know that we would never have gathered these experiences without Tanager Tourism. Loes, thank you very very much, for all the effort you put into us and, as well, for your patience. We wish Tanager Tourism just the very best!!!!! Esperamos que vamos a volver otra vez para ver los desarollos en este paradiso....

Saludos Nora y Rike

The construction of our Bed and Breakfast is in full swing

2009-07-23T12:33:00.000-07:00

You have not heard from us for a while, mostly because we have been very busy. And we will tell you what has been keeping us busy in this and other blogs.

First of all, the construction of our Bed and Breakfast is in full swing. Since the back hoe did its work, the builder, mr Zeballos has been very busy. He contracted a large team and almost every Saturday half the team is putting in some extra hours. As a result, work has been coming along fast. Most of the roof is already put in place and in the rooms that have a roof, the walls are being plastered. The tiles for the bathrooms arrived Tuesday but aye, they did not look on the wall like they were supposed to look! And floor tiles is another story. Choosing the latter has been a somewhat agonizing process. There is not too much choice in Panama, and if there is, than they do not have the quantity we need in stock. Photos can be seen, as usual, on www.flickr.com/photos/tanagertourism.

Building will slow down significantly by the end of this week because Santiago de Veraguas celebrates its ‘Patronales’ a four day party that is wilder and more popular than carnaval. All employees worked the whole of last weekend to earn some extra money and they are now partying from Thursday onwards. They Monday is still free because the wise Zeballos mentioned that they would not be fit to work that day...

More than half way through the building we are still on good terms with mr Zeballos. He is an excellent builder who always comes to discuss things that seem unclear or when he has a better idea. He has already saved us from a few small awkward problems because the drawings were not quite perfect. If you happen to want to build in Panama, we higly recommend mr Zeballos (but only after he has finished our Bed and Breakfast).

Our ecological septic tank system has not yet been installed, but since the designer was so happy that we got permission from the Panamanian authorities to use his design, he came personally to supervise the location and will also come back to assist with the installation. So we will be happy that the ecosceptic tanks shall be installed as they should be and the designer is happy because he can now market them to other hotels, etc. And apparently we should get something for that too!

If all goes well, the Bed and Breakfast should be ready by mid November, in time for the next tourist season starting in December. Just as well, because we are now mentioned in a travel guide (Foot print to Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama) so we do expect the number of visitors to start rising in the next few months.

Hostblog: Panama 22 Februari - 20 March 2009

2009-03-28T12:19:00.000-07:00

The 22nd of February we arrived for the second time in Mariato. The first time was in May 2007 and that time we had quite a bit of rain. This time the weather is tropical hot and dry with temperatures between 33 and 36 degrees C. We are curious and thus takes Loes us to and over the Finca to show what has changes. That takes a few hours. 8 hectares is no backdoor garden en with the hills and valleys... A lot of places we do not recognize for the amount of trees that have shot up in height.

The bathroom and kitchen is such a fantastic improvement to the tented rancho arrangement that we decide to sleep there for at least two nights, we come prepared with shopping to cook and a breakfast. We are lucky because the moon is new, and there are millions of stars in the darkblue sky. It is perfect. We enjoy ourselves, also at daytime, visiting some of the beaches...

A few days later on a Monday again, we rise early to go with the car to Santiago where Loes has to do shopping and she guides us to the bus to Costa Rica. We stay at the “Jamanasin Lodge” near Rincón on the Osa Peninsula, visit dolfins in the Gulfo Dulce and Alex tells us all about cacao on the chocolate tour. On our way back towards Panama we visit the botanical garden in San Vita, a place of inspiration to Kees and Loes.
Back in Mariato we feel like we are back at home! Even though there is not always water from the tap. Loes arrives shortly after us and tells us about the things that happened as you can read in the previous blog. Ficus trees cut down, large machines to clean the area and the marking of the contours for the building. And there are the two big holes for the future water tanks. We have gone directly to have a quick look... and to shower near the ranchos, because since they’ve made a spare tank water system, there is always water at the finca.

The next morning we are dropped off at the beach in Malena. While we in our little group, wait, some local men show us small octopuses that have to grow at least 4x as heavy... No matter how small, they stick to hands strongly! We go off in the boat to Cebaco where we have a wonderful swim.
In the afternoon back at the finca, we take again too many photos of all the things that have changed in the short time we were not there. A lot of hard work is being done for the watertanks. First they put the iron and after that they pour the concrete in one of them for the floor. That has to be finished that day. The next day they make the walls for that tank while some other people put the iron and the floor in the other. Dick is making steps for the newest rancho.

The next day Loes leaves for Panama to try and obtain the ‘resolution’ for the Environmental Impact study. She phoned many times and knows the automatic response cassete songs by head, but did not get anywhere and the personal approach may make a difference. Apparently, all is approved and ready but the signature of the director is missing, and he has just come back from his holidays. In the mean time, we take care of a couple staying over the night in the new rancho. And yes, on Thursday morning Loes arrives back very happy with the signed piece of paper. What is missing still is some stamps on the plans...

Not that it matters much because the construction continues. The watertanks’ walls are nearly up and as of tomorrow the digging of trenches for the foundations shall start. Since there is enough to do in the coming months, we take Loes with us for a long weekend to Boquete, a village close to the Baru volcano. Unfortunately, we cannot walk the trails in the national park, because since there were heavey rains, floods, earth shocks and landslides in November last years most trails have not yet re-opened. As an alternative we walk to Paradise Gardens, a rescue centre for animals, set up by a britisch couple that decided to retire in Panama with their macaws. Since they needed permissions for their macaws, they were known and the environmental ministry requested them to take care of other abandoned animals. Very cute is the baby banded anteater of 6 weeks. Hies mother was electricuted in a pole and they found the baby still alive attached to the body of the mother.
The next morning, while Loes internets with Kees and puts up more photos (www.flickr.com/photos/tanagertourism) we visit another garden “mi jardin es su jardin” with funny sculptures and lots of flowers. And while the jazz musicians start sound checking we decide that we will sleep back in Santiago so that we can be early in Mariato on Monday.

At the farm we find that the walls of the tanks are finished and a lot of people dig, hack and shovel in the trenches. This is very hard work in the clayish soil and with the heat in the sun. Zeballos provides the men with sodas and later we supply them with fresh watermelon.
Dick continues with Justino the work for the small wooden walls to protect the tents on the ranchos better against the elements. I (Wanny) take a walk all along the bounderies of the finca to enjoy the views and to take more photos. And I mix some earth and clay and woodchips to fill many bags and empty milk cartons for transplanting and seeding the trees for the next planting season. Dick also finishes a little bench for near the rancho so that it is more comfortable to watch the stars at night. And when it was finished, we sat on it together to enjoy a little more of our one but last day in Palmilla.

Builing Big – part 1

2009-03-15T20:32:00.000-07:00

Yes, March the 1st has passed and together with our contractor Mr. Zeballos we had put that as a deadline to start. So we did. By that time I could dream the message on the tape recorderthat you get to hear while waiting to be atended to by the environmental ministry. One should after listening to it for a grand total of at least two hours. In the end I was eventually told that our environmental impact study report was technically approved and also that the resolution had been written but not yet signed. The resolution has to be signed by the director of the department and guess what. He was on holiday, but they thought he would be back next week. They said that last week too...

So, on Monday the 2nd Zeballos came to Mariato to finalize dealings with the general and construction service sectors in the region. The general service sector are people willing to rent their house to workers or those willing to cook lunch or wash up. The construction service sector is mainly Ludvig in Torio Resort because he has machinery. Basically a back hoe, a monster that combines a digging machine and a bulldozer. (Do not ask me its name in english). He also has concrete pipes for making culverts to increase our entrance and allow big trucks to deliver materials.... and he produces cement blocks in two sizes: 6 inch (15 cm) for the foundation and 4 inch (10 cm) for the walls. And they can offer more. The best thing is that Ludvig has also a restaurant now so that business can be combined with a lunch.

Whatever Ludvig does not have, can be ordered in Santiago (at 70 km from the building site) mostly at a shop called the Spiegel. Their truck came to deliver today two types of iron rods and cement. A week later they came again to deliver more cement and ¾ inch stones for the concrete.

But before that, we first needed someone with a chainsaw because we had some Ficus benjamini trees in the way. Maybe you remember these plants as the ones that people kept in their houses last century in the eighties and nineties... They are exotic to Panama and of the type strangler figs with extremely aggressive roots (if not in a pot). So these had to be cut down and uprooted so we could separate and reuse maybe part of the trunks and branches and separate organic waste from concrete waste.

To make sure we would be legal we stopped on that Monday at the local office of ANAM to request a tree cutting permission. There would be an inspection. Zeballos went there again on Tuesday morning, since, the chainsaw men was about to start and we had not yet had inspection... He promised again to come but told us to go ahead and start. When he arrived later that Tuesday the ficusses were down as well as the three coconutpalms and some shrubbery. We saved and transplanted one mango tree. Officially, besides the 3 dollar administrationfee (paz y salvo) we needed to pay 5 dollar per tree. Hmm? I said, I thought it was just for indigenous trees... True said the man, yes indeed, for the coconuts... without further ado I took him on a tour around our land and he became more and more enthusiastic. He is a forester and did not know we actually were already certified by ANAM... after I gave him some nice info on his memory stick on trees the payment was only 3 dollars, not even inspection money was required...

And then the back hoe arrived, the big monster machine.

(see the photos on http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanagertourism )

The thing bit and pulled at the coconut roots and when he upheaved the ball of roots he pushed it into the valley so it can become compost. Thereafter it went on to the roots of the ficus. That was something else. He had to stand on his behind to get more elverage. But the monster truly enjoyed himself when he could attack the remainder of the house that once stood on our land. The monster danced and broke down whatever was there and zooming with his bulldozermouth full he brought the debris to one side. And all that remained in the evening was a big flat and dusty terrain...

Working holidays

2009-02-01T12:43:00.000-08:00

During the season holidays, we had visitors: Kees had arrived mid December and Theo and Truus, Loes’ parents arrived just after Xmas. By now they all are back in Angola and the Netherlands. This blog was supposed to have been posted much earlier but then there is always work.

The visitors could not really sit still. Kees jumped excitingly onto his dam to see how he could repair it. After a heavy rainy day, with 140 mm, the little stream had found a way underneath the gabions and the water in the dam was therefore running away. He carried stones and stones again and now, some weeks after this operation and well into the dry season there is still water in the dam.

Kees is still a sweet bird fanatic and he had come up with the idea for Theo to make nest boxes for birds. He had found a lot of models on the internet but somehow these were forgotten in Angola so we redesigned. It was warm but we could easily provide a workbench in the shadow of a cashew or ficus tree and after having sharpened the saws, Theo could start. Plenty of wood and bark and other materials. One time he was stopped by a butterfly that needed to drink from his hand...

So then we had 9 nest boxes in different sizes...

And they had to get up in the tree... preferably higher than 6 meters.

Our ladder is not as high as that, but we have Justino. He is an excellent tree climber.

He took a rope, threw it over the first branch at around 4 metres, and up he climbed with his bare feet against the trunk. From up there, he went to the next branch by just climbing. At the right spot, supervised by Kees down below on the ground, Justino threw the rope again over a branch and lowered its end. Kees attached the rope to the nestbox’ wires at the back and gave the go sign. Up went the nestbox and Justino fastened it to the treetrunk with the wires. I only took photos.

These and more can be seen on:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanagertourism

Truus also did not want to sit still. She finished the bagging of grass seeds (jaragua gras) which we had harvested because we have way too much of it. The transport bags were too tightly packed and needed repacking so that the drying process could continue. She only complained about the hard chairs...

Nevertheless, after this seedy job, she mixed dirt (black soil, clay, sand) and filled loads of plant bags in which we planted many tree seeds that we had previously harvested in Cerro Hoya. Again sitting in a hard chair...

So Loes bought foam in Mariato, 4 big squares and since Theo knows all about upholstery, he was able to get 8 chair cushions out of that. Four for in the wooden chairs at the relax-kitchen-rancho and another four for the hard chairs in the workshop.

Meanwhile other people were also working and well on the 3rd rancho. A big one. Theo visited the site by horseback! The timber for the wooden floor came in January but needed a bit of drying and than it needed to be planed and sanded....

Some may remember that Kees and Loes spent previously quite some time plaining planks... by hand. We did remember and did not look forward to do that again so we bought a machine to help us (Justino) to plane the wood... In the first week of February the floor is going to be put in place and we can re-advertise that people can come and stay at our place.

And for those that are always wondering how the progress is with the big building and the permits... ANAM told us finally on the 17th of December that we needed to do an archaeological study and provide more details as to the location of the drain of the septic tank system... The archaeologist came on the 3rd of January and declared soon after that our soil is culturally sterile because she is to acid. Good, no objections to digging and building. But of course it is not his decision. ANAM had to send his report to INAC (the institute for Cultural Affairs or something like that) and I delivered the other maps and text to ANAM on the 21st, in duplicate with two CDs as well. You can never have enough copies. They told me I could phone to ask for the answer after two weeks... that is next week! So we keep fingers crossed.

Preparation of Building Big

2008-11-14T21:12:00.000-08:00

As you know, we have plans to build a small lodge/B&B and that is finally going to happen. In June we approved the plans of the architect, then we asked quotes from several building companies and visited some of the buildings they constructed. We chose a mr Zeballos to build our lodge. And he is now also helping us to get the necessary permits.

First we had to go to the fire brigade to get their approval. Then the electricity company, who only approve if the fire brigade approve. However, they also wanted to see the drawings of the electricity post (where we get the power from the mains), so we added that one. (they have already approved that during another process, but never mind). The department of health will only give approval after the environmental impact study has been approved by the Environment Authority, ANAM.

This environmental impact study proved to be quite a job. At the beginning of September we signed the contract and I gave them a tour of the property. After that a team of four specialists and an unknown number of assistants has visited again, and also interviewed the neighbours and to evaluate what is happening on our property. We have now seen part of the report and we are not impressed. Our own list of trees, birds and other animals present on the property is much more detailed, so we send that to the consultants. We do want a good report.

Before we can actually submit the report, we have to submit four documents: Three from the notary proving that we are the business and that the two farms are ours, and one from ANAM that we intend to submit an Environmental Impact study to them. For those who think this appears to be superfluous: We couldn’t agree more with you. This most important document can be submitted to ANAM in Santiago, but a document of such importance has to be evaluated by ANAM headquarters in Panama and it takes at least two weeks. So the quickest way is to go to ANAM headquarters and submit the document there, then it only takes ten minutes.

Loes had to go to Panama anyway to renew her temporary residency. And although she had to wait three hours, that is nothing compared to Kees’s visa problems (see http://keesangola.blogspot.com/ ).
After waiting for a few more technical drawings of our ecological anaerobic septic tank, we finally were able to submit on the 30th of October the Environmental Impact study – two copies they wanted, so we had to make a 3rd for IPAT... ANAM takes more or less until the 20th of November to evaluate the study and after that we only need the approval of the Ministry of Health. Which they say will be easy.

In the mean time, we are advancing with the purchase of materials, measuring the site and may start soon to build a shed to store these building materials and equipment. The contractor has also visited Malena to arrange housing for his workers and organize equipment and other things with people in the area. We are now behind schedule but we are not too worried. First, even if we had had the papers earlier, there is no way you can dig and pour foundations at the peak of the rainy season and second, the contractor has promised to hire extra personnel to make up for the delay. We expect to start the building by early December.

We are Back

2008-10-29T00:06:00.000-07:00

You have not heard from us for quite some time. Mostly because Loes was in Mozambique to earn some much needed cash as consultant. We are about to start building our lodge/B&B and since both prices and the US Dollar have been on the rise lately, we needed some extra cash. More about that in another blog. It is now October and that is the month we evaluate progress on our property since we bought the land in October 2006. Every year we take photo’s and describe the current situation to get some idea of how things are changing.

The trees are growing quite well. We have planted 2000 trees of 110 different species. About 1400 have been planted with support from people who wanted to sequester CO2. Apart from the trees, we have also planted bushes, flowers etc.. As a result, the area around the rancho’s looks less wild. During Loes’ absence our employee Justino has taken excellent care of the trees and very few have died. But it is still raining, the dry season, which starts mid December, is usually the critical time.

Since May this year (start of the rainy season) we have already had 2800 mm rain, about four times as much as the annual average in Holland. But even so we have had some dry days, 42 to be exact. And half the time we get less than 90 mm per week. So the other halfof the time it is not raining but pouring down by the bucket. The rain usually starts at 3 pm, so as long as we finish the work before that time, we have a reasonable chance to stay dry.

The main damage to our trees comes from insects, mostly caterpillars. And we have a love-hate relationship with them because some of them turn into very beautiful butterflies. We have counted at least 15 large colourful butterflies on our property, along dozens of small non-descript species. We have a small cage where we occasionally keep caterpillars to see what species of butterfly we get.

Since May we had a large white and yellow long-haired caterpillar in the cage. After a while the white turned yellow, but when the caterpillar moulted, it was white again. Later the base of the hairs turned darker as well. The caterpillar fed on mango leaves, so it was rather easy to keep. According to some people had would grow even larger. But we will never know (well at east not this year), because someone left the cage open and the caterpillar disappeared. Unless someone can identify the beast from a photograph.

The caterpillars of Juliana heliconae are a real pest. They are present in large numbers, on our passion fruit plants. So large that they eat all the leaves. The result is that, although we have planted five passion fruit plants two years ago and the plants can bear fruit in the first year, we have yet to harvest the first fruit. The butterfly is quite beautiful with orange wings and black spots, but that is rather cold comfort.

So this year we did some scientific mechanical control (someone with an M.Sc.pulled of the leaves with large numbers of caterpillars and crushed them underfoot). But unfortunately that did not help much either, there are just too many of the beasts. But at least this year all plants managed to flower and some plants did not lose all their leaves this year, so we still have good hopes for next year. Also because we planted five granadillas. We also have wild passion fruits on our property and those are also quite tasty.

The guavas are also attacked by caterpillars, but we have so many guava trees that the effect on the harvest is negligible. You just have to be careful not to touch the caterpillar when harvesting the guavas, because the hairs sting. Loes has harvested a large bag of guavas and is going to make jam and juice.

The most annoying caterpillar is a stem borer that attacks the mahoganies and the bitter cedars. The caterpillar eats the core of young shoots and the growing tip of the tree. One of our largest mahoganies has lost the top fifty cm to this nasty beast. The tree does not die, but will produce a couple of new branches. But that means that the tree has lost its value as a timber tree, because it will no longer produce long straight planks or beams. Which is why mahogany cannot be grown in plantations.

We had expected that our fig trees would also be defoliated by a caterpillar, just like last year. But somehow, that did not happen although trees in the surrounding area did suffer quite badly. We assume that at our property the caterpillars were all eaten by birds and other animals before they could become a pest. Especially cuckoos like to eat hairy caterpillars and we have at least two species of cuckoos flying around. So long live our biodiversity.

Thick Black Plastic

2008-09-01T20:41:00.001-07:00

By our guests: Marijke Groenendijk and Bas Warmenhoven

So there you are in

Panama

, visiting your family (-in-law), and what are you doing then? Not only the garden variety holiday activities like reading books and swimming, you are also expected to put in some working hours at the finca, which is the property of Tanager Tourism. One of our activities to help Loes was a visit to Quebro to transport some black plastic from a bankrupt shrimp farm. This plastic had already earned a good reputation in Quebro and around and had been sighted on many a roof as a reparation patch and also on the backs of several horses.

There are photos to of this event (but with dutch texts)!

www.flickr.com/photos/tanagertourism

Loes had planned to drive the pick-up truck to Quebro to pick up the plastic together with us and Justino, one of the finca’s employees. As the plastic had become a valued commodity, two other inhabitants of Palmilla were also interested to add some of the black plastic to their inventories. So the six of us drove the 25 kilometres (15 miles) to Quebro together in the pick-up.

The road to Quebro is an easy drive, just like many of Panama’s roads. This stretch of road does however include a number of huecos (pot holes) of an impressive size. One of the pot holes reached halfway across the road, causing the lane on our side of the road to disappear completely in a big hole. The last part of the drive up to the former shrimp farm, which we believe has not passed the stage of the construction of a dozen large hatching ponds, was on a road with big holes that contained water up to 30 centimeters (1 foot) deep. For Bas, who had been driving the pick-up multiple times before, this presented a new challenge. Fortunately, we did not get stuck and the mud splashes landed outside our vehicle.

When we arrived at the shrimp farm, the next challenge was reversing the car across the narrow dike between the ponds. The tall vegetation made it difficult to see the tracks of cars that previously drove up there. When the car was parked properly, the work could start.

The first thing we all saw clearly was that we were not the first to use the thick plastic. Some of the ponds were still filled with 2,5 metres (8 feet) of water, whereas in others the water level had dropped to fairly low or had completely disappeared as a result of the removal of the plastic on the bottom of the ponds. Big sections had been cut out of the plastic.

The challenge of the job turned out to be the weight of big cut-out sections of the plastic, combined with the slippery mud on the bottom of the ponds. Although the pond from which we took our pieces of plastic had almost dried up, the mud was very slippery and sometimes all six of us needed to be involved to drag a piece of plastic up to the dike. Here, the steep, muddy slope caused many slipping and several people ended up taking a mud bath. Fortunately it was a warm day and we could take a bath in one of the intact ponds to clean ourselves.

Finally we folded six pieces of plastic in a manner that allowed them to fit in the back of the pick-up, with on top of them the men who had worked so hard to gather the plastic. After dropping off each of them with their plastic at their houses, it was time for a well-deserved (cold) shower!

The plastic for Tanager Tourism has now been placed on the roof of the finca workshop and a tiny part on the ‘roof’ of the nursery.

We are looking back to a great holiday!

The intricacies of Panamanian trafic regulations

2008-08-20T08:47:00.001-07:00

As you can imagine I try to use my trip to Santiago as efficient as possible and combine a million things to do. Last Wednesday I spent 5 hours in Santiago in de registered driving school. After payment of 60 dollars, 5 hours theory and some tests (theory and practical) they issue a certificate that they believe you are ready to do the exam for a Panamanian driver’s license. So after I was brainwashed by 5 hours rapid Spanish (they tried to fit a lot into those hours, no break but you could leave briefly if you needed so), slideshows with the rules, law and regulations and some shocking videos about the results of some accidents involving alcohol, we got a theory test with 30 questions (you may fail 6).

I was exempt from the practical part because I do have a proof of my driving capacity (an expired Mozambican driver’s license). Another young man was also exempt because he came to expand his current license. Justino also participated in the session but he was unprepared (we thought it was just theory because that is what they told me) and has to practice more (with whoever wishes to give his car and time for that – since 2007 illegal, but still common practice) and re-do the practical before receiving the certificate.

Results of the theory tests are to be collected on the 1st... and all mistakes will be explained because it is about understanding and obtaining the license. If you fail you also have to study at home and re-do the test. I do not know it yet but shall know it soon and include the results here in brackets (I passed the first test, but on the 1st everybody had to do yet another theory test, the official one with 6 questions, I passed that too).

Just to add some facts. The famous Pan American Highway is by Panamanian law not a “Autopista” but an “International Road” (carretera), only close to Panama city does it turn into a true highway. Panama has only 4 real highways (autopistas) and also only 4 pedestrian traffick lights, none of these occur in Veraguas province.
An avenida has right of way and calles are secundary urban roads. However, in Santiago we have a road called the “calle decima” (close to the bus terminal for those who have been here) but it is an Avenida... There is a crossing where it is always chaos (who knows who has right of way...) and they have now installed the very first traffic lights of the whole province above it. Nevertheless, it is still chaos because they do not work properly yet.

Mariato, where we rent a house, has since one month more than one road with tar and so we have “equal crossings” and suddenly this week we have more road signs in Mariato than we have cars!

A long blog about ongoing issues, social welfare and more

2008-08-01T13:59:00.000-07:00

Begin July, Kees came back to Panama for 10 days but now he is based in Lubango, Angola. We phone weekly and e-mail regularly (when he starts his Angola blog we shall insert a link here). In the meantime, here in Panama I struggle ahead.

The drawings for the building of the 4-room hotel/and our house have finally been signed by the architect and the engineers (one engineer had disappeared for a while so it took until the 13th of July and some frustration). Then it turned out that the page with the septic tank was not there… and so on the 21st I collected in Panama these pages as well. Now all drawings are in Santiago, because more people need to sign them for approval.

The department related to electricity is the first. They demanded also a map of the ground and documents to know where exactly along the road we will have the connection. Despite them only authorizing two models of a little house for the reader and connection did it turn out that this little house was missing on the drawings… Thereafter the fire brigade, they will sign when electricity has done so and when they check some more details related to water and safety...

I am curious to know whether anybody will make some remark because the land title on the tiny section where we will build is only for 2/3 titled in our name. Our lawyers have safeguarded us for the other 1/3 but since it is unusual… Our lawyers also revised the construction contract that was drafted by the builder to be. In our advantage as you can imagine, but we must still discuss it.

Then we need an approval from the ministry of health and the authority of the environment. The latter insist on an Environmental Impact Assessment for commercial projects.
Unfortunately for us, most of these projects are way bigger than ours and therefore the engineers that do the EIA tend to ask way too much, so negotiations are tough. But apparently it is also expensive because getting the EIA takes some 6 weeks of paper pushing…
On 1 August at 7h15 am in Santiago (meaning I take the bus at 6 am and get up even earlier…) I meet one candidate, and I hope to convince him that we are really a small project and that we are really nice for the environment and so…

So far so good, but we did not get many signatures yet because there were the “Fiestas Patronales” in Santiago and that means five days of party and drinking and no work (all offices closed). However, this week on Tuesday the 29th everybody had to get back in his/her office in Santiago. But to sit in your office close to your Boss and all colleagues with a hangover... better to get out into the field and do inspections. Another company had 5 different inspections that day! While I started that day waiting an hour or two in the municipality of Mariato for the license to construct a small kitchen annex to one of our ranchos (more in another blog), the gentlemen of the Social Welfare department paid an inspection visit to the farm. No direct problem expected as Justino is well registered (see some previous blog).

The gentlemen interviewed Chico, a builder, who just started preparing for the job of the kitchen and for pillars of a 3rd rancho. They are shrewd and do not present themselves until after the interview. They also asked loads of questions on the rubble of the house and asked when building was going to start – without asking who was going to build and assuming that Chico would be around for some time. They left an acta where it said I had to register him as our worker and pay his insurance, back up to march 2007 when he had mentioned he did a job on the ranchos… Chico mentioned also that months passed by that he did not work for us, and they wrote that too in the acta… I also got a note saying I had to appear on the 4th at 8 in Santiago with all proof of payment. However, that date I shall be in Panama city because the night before kees’ sister Marijke and her boyfriend Bas arrive. Chico felt bad about it and offered to come with me to Santiago directly the next day. Before we left I spent some time making a Spanish letter contesting the acta. Something to stamp to make sure I would not get a fine for not appearing on the 4th.

Despite the letter and the fact we both declared personally not to have the type of labour relation whereby we would have to pay for him it was just not good enough. They would like a declaration (change the heading) that would be signed by Chico and myself stating he works “obras definidas” and more they wish to hear ... and then that must be stamped and signed by the ministry of work. So yet again, in the evening I was making a Spanish declaration and I can go again to Santiago, with the declaration signed by Chico and myself to collect the various stamps (on the first)...

Last week I also visited the Social Welfare department on the regular twice a month visit (first week of the month one drops 3 copies of a sheet and a digital copy, and in the last week you go there to pay). That time I requested also the forms for Justino’s wife to obtain a card that allows her to benefit from the same health insurance as him. Justino then discovered I had copied his identity number wrong (the last 8 was in fact a 3). I knew already that his card had a wrong “patron” number because the people of Social Welfare had changed it after a month (they had first given me a Santiago code and since we are outside Santiago…). I asked then whether I had to retype the workers card and they said it was not necessary. However, now the identity number... that may be a problem…

Anyway, again I had cards to be typed in duplicate. In some previous blog you can read how we organized that last time. I did it now more electronically with a scan of the card, into word, some test printing on normal paper and then some tape to stick the cards exactly over the correctly printed filled in version where the scan in the computer was deleted again.
At the end of the evening I had one good card, two wrong ones and two empty ones left... There are nicer ways to spend an evening.

Drawing competition

2008-07-09T07:54:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we wrote that we were going to organise a painting contest for the children in the neighbourhood. The winners would then paint their winning design on the walls of our workshop. This way we would get some goodwill, a painted workshop and some more publicity, if only locally.

Mid June Loes visited the teachers of the primary schools in Malena and Palo Seco to organise the contest. Shortly afterwards she spoke to the teachers from the primary school in Torio, who also wanted to join. Partly because ‘tourism’ is now part of the primary school curriculum and they were looking for an excursion. All children from age 10 to 12 could participate, that amounted to 43 participants.

Loes first organised a tour of our reforestation project for the children. She showed them the bats, the stream with the prawns, the rancho’s, young trees and some were lucky enough to see ‘our’ barn owl fly off (we have a breeding pair). But twenty children are hardly inconspicuous, so most wildlife had discreetly retired while the children roamed our project. At the end of the tour they received paper for their drawing/painting and some information about the theme. The theme was, of course, nature/ecology. You can’t indoctrinate, sorry, inform, children early enough.

On 27 juni Rob visited the schools to pick up the paintings and drawings. Some of those can be seen on the photo site www.flickr.com/photos/tanagertourism. We were delighted with the angry owl of Milagro del Carmen uit Torio (12 yr) who wrote on the back that the owl was angry because people were cutting down the trees in which it lives. We also liked the drawing of Milagres from Palmilla (11 jr) who was the only one to add a few farm animals. From Torio we received two real paintings, painted on the bags in which rice is transported and framed. Lots of paintings showed butterflies, lizards and caymans and a few showed very nice drawings of the Panama tree. We noted that children from Palo Seco all worked with pencils. According to the teacher, the parents in Palo seco could not afford paint or colour pencils.

Since there were so many beautiful drawings and paintings we decided to give everybody a sketch book and pencils. We looked for original drawings (some children had traced a picture and coloured it in, which was not what we wanted), style and design. The winners, among them Milagres and Milagro del Carmen, could choose an additional prize.

On 2 juli we awarded the prizes and all children were invited to visit us again. We had already painted a landscape on the wall and the winners could add lizards, trees, birds, butterflies etc. Kees was also present (it takes a while to get a visa for Angola, so he came back for two weeks). Holly, the Peace Corps volunteer from Malena was also helping us. The children who did not win a prize could help plant a tree if they wanted, which they did.

The photos on the website show the final result of this common effort.

The Malena Waterfalls

2008-06-24T04:22:00.000-07:00

There are some water falls near malena and Kees and i had ponly visited the first one. Our student Rob however, visited all of them, persuaded a localguy to improve the path along the water falls and has taken tourists to this place, who all came back very enthusiastic. So it was about time that I had a look for myself.

I have seen some water falls, but these ones are really nice!
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanagertourism)

Isra is de local guide from malena and he also models in these pictures. During the trip he also gives a helping hand when the trail gets slippery or steep. During most of the time, you walk through water and over rocks overgrown with ferns and mosses. There are a few places where these rocks are slippery. Occasionally you can hold on to young palm trees or lianas for support (just like Tarzan) and the steepest part now has a hand rail for support.

I had decided to go on my hiking boots, even though I expected that I might get wet feet. And indeed, at some places the watewas just a wee bit too deep. But no blisters becasue the walk is not that long ad the shoes are that good. At the third waterfall, I took my shoes off to take a refreshing dip in the pools. But one could go one step further, to the top of the waterfall that drops into these third pools. Climbing up the rocks along a liana. Isra did the whole walk on his bare feet and somehow did not even get a scratch. He also managed to climb a few guabo trees (inga spp.) to get the last ice cream beans. These are large podsthat contain a pulp that tastes like vanilla ice cream.

Isra’s enthusiasm is another good point of this trip. He still enjoys swimming in th epools and diving from the highest waterfall into the pool below and his enthusiasm is contagious. But not quite contagious enough to persuade me to dive too. Yes, there is a deep bit in which you can safely plunge, but that is surrounded by shallows that do not look quite as safe. Somehow, somewhere between my 10th and my 41st birthday my fear of an accident got stronger than my faith that all would end well. But going back along the rocks looked pretty scary too. In the end I carefully climbed two thirds down the waterfall and then jumped, into the deep bit.

The current in the pool is just strong enough to make it a light exercise pool. You can stay in place by swimming against the current at a slow to medium pace. Swim a bit faster and you easily reach the waterfall where you can have a natural and relaxing back massage.

Our new Employee

2008-06-11T08:01:00.000-07:00

Since Kees is leaving we had to find someone to replace him Impossible of course, Kees is irreplaceable, where do you find someone like him? However, we did find someone who could take over part of Kees’s tasks: Justino M.P. We have employed him as of 1 May so that he could work together with Kees and learn how we want to get things done.

Justino is 22 years old and lives in Palmilla, about 500 m down the road from our farm (in the direction of Malena, near the bridge) . Justino worked with us for about three weeks last year, he is the young man helping to construct the shower in October 2007. So, we already know him and that is why we asked him: he is a hard worker and uses his brains as well as his hands. Some time ago he worked in construction in Panama city and recently he worked on a large cattle ranch milking the cows.

Justino is married and his wife has just given birth to their second child: a son. The first child, a daughter, is named Jocelyn. Unfortunately she has a slight heart murmur and is regularly checked by a medical doctor. So far there is no need to intervene, but Justino and his wife are of, course, always concerned about Jocelyn.

Since 5 May we have planted nearly 200 trees and Justino has also helped us to weed around the trees we planted last year and from existing paths. Unfortunately, the weeds and grass grow just as fast as the trees. He has also helped us to construct paths and helped the builder finish the workshop. He also helped us constructing the work bench in the work shop. The latter was no easy job, because the thing you need most when constructing a work bench is…a work bench.
An added complication is that all wood comes straight from the saw mill and is therefore green, rough and usually anything but straight. So there was quite a bit of sawing, planning and sanding to be done before we could actually get down to the business of constructing the work bench.

An employee also means an introduction to a new aspect of Panama: the bureaucracy associated with registering your employee with the ministry of labour and Social Security. And we must say, it was not too bad. During the first visit we received a list of all the documents we needed to bring and clear instructions how to complete them. And so we did. However, after completing all the forms and placing my signature no less than 11 times we found out that they forgot to tell us one thing: some cards had to be completed with a typewriter. Yes, you read this correctly: a typewriter. Those cards are stored in an ancient type of filing system with cardboard cards. So where does one find a typewriter? Well, in the only other places that still use the same antique filing system: Medical doctors and lawyers. Luckily a friend of ours knows someone who works as a secretary at a medical practice and has access to a real typewriter.

Now that Justino has been registered with Social Services, we have to complete a form every month, hand that in and come back three weeks later to pay the contributions. Interestingly, they are doing their best to get this digitalized. So when we handed in the forms, we got a CD-ROM with some files to use with well known software to complete these monthly forms.

The contract between employer and employee is also not just that, the ministry of labour also has to receive a copy. We do not know why, but they have to have a copy, which is checked to see if we comply with the law and then endorsed with a stamp. This process was very quick, because we had first obtained a model contract and did not stray too far from the model. Furthermore, Justino earns more than the legally allowed absolute minimum (good workers are expensive) and his niece was the person who had to stamp the contract. Her reactions was : What a high salary, followed by the resounding ‘plonk’ of a stamp hitting a document.

Kees leaves Panama

2008-06-01T18:10:00.000-07:00

Some people already know, but most are unaware and therefore this blog: Kees goes to Angola to work for two years. He has just left today, the first of June, to Germany and than to the Netherlands and then to Angola...

Yes, Kees goes back to Africa to earn money. We are now nearly two years in Panama and have invested a lot of money, earned (too) little and we have seen the prices go up enormously. When we arrived here in 2006, the price of diesel was about 2 dollars for a gallon (nearly 4 litres) and now the same gallon is on average $4,14... and worse, we still have to start building the house/hotel ...

We had hoped that we could get some consultancy jobs in the Latin America region but when you arrive ‘fresh’ from Africa you miss the required ‘5 years regional experience’... So when money dried up, and despite the fact that we managed to sell our house in Mozambique for a reasonable price (agreed upon in Euros), we participated in several proposal bids for consultancy companies in Africa and anywhere. (Loes is in some round for short-term repeated consultancy maybe in Africa and/or Ecuador – we are not going into details because one of these proposal bids has not yet been submitted to USAID). In short, our CV is somewhere in the world wide web en a German company GFA Consulting Group found Kees’ CV there. They asked him some months ago whether he wished to join the team in their bid for a contract of the European Commission for a project in Angola and Kees said yes.

GFA won the bid round (of course also thanks to Kees’ perfectly fitting CV) and they signed the contract with the European Union. Therefore, Kees goes to Angola for two years. It is an interesting project, about land rights and water supply for "trans-human cattle owners", but as said, it is now more about the money than it used to be years ago. The fact that the salary is good and that they pay two tickets per year between Angola and Panama made the decision to participate in the proposal easier.

Neither of us wants to delay the progress of our project here. Especially since we do not want to delay the construction of the house/hotel with four rooms on the land, Loes stays in Panama. Now you all want to know how we feel about it and what we think about that...

Well we do not like it at all on one side, it is not an ideal situation, and both of us fear missing each other. Yet, on the other side, we know we need the money and it is an opportunity too. Besides, we have before lived very far apart together for longer periods (but never as long in one go... nor did we like it then...). Now we hope for a reasonable phone connection. Kees seems to be getting a satellite phone for the project (...). Normal phones and internet seem to be at several hours but very good to travel in the weekend! If, in a year or so, we seem a bit depressed or not so optimistic than you are warned... than we miss each other terribly!

The departure got a rather weird touch. Both Loes and Kees are holding back a part of their tears while Kees walks alone to the customs and Loes waits all alone behind the rope. Suddenly, hundreds of Panamanians come running from the steps and crowd behind, beside and under Loes, who tries to wave to Kees every time he turns. These people are highly exited and joyful and bring banners that they hold and put up. One big banner appears in front of Loes who tries to look over it to see and wave to Kees who is as surprised as she is... Apparently, the world champion boxing arrived, he came home, and he is Panamanian!

Still Building

2008-05-21T09:30:00.000-07:00

We like building (on a small scale) almost as much as planting trees. So when the bath room was finished, we started looking for another project. We always wanted a workshop on the plot. The idea was that guests could get creative with beach wood, scrap metal or just paper and paint. And we could use it ourselves as well. Planting trees and building paths and rancho’s requires quite a bit of carpentry etc.

We made a design that we discussed with Francisco, our brick layer and builder. He had a few suggestions that make work a lot easier and cheaper. If you keep the work shop narrower than the corrugated iron roof sheets, life is much easier for a builder. Since we had roof sheets of 18 feet, that was no problem. And since most iron, pvc tubing and many other things come in lengths of 20 feet, the work shop needed to be longer than that. To keep it light and well ventilated, one long wall is only 1.10 m high and from there to the roof we placed chain link fence. One of the short walls has a large window and the other one is a door made of metal bars. Oh well, better look at the pictures.

To keep it al ecological and pleasing to the eye, we are going to construct a lizard wall on one side. Basically we just pile a load of natural stone against the wall, which will give lizards and other beasts plenty of room to hide. In the old house we found a vase with one handle left and that will be a ´cave´ in the stone pile…

We will also incorporate a wasp factory, consisting of old, untreated wood with a couple of holes drilled into it. Especially solitary wasps are welcome because they do not sting people and eat a lot of caterpillars! Finally we will have to build a ‘bat cave’. When we tear down the house, about a dozen bats will become homeless, which is neither ecological nor social. So we decided to provide alternative housing before we tear down the house. Some are already dining inside our workshop…

Most of the building and painting has been done; next week the lizard wall and wasp factory should be ready. Then we will build the ‘bat cave’ (this may take a little longer) and than this project will also be almost finished. Almost, because we have decided to organize a drawing contest among the children of Malena. The more we like the drawing, the larger and more prominent the artist may paint it on the walls of our work shop. The theme is, of course, nature. AS soon as this happens, we will take lots of photo’s and put those on the web and write a new blog about it.

The start of the Rainy Season

2008-05-08T07:02:00.000-07:00

Alter a false start in mid April, the rainy season finally began last week. Straight away 62 mm in one day and 14 mm the on the next. A few more showers and we can start planting trees again. Kees has already planted a few Ixora-bushes and Heliconia flowers, but that is mostly to beautify the area around the rancho’s and to feed the hummingbirds.

Before we start to reforest new areas, we will have to replace the approximately 45 trees that did not survive the dry season. We lost about 5% of the 900 trees we planted during last year. Some will be replaced by other species because they did not grow very well at the place we put them. A small part of our land turns into a swamp for six months and some of the trees we planted there, can not cope with those circumstances.

We will get some new species as well. We left a wish list with a reputable nursery and when we checked last month, they had at least half of what we wanted. But most trees were still small. Furthermore, Loes has been busy in our own nursery and we have seedlings with exotic names as ice cream bean, jobo and tronador. We also found some new and interesting species for sale in the Summit Gardens in Panama City, which we immediately took with us. So now we have monkey condom, monkey comb and monkey pot trees. I am thinking of planting them right next to each other along a path, with a sign giving their common names.

Of the 900 trees we planted last year, 700 were sponsored by people who wanted to compensate for their carbon dioxide production. And, as you could read in an earlier blog, they also helped restore the biodiversity in the area (and since that blog we have registered two more species of bird and a caiman on our property!). If you would like to do this too, you can. For € 100 (U$ 160) we plant 20 trees on about 500 m². The carbon dioxide sequestered by these trees compensates about 5% of the carbon dioxide an average European produces during his/her life (2.5% for the average American). We will send you a certificate with a list of the trees you helped planting. We are trying to restore a forest, so we plant as many species naturally occurring in Panama as we can (tropical forests are very diverse) and we choose trees that are attractive to birds and mammals. We also plant shrubs and orchids to further increase the biodiversity. If you would like to support this initiative, or need more information, please send an email to tanagertourism@gmail.com.

Number 100 !!!

2008-04-13T15:10:00.000-07:00

No, not blog 100, but on 5 April we registered bird species number 100 on our plot. A hundred species is not bad for a plot of 8 hectares. Compared to Holland, where birders have registered about 450 species during the last century in the whole country (admittedly not a very large country) it is quite a lot.

Number 100 was the streaked tyrant flycatcher. Actually, there were two, possibly a pair migrating north to breed. Streaked tyrant flycatchers can be found from Northern Mexico to Northern Argentina. The birds breeding in the extreme northern and southern parts of this range, winter in the area from Costa Rica to Bolivia. Streaked tyrant flycatchers eat large insects (wasps, cicadas), small lizards, berries and arillate seeds.

During the first three months of this year, I have already seen more species on our land than during the whole previous year. And not just more species, but different species. There is a slight shift noticeable to species associated with bushy vegetation and open woods, while species associated with pastures and grass lands, such as the Eastern meadow lark, are disappearing. (Mostly to the farm of the neighbours).

Currently we have three species of wrens, a pair of black-headed sparrows, a pair of banded ant shrikes, orange-chinned parakeets, brown-headed parakeets, pale-breasted spinetails, garden emeralds and slate-headed tody flycatchers residing on our plot. And we get visits from keel-billed toucans, crested oropendola’s, yellow-tailed orioles and longbilled star-throats (a hummingbird). Overhead, we regularly see black and turkey vultures, the great black hawk, the road-side hawk, yellow-fronted and red-lored amazons, and bat falcons. Sometimes we see Magnificent Frigate birds, American wood-storks and once an American fork-tailed Kite.

There are also many more other animals around. Lizards are common as muck, especially the green iguana’s and the `jezus basilisks’ (these lizards can run over water). Snakes are either not present or very shy. The only one we (rarely) see, is the cat-eyed snake. That is a back-fanged snake about 50 cm long and no thicker than your little finger that hunts frogs. Not quite in the same league as the anaconda or the black mamba. We are also quite certain we still have armadillo’s on our land, but since they are very nocturnal and shy we never see them. The only mammals we see are the odd squirrel and the dog from the neighbours who comes to dig around in the pile of sand we have reserved for construction.

Our Forest

2008-04-13T15:07:00.000-07:00

We have not written about our trees for a while. But do not worry, they are doing fine. They cannot grow fast enough as far as we are concerned, but there is definitely progress, although our land probably looks still like an abandoned pasture to the untutored eye. However, we, as specialists, biologists and owners (admittedly, perhaps not totally objective) see a, very young, tropical forest.

The rains have just started and we can see that more than 90% of the trees we planted have survived the dry season. There are a few obvious patterns. The trees that were sold to us as ´Zapote Colombiana` are not suited to our plot; eight out of ten have died (one of the survivors is still in the nursery). Furthermore, trees planted in September and October had more difficulties during the dry season than those planted earlier. The reason for this was probably the lack of light in September and October. The weather was constantly overcast, so the trees just did not get enough light to make a strong root system. This year we will try to concentrate the planting activities in the period from May to August.

The trees that were planted early last year, are doing very well. Our star is still a mahogany tree we planted in the ‘Heliconia Valley’, that tree is now 3.5 m. high. Most panama trees and Amarillos are also doing fine. Most ‘amarillo’s’ are 1.5 to 2m. high. The ‘monkey comb trees are also growing well, even though we planted them fairly late in the season. The heliconias, not trees but rather showy flowers, are also doing fine. The parrot heliconias have flowered continuously from May to February. And they are growing like weeds.

Furthermore, there are lots of trees emerging that we did not plant at all. Not much variety, most are Wild Cashew, Guava, Nance and Roble. One of our ‘hills’ looks more like a guava orchard than a forest. But we do not mind, these trees provide food to birds and the neighbour’s children, as well as shade and protection against high winds to the soil and to the trees germinating (or planted) below them. We plan to plant shade-loving trees like the cocoa underneath the guavas, since we still have some meter high specimens waiting in our nursery....

Guests

2008-04-04T10:23:00.000-07:00

Yes, slowly but certainly the first guests are coming to visit our part of Panama. The two rancho’s are ready, and so is the bath room (apart from a door, but who cares?). Three weeks ago we had three English travelers visiting us and last week Norm, our American friend who lives in Chiriqui came by with a friend. And during the Easter weekend we were actually full. First a night with an unexpected couple who stranded in the region looking for a place to stay. Then, booked in advance, a Panamanian, a Canadian and an American guest. The last one came separately to go bird watching in Cerro Hoya and Santa Fe.

The three English travelers were easy going guests. They wanted breakfast around ten o’clock in the morning, so plenty of time for ourselves to sleep in for a bit. When they left they were especially pleased with the open air shower. Looking at the Milky Way while soaping in your body seems to have a certain attraction.

The shower gets quite some acclaim anyway. Lately we have had quite some people who only want to see what we are actually doing on our land. Mostly other foreigners who are developing something or other in the area. We do not mind at all, none of them are thinking of building a hotel or providing tented accommodation, so we are not worried about people stealing our ideas. And anyway, you ‘ll need some talent and information to be able to paint whales and dolphins on your shower walls.

A lot of this interest is due to Rob van der Merwe, a Dutch student Marketing and Tourism who is doing a practical period of six months with us. During February he traveled western Panama to analyse our target group and he took that opportunity to try and persuade them to come to our place. And that is having some success.

Unfortunately I did not manage to show our bird watcher the Painted Parakeet , the brown-backed dove or the great green macaw. But the next day we did find a Sun Grebe near Ponuga and a Snowcap (a small and rare hummingbird) near Santa Fe. So he was pleased when he left and says he is coming back! And so are the Canadian and Panamian ladies…

A Weekend to Coiba

2008-03-21T15:57:00.000-07:00

After almost a year and a half, we finally made it to Coiba Island. Coiba is world famous in Panama. For many years it was a prison, like Alcatraz. But apparently quite a few prisoners managed to escape. They dug a tunnel out of their cell, cut down a balsa tree and swam to the coast. Many people claim that there are many sharks in Coiba waters and prisoners usually do not report their safe arrival on the mainland to the authorities, so no one knows how many survived their adventure. Nowadays, Coiba is famous as a national park and World heritage Site.

We (Loes, Rob en Kees) went together with Cecil, John (Americans), Hilda, Conny (Panamanians and Julie (a ‘zonian’, someone born in the canal zone). Quite a variety of people. Cecil is developing a resort on 200 ha near Quebro, John will start to take big game fishermen out, Hilda sells natural remedies and is Cecil’s friend, Connie is retired and a friend of Hilda and Julie is John`s friend. We happen to know Cecil quite well.

Visiting Coiba is not cheap. Just the boat, captain and the fuel cost around U$ 550. Then you have to pay entrance fees, accommodation and you have to bring all your food with you. And you’d better bring some diesel if you don’t want to spend the night in total darkness. But Coiba is worth every cent, it is breathtakingly and devastatingly beautiful. Even the trip through the gulf of Montijo, then west past Santa Catalina and finally the last leg south to Coiba are very nice. Closer to Coiba there was a lot of marine life. We saw sail fish, spotted dolphins, petrels and terns all chasing the flying and other fish surprised by our boat.

Coiba is quite large (600 km²) and quite inaccessible. There are three paths into the jungle, two paths are less than a kilometer long and the third is impassable. Most people come for the beaches and the reefs. Part of Coiba’s beauty are the small islets that surround the main island. All blessed with white beaches, surrounded by warm, crystal clear, azure water and adorned with palm trees and jungle. Those warm, crystal clear etc. waters are inhabited by gaily coloured reef fish, spotted dolphins, terns, turtles and a 4.5 m. American crocodile named Tito with a very toothy smile.

Tito lives on one of the beaches near the ranger station and the rangers feed him. They claim (s)he has never attacked a tourist. This did not altogether reassure us. Tourists have only been coming to Coiba in the last four to five years and if Tito did attack a tourist, whatever would be left, would not be able to lodge a complaint about an attack.

So when we went snorkeling the next day, we choose Granito de Oro, far away from the beach where Tito hangs out. The island is so small that swimming around it at leisure takes less than an hour. That is enough to see lots of reef fish and get sunburned. We also saw a school of pickhandle barracuda’s. Very nice. Everybody was so engrossed in the reef fish that we completely forgot that we had left some gear on another beach. When we went back, the tide had come in and some of our gear was floating around. Most people only had wet towels (and birdbooks), but Rob was more unfortunate and lost a camera and his wallet. So if you find a wallet with some U$ cash next time you walk along the beach, it is probably Rob’s. Please contact us if you do find it.

Next day we walked the Thermal Springs path. Loes and I did not reach the thermal springs, we were to busy looking at birds, flowers and trees. The others were not impressed as some were too hot to bath in! Afterwards we also visited the remains of the prison, which, of course, was officially a ‘Rehabilitation Centre’. We thought the prisoners weren’t treated that bad. Plenty of air and light in the cages and a wonderful view from the canteen.

Lasso competition in Panama

2008-02-21T10:49:00.001-08:00

On 3 Februari we went to Arenas to see the district lasso competition. This is a typical Panamanian sport, more particularly, a typical rural sport. The objective is to catch a calf from horseback with a lasso as quickly as possible.

The competition is held in a special rectangular arena about 25 m wide and 100 m long. At one end, there is an elaborate release system that ensures that each rider gives his calf the same head start. The calves do one dry run so they know they have to get to the other end, where they are gathered in a corral.

The start is all important, the quicker you get close to the calf, the better. If the rider is any good, he (this is a real macho sport, there have been only one or two woman competitors) has his lasso in the air as soon as the calf gets away and is in position to throw his lasso within seconds. The really good riders can lasso the calf within two seconds, but most ‘fumble around’ for a good five to ten seconds. Some riders miss completely, or the calf gets through the loop before the rider can tighten it. They can try again until the calf manages to escape to the corral at the other end. If the calf escapes, the rider gets an arbitrary time of 20 seconds.

The attempt only counts if the lasso is thightened around the neck of the calf. If the calf is caught by the rump or a leg, the attempt is disqualified and the rider also gets an arbitrary time of 20 seconds. If the rider does not control his horse properly and the calf is dragged along, the attempt is also disqualified, with the same punishment as before.

The best guy we saw, managed to get the calf in 2 seconds flat. That is good, and ensures the preize for the best personal time. However, the play in teams of 10 riders and each has to catch a calf twice. The total time of all 10 team members counts. Each team has two players in reserve. If one or two of the first ten miss the calf or get their attempt disqualified, the reserves enter the arena.

Two teams play against each other, first one of one team, then one of another, until all players have had two attempts at catching a calf. The teams all have their own banner and shirt. Everybody wears a Panama hat, jeans and a shirt in the club colours. The shirt is always tucked in the jeans and a carefully folded handkerchief in the right rear pocket is optional. The Panama hat quite often gets lost when the rider chases the calf at full speed, and a special person is appointed to collect lost hats, very much like the boys that collect the tennis balls at Wimbledon.

When we were there, there were eight teams and ‘Union del Sur’ (Union of the South) was our favourite because one or two players come from the village where our farm is located. Union del Sur beat their direct opponent, but with a total time of 208 seconds, they were way behind the winners, who only needed 144 seconds to catch 20 calves.

So what about those poor calves? And why not cows? Well, cows are too easy to catch, so it has to be calves. During the day’s competition, each calf has to run the arena 3 times. So it is not too bad. In the corral there is water to drink and the calves are also sprayed with water too keep them cool. And, well, they spend the whole day in the open air, which is more than most calves in the US or Europe can say. And some calves are quite smart, they refuse to run away when they are supposed to. These calves are taken out of the competition and can amble to the other side of the arena at their leisure.

Quite a few calves manage to evade the lasso or slip through the loop before it gets thightened, so they make it safely to the other side (to many cheers of their fellow calves, no doubt). The ones that get caught, make a rather sudden stop when the lasso is thightened and fall over, but they are on their legs again within a second. He rider brings the calf to the other end, where it is released in the corral

The mood was very relaxed and friendly, everybody was cheering for everyone, but cheered just a bit louder for their favourite team. You could rent chairs to watch at leisure from a shaded platform, or remain seated on your horse. Police were not necessary and therefore not present (at least not on duty or in uniform).

All spectators wear more or less the same as the riders, except us. Kees (no hat, shirt not tucked in his jeans and handkerchief stuffed in the right front pocket) and Loes (skirt, no hat and a T-shirt) stood out like, well, like tourists at a Panamanian lasso competition. And we were also horse-less. And without a horse you might as well not be there. There is a lot of cruising going on outside the arena, before, during and after the competition, with people looking at both horse and rider (M/F). Bars are constructed in such a way that a rider does not necessarily have to dismount to get his beer.

We hope the pictures tell the story. We also made some short movies and hopefully we will manage to upload those too. And a big thank you to Justino Moreno, who came along and explained the finer details of lasso competitions to us.

Clubbing in Mariato

2008-02-02T15:31:00.000-08:00

So far we never went out in Mariato. Going out in Mariato is restricted to three ‘cantina’s’ none of which looked very inviting. And women who appear in these places are usually prostitutes. Going out together would not be very good for Loes’ reputation and I did not fancy going on my own. But now we have a Dutch male student, so finally I had the opportunity to experience the night life of Mariato.

Well, night life, make that evening life. We kept it rather short. The first canteen was actually the best. It is right opposite our house, has recently acquired a new sound system and is called ‘Corotu’. We had also heard that the clients sometimes make a strange sound that resembles a dog barking. This had to be checked out.

We had barely entered when we were cornered by a foreigner. We never found out where he came from during the half hour conversation. Our conversation partner claimed that he was born in Holland and therefore Danish, that he was an Indian and that he grew op in the state of California. We came to the conclusion that he now spends most of his time in the state of inebriation.

Luckily there were other customers who suddenly started this strange barking sound, so we left the citizen of Inebriation to his own devices (a full beer bottle) and went to investigate. Making the sound is called ‘salomar’ (this is a verb) and it is an expression of friendship and joy. As soon as Rob (the student) showed a recorder, we were treated to the more elaborate version. This elaborate version sounds a bit like someone singing the blues while he is being kicked in the groin. I am told salomar is an acquired taste and I think it takes a lifetime to acquire that taste.

The second bar was a sad, dark, smelly affair which we left almost immediately. The third was not as bad as the second, but was not as great as the first. We encountered our neighbour there. He was very interested in Holland, but kept asking the same questions over and over again. Perhaps he was not really interested, had a bad memory, was drunk or could not understand my Spanish. Anyway, after answering the same question for the third time we felt it was time to go home. It was half past ten…

A night to remember, if only to make sure one does not make that mistake again.

The Darien

2008-01-27T14:16:00.001-08:00

Western and central Panama are relatively well developed and easily accessible. Much more so than the east, and especially Darien Province. The Darien, and especially the Darien gap, have an almost mythical name amongst travelers. The Interamerican Highway stops in Yaviza and only appears 150 km south in Colombia. (the Interamerican Highway is actually not very interamerican at all). Those 150 km are covered with primary rainforest full of jaguars, harpy eagles, macaws, mahogany trees as large as light houses and abandoned gold mines. And also 7,000 Wounaan and 12,000 Emberá (indigenous people).

Unfortunately, this area is almost completely inaccessibe. Not because of the lack of roads, but because of the presence of drug traffickers, the FARC and Colombian and Panamanian (para) military units hunting the former two. Members of all of these groups are heavily armed, shoot on sight, shoot to kill and keep shooting until there is no one left to ask questions.

So we gave that bit a miss. We only went as far as Santa Fé, just 30 km inside the Darien province. Just to get there we had to drive a road that reminded us a lot of Mozambique and we had to pass three police posts with increasingly nervous policemen. They do not like tourists to visit the Darien at all. Mostly because some tourists keep trying to cross the Darien gap and get killed on the way. That the tourists get killed does not really bother the policemen. What bothers them most is that they have to risk their lives to go and recover the tourists or what is left of them.

Santa Fé and surroundings however, are quiet, peaceful and safe. Just west of Santa Fé the village of Aremae is inhabited by Wounaan and Embera indians. They managed to hang on to 6000 out of 50,000 hectares of forest that belonged to them. The other 36,000 have been taken and deforested by Latino’s from Central Panama. The remaining 6000 hectares do support at least one active harpy eagle nest. I went there and saw the nest, heard the harpy, but did not get a view of the beast. I will have to go back. Unfortunately, but understandably, the community cut and sold all the hardwood from the forest, so it is not quite primary and rather open.

The community of Arimae consists mainly of Embera indians with a few Wounaan mixed in. While Kees went to look at the harpy eaqgle, Loes discussed tourism and possible colaboration with the women of the Arimae community. The village has built a traditional house with two rooms for guests and a little shop with souvenirs made by community members. Visitors are stil few and far between. Most business is from other indians, who buy handicrafts in Arimae and sell it in ‘traditional indian villages’ along the canal and on the outskirts of Panama city. And some of the items for sale are not made by the people from Arimae, but by Indians living in even remoter areas… Loes got a demonstration in weaving. Younger women prefer modern designs and techniques (learned from an NGO), but still use traditional dyes made from plant juices. The older generation still uses traditional techniques.

We also paid a short visit to Puerto Lara, about half an hour south of Santa Fé, by boat. Puerto Lara is at the mouth of a river and is inhabited by more or less traditionally living Wounaan Indians. When a tourist visit is announced (and we were), the guests are received by a group of Indians covered in body paintings and not much else. Admittedly, I did not really dare to give the paintings of the women the attention they obviously merited.

But all in all, eastern Panama is definitely worth a visit. The people from Arimae and Puerto Lara will be glad to see you and we are happy to help you getting there.

Dam Building

2008-01-07T15:29:00.001-08:00

When I married Kees, I was warned that he had a thing with water and fish. At that time, this fixation did not get any further than an aquarium and a ‘paludarium´ (a combination of aquarium and terrarium). Now we have 8 hectares of potential forest with a small stream. And streams can be dammed, just like twenty years back on holidays in France...

Since our borehole does not deliver much water, water has to be found, or stored elsewhere, which provided Kees with the perfect excuse to build a dam. After some literature searching, we decided that the dam should be constructed of gabions. A gabion is a box made of cyclone fence which you place where you want it and then fill up with stones. The gabions can be used to build a dam. Gabions are somewhat flexible and therefore do not require the rigid foundation needed for a concrete structure.

We had barely returned to Mariato, when Kees decided that building the dam was more important than putting up the shelves in our house. He had already studied the stream and knew exactly where the new dam was to be built!

The next day we went to Santiago to buy 30 m of 1.80 m high cyclone fence and the day after that we spend carting sand and stones from Mariato beach to our farm. The latter was quite a job. Normally we ask a few Panamanians to help us with these heavy jobs, but all our normal contacts were unavailable. So we did it all ourselves. Six times we loaded the pick up with about 400 liters of sand and 200 liters of stones and offloaded the stuff in the front yard of our property. A liter of sand or stone weighs about 2 kg, so you can calculate for yourselves how tired we were at the end of the day. And don’t forget, at the end of the day we had to walk further and further on the beach to get decent sized stones…

On Thursday we did manage to hire some Panamanians to carry the stones from the front yard to the dam site (the sand is for another activity). We made the gabion in one piece and carried that to the site ourselves. At the dam site, Kees filled up the Gabion with stones. Large flat stones have to be placed on the bottom and along the sides. These have to fit together as closely as possible to minimize leakage. In the centre you can put smaller stones and the whole thing is covered with flat stones. Then the gabion is sewn closed with wire. The whole process is not unlike a three-dimensional puzzle. And one that never really fits if you are using stones from the beach, which are rounded by erosion. Kees added some gravel and coarse sand while filling the gabions to close small openings. A 10 cm pipe was also fitted in so that we can empty the dam when necessary. At the end Kees threw more sand and gravel on the dam to further minimize water seeping through.

So far the water level has risen from ankle deep to almost knee diep! (Kees has long legs). As soon as the current gabion has settled properly in the soil and we have gathered enough courage (in about two months time), we will build another level to further increase the water level of the pond! But first the shelves in our Mariato house.
(photos will be uploaded soon on www.flickr.com/photos/tanagertourism/sets)

Long Time No Hear

2007-12-18T07:25:00.000-08:00

Quite some time has passed since our last blog in English. This was due to an overload of work. As you may remember, we submitted two business plans to two competitions. The plan submitted to the Business in Development network (www.bidnetwork.org) made it to the finals (we wrote that Kees can write a good proposal!). This meant that Kees (or in fact Cornelis), under whose name the proposal was submitted, was invited to go to Holland for a week to participate in the finalist week. So we won one ticket and we decided that Loes should come along for moral and other support, so we went to Holland from 21 November to 12 December.

The finalist week was very interesting and a lot of fun. Unfortunately we did not win one of the money prizes, but we made many new contacts and expect to get an investor soon. And we know that we have a good business plan. The group of people and the type of business they proposed was very diverse: we had a Tadjikistani selling dried apricots, an Argentinian furniture maker, a Kenyan ophthalmologist and Indian doctors to mention just a few. Lots of interesting people all full of ideas and energy made for a wonderful week. We also made contact with a tourism student who will come to Panama to help us with marketing and development of tours!

We spend the remainder of the time in the Netherlands visiting friends and relatives. The last bit is getting more and more time consuming as the number of relatives keeps increasing. Grandma is still alive, for which we are grateful, while our brothers, sisters and cousins start procreating. And we have to be introduced to each new family member and will then proceed to forget even more birthdays…

Another thing that kept us from writing sooner, is the fact that just before going to the Netherlands we moved from Santiago to Mariato, which is much closer to our property. We expect to start building the lodge in the next three months or so and our experience is that you have to be really on top of your building contractor if you want to get what you asked for within the time you asked for it. This has also, again, been our experience during the construction of the bathroom near the ranchos. Some say that moving house is one of the most stressful events in someone’s life, but I disagree; I am sure that building a house is much more stressful than merely moving.

In the mean time, the trees keep growing and what is even better; they do so without any supervision. And now that the grass is setting seed and starting to fall down, the newly planted trees suddenly become much more visible. All of a sudden we realize that some trees have actually been growing pretty fast over the last couple of months. We also note changes in the type of animals on our property. Since a few months black striped sparrows are much more common than before, while eastern meadow larks have all but disappeared. Other new visitors are crested oropendolas and once a toucan (but that one did look a bit lost). Mammals are still elusive, but we have seen tracks of raccoons, opossums and armadillos.

building the water supply system

2007-10-05T11:04:00.000-07:00

In our blog ‘a little problem’ we told you that the borehole was deemed unproductive. So we are now finding other solutions to make sure that we always get water from the tap. Storage is, for the time being the quickest and easiest solution. So we have bought a tank to store 5000 l. of water. That should keep us wet for at least a month, possibly two. We bought one of black plastic to make sure we would not get any algae growing in the water. And the advantage is that we now automatically have warm water on sunny days.

The storage tank has to be situated high and stable so that we get enough pressure in taps in the house and near the rancho´s. So finally al those hills on our property come in handy. We have located a spot near the top of one of our ´hills´. This spot was leveled (read: dug out of the hill side) by Kees and then we had to strengthen and stabilize it with a 10 cm thick concrete slab of about 4 square meters.

We could have hired someone to do this for us, but we decided that you had to try everything at least once in your life, so, we gathered information about concrete pouring on the internet, bought the material, transported it op the hill side and off we went. All the web sites state that concrete pouring is hard work, and we can assure you that they were not lying. After a hard day{s work we had poured about 40% of the slab. After that we decided that in the case of concrete pouring, one try in your life was enough and that the rest could be done by others. So for the seconf half we hired some labour and all we carried was the responsibility.

De tank fitted neatly on the car and together we managed to roll it up the hillside (aren´t we a clever lot to reinvent the wheel once again?) and place it on its slab.

Having dug a significant hole in the hill side, we were somewhat worried about erosion. Downpours occur fairly frequently and we did not want to se our water tank slide down the hill. Since Kees was already busy supervising the digging of trenches and connecting tubes , Loes decided to try her hand at brick laying to build a small retainer wall. And discovered she had yet another talent. Building the wall took Loes little bit longer than it would have taken a professional bricklayer, but the wall looks very neat and is very strong. Kees stood on top of it only hours after it was completed, without any damage at all. Nowadays, when we need bricklayers, we show them this wall and tell them that we expect work of the same quality. It sure helps because the bricklayers now that we know what we are talking about.

You can see the results on (http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanagertourism/sets ).

Turtles

2007-09-15T10:13:00.000-07:00

During the last few months we may have mentioned that there are turtles breeding on the beach of Malena. Not just on, but four species. In June and July, a few hawksbill turtles come ashore to breed. August and September are the main season, almost every night a few Olive Ridley turtles crawl onto the beach to lay their eggs. In October and November a few loggerheads and leatherbacks visit Malena beach to deposit their eggs.

Until now, we went to the beach at night just once, in June, and we did not see a turtle. Since we do intend to take visitors there, we thought it was about time we tried again.

We went to the beach around 8 in the evening about two ours before high water. Our first round of the beach was in vain, nothing crawling in or out of the water. But on our second round, we met the Malena turtle patrol, this time Ana and Darien, and our first (Olive Ridley) turtle. Finding a meter long turtle on a dark beach is slightly more complicated than you might think. Turtles prefer dark nights and since bright lights might scare them away, one is supposed to use weak red lights to get around and find the turtles or their nests.

When we arrived, the turtle was already busy digging the nest. When that was finished, the turtle started laying which, judging from the grunts and sighs she produced, is quite an arduous task (I always thought turtles were mute). After depositing 102 eggs, she closed the nest and camouflaged her activities by shuffling around and pressing down the sand with her body and flippers. This proved to be much more effective than you think. Although we looked on while she laid her eggs, it took us 15 minutes to find the nest back once she left.

We took some pictures of the turtle while she was laying her eggs and of Ana digging them up and burying them again (http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanagertourism/sets). The turtle patrol waits patiently until the turtle has laid her eggs and returns to the sea. Then they dig up the eggs and bury them again inside a cage built on the beach. In this cage the eggs are protected against the two main predators: stray dogs and poachers. When the eggs hatch, the turtles are released just outside the cage and guarded against crabs and other predators until they reach the sea.

We tried to take pictures without flash, but that resulted in images of darkness against a black background. So we used a weak flash and made sure the flash did not blind the turtle. Loes pursued the turtle on her way to the sea to take some pictures. Focusing the camera on a turtle hurrying to sea over a dark beach was, again, not very easy.

Most turtle specialists think you should definitely not use a flash before the turtle starts laying her eggs. And even after she has finished, using the flash is discouraged. Turtles lay more than once per year and specialists are afraid that a scared turtle might not come back to lay again that year. But then again, most turtle specialists will admit that they do not know very much about turtles and admit that most of these suggestions come from the ´better safe than sorry´ or the ´belts and braces´ approach.

That is, of course, very sensible. But on the other hand, if you want to encourage local people to protect turtles, they have to get something out of it. Patrolling the beach every night for half a year is quite an effort. The best way to make money is to invite tourists and get them to pay for the visit. And that is easiest if the tourists are allowed to make at least some photographs. We think that taking a few pictures should be allowed.

Anyway, while Ana was burying the eggs in the cage, the other, Darien already found another turtle coming onto the beach. The second one produced 108 eggs. We took some more pictures because this one had rather distinctive marks on her back. We might be able to recognize her if she comes again. What caused the marks is uncertain, for all we know it might have been an ambitious shark.

Proposal Writing

2007-09-04T16:47:00.000-07:00

We have been pretty busy during the last weeks. Not only with planting trees, but also with (re)writing our businessplan. In June we sent a summary to the Business in Development Network (http://www.bidnet.org/). This organisation tries to match investors (the people with money) to entrepreneurs (the people with brains and guts). They also organise a competition where the best business plans are awarded prizes up to 20,000 Euro.

This year more than 4000 people submitted a summary. Everyone who got through the first round would get comments from a professional business coach and the writers of the very best plans would get help from a coach to write the full plan. So at the beginning of August we, and 2000 others, were informed that we got through to the second round. This did not really surprise us, we have a good plan and Kees can write a mean business plan, if he says so himself. What did surprise us (slightly ;-)) is that we got no comments on our summary and that we would get a coach to help us write the final plan. So ours was one of the best out of 4000 submissions.

Having one of the best plans to start with and a coach to make it even better, means we have amore than average chance to win one of the prizes. Therefore we decided to put a lot of effort in the complete business proposal to get the most out of our coach and to maximise our chances of winning a prize. Rewriting the original plan was not the problem. According to our coach, the text is excellent. But getting al the numbers right was slightly more difficult for us, since we had very little experience with business economics. The organisation had provided a worksheet to be completed and that was somewhat complicated. We had no clue what ´reteined earnings´ or ´NPV´ were (now we do) and there were a few other hurdles. Communication with the coach was always via e-mail, which did not make matters easier. But we managed to get all the numbers matching where they should be matching, largely thanks to our coach. Last weekend we uploaded the plan, well in advance of the deadline (3 Sept midnight Central European Time). And now we wait. The winners will be anounced in October.

And since we were busy writing anyway, we also decided to submit a proposal to the ´Green Picnic Challenge´ of teh Dutch postcodeloterij (zie http://www.postcodeloterij.nl/GoedeDoelen/PICNICGreenChallenge.htm.)
There will be only be one winner, but the prize is half a million Euro! We had a bit of a brainstorm (well, it was more like a light summer´s breeze to be honest) and submitted a proposal for activities that would be additional to the business plan we submitted to BiD. We do not hold our breath on this one, but you never know, Kees can, after all, write a good proposal...

Ps. No photo´s, because we thought pictures of us behind a computer are not very exiting...

Life is not always easy

2007-08-11T07:16:00.000-07:00

Last week we have had a few disappointments. After months of telephone calls, meeting and waiting the drilling machine finally came to our farm to drill a bore hole. Beforehand we were (naturally) told that there is water just about anywhere in Panama, so it doesn{t really matter where you locate the bore hole. The most important limiting factor was supposed to be access to the site. The drilling machine weighs 25 tonnes and the accompanying lorry did not have four wheel drive. So we selected a site with good access

On 26 July the driling got started.
(for photo´s see:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanagertourism/sets/72157601522605894/

Around 20 m depth all was groovy, the signs were good. Around 35 m brows started to contract slightly and at about 40 m the furrows on the brows were about as deep as the borehole. And at about 56 m people had to admit that we had found one of the few sites in Panama where ground water is scarce. Not enough to properly clean the borehole. The borehole was declared dry, which means we pay 50% of the price, but that is not much of a consolation when there is no water. On 27 July we tested ourselves and found that water was rising in the borehole, but the yield was around 50 to 100 l per hour, not enough for a motor pump. People claim that the borehole may start to yield more when it has cleaned itself, but we have to see that before we believe it.

So we went back to Santiago somewhat downcast. Only to encounter another set back. Someone had broken into our house via the side door. Both lap top computers and the portable hard drive with back-up were gone, disappeared, no more there. That the machines were gone is expensive, but that loss will be (partly) covered by insurance. But the monetary loss is almost insignificant in comparison to the time we had spent on gathering and analyzing the information on tropical ecosystems, trees, birds, mammals etc as well as all the digital photographs we had stored.

Thank whoever invented it, for the internet. Quite a few documents and photographs were sent to friends and family around the world, so we can download that information from the attachments we sent. And the person designing our website is very particular when it comes to photographs, so she has the majority (and certainly the best) photographs we have taken over the last year or do. Still we lost a lot as well. Like 30 Gbyte of music from all over the world and the playlists we had selected...
We will, off course, get over this. And you can help us. We ask everybody to send ur there favorite three songs in MP3 to keesgroenendijk@yahoo.com. In this way we hope to rebuild a music collection that is just as varied, beautiful and entertaining as the one we lost. Man thanks in advance.

PHOTOS

2007-07-16T15:44:00.000-07:00

Dear all,

You have been viewing photos in my yahoo album but these are only available up to September. I have started the process of moving my photos to flickr which is recommended by yahoo.

Sorry for the delay and the slowness in adjusting the links. New photos are visible soon!

Try it via: www.flickr.com/photos/tanagertourism even though it is still chaos there!

Regards Kees and Loes

Building bridges

2007-07-13T13:23:00.000-07:00

A few months ago we wrote about all the work that has to be done on our property. And slowly but certainly these projects are beginning to get realized. Last month Kees and his father built two bridges over the stream that runs through our property.

Kees had been procrastinating a bit but in the end the project was easier than he thought. De first bridge was ready after two days of hard work. Not that we had to cross large distances, but everything had to be done by hand. We had to carry all the wood to th eright place, dig the trench for the foundations, saw al the wood and screw everything in place. The wood, incidentally, was left over from the construction of the rancho’s.

De Bridge supports are made of Nispero. Nispero is a heavy tropical hard wood that is resistant against rot, insects, water, and anything else you can think of. In Central America nispero has been used a lot in harbour construction. Our supports are 10 by 15 cm and have been dug in 50 cm. So they will probably last forever. The main supports are also made of nispero (10 by 5 cm) and the planks are ‘Espavé’ (wild cashew). The latter do not last quite as long as Nispero, but long enough.

Because of its strength and resistance, nispero is a very popular wood for construction in Panama. But it grows slowly, much slower than it is being harvested. Nispero is therefore slowly going extinct in Panama. The wood we used, is from a natural tree fall, so our ECO-image is still intact. Better still, last month we finally managed to buy 10 nispero seedlings, most of which have been planted already.

But back to the bridges. N the end they look just like Kees had planned them all along. And they are also level, in all directions. And that is quite an achievement when you keep in mind that we used rather basic tools and that the banks of the stream were very uneven. This does give us the courage to tackle the next building project.

A Weekend in Gamboa

2007-06-14T12:58:00.000-07:00

This blog was written by our guest writer: Wanny Groenendijk

Gamboa is located at the Panama Canal, close to Gatun Lake, between the northern and southern locks of the Panama Canal. In the old days, Gamboa was inhabited by Americans who worked at the canal or at one of the research institutes. On 31 December 1999 the canal was handed over to the government of Panama. Many Americans have left, but Gamboa still looks American with large wooden houses. Currently there are around 500 people living in Gamboa.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/loesroos/album?.dir=/fbafre2&.src=ph&.tok=phzTs6GBgS_flo.d

Before we reach Gamboa, we do a walk near the entrance of the Soberania National park, our first encounter with a tropical forest. Many high trees, most of which are recognized by Kees and Loes, lots of frogs, birds and ants. Whole armies of leafcutter ants walk in organized lines along a clearly defined path. They carry bits of leaves to their nests, where they chew the leaves. A fungus is then sown on the resulting leaf pulp. The ants eat the fungus that grows on the leaf pulp!

We then continue to Gamboa to visit Gwen. Gwen is a friend of Kees and Loes who works as a guide with the Smithsonian and as a volunteer at the Summit Gardens. Kees and Loes stay with her and we (Wanny and Dick) stay at Ivan’s Bed & Breakfast. Ivan has a beautiful garden that attracts many birds as well as agouti’s. Agoutis are related to guinea pigs and look a bit like guinea pigs on stilts. One of the agouti’s in Ivan’s garden has two pups and we had a great time watching them play.

Gwen has also, somewhat reluctantly, become the local caretaker of animals in distress. When people heard that she was caring for three Tropical Screech Owls, they started bringing her wounded animals. She is currently caring for the three owls, one baby squirrel and one parrot. The latter was brought on the morning we arrived and had a concussion with a fever. It was being treated with antibiotics and fed with mashed fruit through a syringe.

The next day we went by boat to Barro Colorado (literally ‘coloured earth’ but usually meaning ‘red earth’). This island in the Gatun lake, about 45 minutes by boat from Gamboa, is a Natural Monument an is used by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute for long term research on the ecosystem of a tropical forest. The Smithsonian allows only a limited number of visitors on the island because they claim that allowing more visitors would disturb their experiments. The visit consists of a guided walk –with Gwen- through the forest for about 4 hours and a lunch in the canteen of the research institute.

During the boat trip to the island we see one of the huge vessels ‘boating’ to the Gatun locks on the Caribbean side. The weather is good and it is cool underneath the huge trees. Most trees are 30 metres high or more and some are centuries old. We see a poison dart frog, all sorts of insects, mushrooms birds and howler monkeys. We see the group of howler monkeys in the trees above us while we take a brief rest. They have at least one young still riding the back of its mother. It is hard to say who is observing who, the howlers seem to take a look at those distant relatives that took the strange decision to descend from the trees and invent the wheel, money, careers and stress when they could have led a carefree existence in the treetops.

Thanks to the eagle eyes of Gwen and Loes, we see a twig snake and hummingbird on her nest; just try to imagine how tiny that is! The walk’s turn around point is at ‘the big tree’. And this tree, a ‘Ceiba’ is indeed huge (see photos!). To estimate its girth and height is almost impossible. Just the buttresses are about four metres high and extend five metres from the ‘true’ trunk. Most people guess that this tree is between 500 and a 1000 years old, but no-one knows for sure. It was almost certainly there when Columbus finally reached the Americas.

As we took our time getting there, we hurry back via a shortcut to get something to eat. After a good lunch (don’t you worry, the Smithsonian Institute takes good care of staff living on the island) we go back to Gamboa with the boat through the canal again.

The next day when we leave, Kees and Loes tell us that the parrot has recovered and will probably be released that day.

The Rancho´s

2007-05-23T13:30:00.000-07:00

During the last months we have been busy organising the construction of two rancho’s. Rancho’s are fairly simple buildings, consisting of four poles supporting a thatched roof. No walls, no windows. So building them should be simple and easy. At least that is what we thought, but the reality was somewhat more difficult.
The photos http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/loesroos/album?.dir=/f66fre2&.src=ph&.tok=ph7fv0GBxfLDF8DM ) illustrate the rather elaborate process...

We already wrote about organizing the wood in a previous blog (sampling, measuring and building). In the end, getting the wood took three weeks longer than we thought. Nispero is getting scarce in the area. And although we dutifully repeated the message from the carpenter that he needed either guayacan or nispero, the trader got stuck with the thought that we only wanted nispero. But guayacan is much easier to get, so next time we will just ask for guayacan.

The next cause of delay was due to the design. We wanted an elevated wooden floor in the rancho’s so that guests would be above the forest floor riff raff such as tarantulas. An elevated floor needs a bit more wood and longer poles. And then location caused further delay. We wanted the rancho’s on a hill side in order to provide our guests with a nice view. But then it is slightly more difficult to build everything level.

Then we found out that the guy whom we contracted was not a carpenter after all, but a mason. That is a handicap when one is working with wood, but we think it is not an excuse for poles that are not vertical or roofs that are 165 cm instead of 210 cm above the future floor level. After all, even masons should be able to use a measuring tape and a level. Having taken into account these flaws in the first building stage, we decided to say goodbye to the mason and find someone who knows how to use a level and a measuring tape.

We found another builder who took a good look and declared he could transform this into rancho’s. We jacked up the roof (literally) and put it on new poles placed perfectly perpendicular. Then the builder started to put in the floor. That gave us something to do as well. The wood for the floor was delivered straight from the saw mill, so it took Loes and me a good week to plane and sand the floor boards. But it looks pretty good, if we say so ourselves.

We are now waiting for the finishing touch: closing the thatched roof with specially woven palm fronds. The difficulty was finding someone who can do that. With the introduction of corrugated iron roofs, this craft became superfluous and within a decade or so, almost nobody knows how to do this anymore. Only people who are so poor they can not afford a corrugated iron roof know how to do this. We have now found a person who knows and he will be somewhat less poor by next week.

Moving House

2007-05-08T15:11:00.000-07:00

After half a year in a one bedroom flat with a miniscule balcony, we moved to a real house with three bedrooms and a back and front garden. All for the same price! So we can now enjoy our breakfast on the verandah in front, while hummingbirds and woodpeckers pass by (the back yard only provides a view of the free range chicken breeding project of our neighbours).

See our photos in the yahoo album:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/loesroos/album?.dir=/4bdbre2&.src=ph&.tok=phg4KuGB032gpUaL

On our verandah we are surrounded by all the trees we have grown in the last couple of months (moving those was the most time consuming part of the whole moving process). We have now over a hundred saplings, such as Panama trees, Stinking Toes, Monkey combs, Monkey Condoms, Cacao, Tamarind, Mahogany, Sand Box Tree, Soursop, ‘Melina’, ‘Corotu’ ‘Vaino’ ‘Uvito’ ‘Guabo’ and many others. Seeds germinate almost daily because we have sown hundreds during the last couple of months. Some grow real fast, the Stinking Toes are 50 cm high, while others take their sweet time. The monkey condoms were sown way before the stinking toes, but the highest barely reaches 10 cm.

Our kayaks are now lying next to the house, rather than in the living room. The latter is now three times bigger while we have far less items to put there. So when you talk loudly, you hear an echo. The advantage is that the statue we bought in Mozambique can be displayed to its full advantage. And, by coincidence, the pink in our Mugapela painting matches the pale pink walls.

Yes, not only the house on the property in Malena has pink walls, our living room in Santiago has the same colour. Apparently pink is a very popular colour among home decorators in Panama. We politely remarked that in our country pink walls are mostly associated with little girls’ bedrooms and got the owner to repaint some walls in white.

One cannot accuse the majority of Panamanians of good taste when it comes to home decoration or art. Kitsch is definitely the norm: the more frilly bits and candy colours, the better it is. Paintings of European landscapes in the romantic style, but without any sense of perspective are very popular for decoration, as are biblically inspired scenes, also without perspective and featuring people with decidedly vacant faces. The final alternative for cheap decoration is Technicolor pictures of Hong Kong, Dubai and other examples of modern ‘power architecture’. Luckily two of the two rooms have deep, dark cupboards where we have stored these gems to protect them from the harmful rays of the sun.

Distractions

2007-05-02T08:03:00.000-07:00

The rainy season has definitely started. During the last four weeks we have had two to three showers per week. Both plants and animals react almost instantaneously to this change in weather and there are many new animals and plants appearing on the farm. All very exciting, but it does occasionally distract us from the work at hand.

Like two weeks ago when Kees left to improve the path here and there. He was back in three minutes to get Loes and the camera because there was a five foot snake in a small tree along the path. The branch on which the snake was lying, bent under the weight of the snake (it was, admittedly, a rather thin branch). So of course we had to take pictures for our blog and our website-in-construction. After that, Kees did start the work, but since he and the snake were both constantly looking over his shoulder, progress was slower than normal.

See the photos in this album! http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/loesroos/album?.dir=/44cere2&.src=ph&.tok=phCz6rGBsZ2FWn7I

We showed the picture to several Panamanians and all agreed that this is a ‘Java’ (pronounce ghàhbàh) but opinions about whether it was dangerous and/or poisonous differed. According to the local farmers the snake is poisonous, brave but not aggressive. According to a Panamanian student of environmental studies, the snake was not poisonous, but he agreed that the snake was brave. The student also claims that the snake wraps itself around your legs and hits you with its tail when you get too close, to scare you off. We also thought it was rather calm, we came within ten feet of the snake but it stayed calm.

Finally we found some info on the insufficiently praised Internet: The snake was a tiger rat snake or chicken snake (Spilotes pullatus). The snake is not poisonous, a member of the colubrid family and reaches an average length of 1.5 – 2 m. but can reach 3.3 m. The tiger rat snake kills its prey (just about anything smaller than itself, including other snakes) by strangling. Apparently the tiger rat snake rattles its tail and inflates is neck to scare you off when you get too close. Oh, and it is very popular among those who keep snakes as pets and zoos because it is colourful and active even though it has a bad reputation. Almost everybody who owns tiger rat snakes, claims that keeping them is not for the faint of heart because they are big, fast and bad-tempered.

Besides the tiger rat snake (that name sounds so much better than chicken snake) we also have some large iguanas, terrapins, cane toads (Bufo marinus) and assorted smaller frogs and lizards running around. You will find some pictures of those in the soon to be uploaded photo album as well.

Golfito

2007-04-05T11:24:00.000-07:00

Every three months we have to leave Panama for three nights because we are still on a tourist visa rather than an investors visa. We usually visit Southwestern Costa Rica, which is close by. The first two times we visited San Vito, but this time we decided to go to Golfito, which is situated on the Golfo Dulce (Sweet Gulf). Golfito is situated in very beautiful surroundings. And the centre is not much more than one road in between the bay and a steep hillside covered in primary tropical forest.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/loesroos/album?.dir=/cf21re2&.src=ph&.tok=phyAQkGBOu66MnBC

Until the seventies of the twentieth century Golfito was one of the main ports through which the United Fruit Company exported bananas to North America. When UFC left, Golfito descended in dire poverty. Nowadays Golfito is becoming an important port again, but this time for tourists on their way to the Corcovado National Park on the Osa Peninsula.

However, Golfito appeared to be a rather sleepy town. Nothing very much was happening and March is supposed to be high season for tourists. The main activity was caused by the arrival of a US coast guard vessel. Six weeks on the high seas apparently makes one very, very thirsty. Consequently, the bar of the local yacht club probably makes more money during the shore leave of those guys and girls than during the intervening periods.

The only indication of the high season were the absurdly high prices. Hiring a boat with an outboard engine cost 20 USD per hour, which is rather expensive if you are only two people. And although there were no other clients to be seen, negotiating a price was not possible.

As an alternative, we hired kayaks. Not very cheap either, at 6 USD per hour for a well worn single kayak with a very heavy paddle. And although the bay is very well suited for paddling around we did not get very far because Loes got very tired weightlifting the paddle. But we did explore some of the mangroves and saw lots of herons and an osprey.

We also try to do a few things that will help the company ahead. This time we collected some seeds during a walk in the primary forest on the hill behind Golfito. One of the fruits looks a bit like a chestnut and we also collected a few pods from a tree with lots of large purple flowers. Some of the seeds from those pods have already germinated. We have also made pictures of flowers, birds and lizards for the web site.

Kees also claims that everytime he goes birdwatching, he is actually practising for the future. The trips around Golfito were quite fruitful. We saw a tanager that only occurs around Golfito and on the Osa peninsula (the Grey-cheeked Ant-tanager, Habia atrimaxilaris) and a trogon that only occurs in the low-lying tropical forests of the Pacific coast of Southwestern Costa Rica and Western Panama (Baird’s Trogon, Trogon bairdii).

We also met a Dutch girl who lived and worked in Puerto Jimenez, near the Corcovado National Park. She is organizing tours into the park and was busy trying to forge relationships with European tour operators. She mentioned that she regularly got people who were looking for volunteering opportunities and asked for information on where to go in Panama. So she might turn out to be a very useful contact.

Do it yourself

2007-03-18T13:09:00.000-07:00

We are already building a few things ourselves. That is to say, Kees is doing some simple carpentry work. When you have your own farm, becoming a handyman is inevitable (although it takes rather long in Kees’ case). We already have a large wooden box for composting organic waste and Kees also constructed a pergola to provide shade to saplings before they are planted. On the steeper sections of the paths on our property we have constructed steps with wood and stone. The place where we take water from our little stream has also been stabilized with wood and stone to prevent erosion.

There are some deep gullies on the farm, caused by overgrazing. When it rains, the water runs off very fast through these gullies, washing away fertile soil. We are slowly filling these gullies up with stones, palm leaves, dead wood and just about anything else we can lay our hands on. In some cases we also filled up the gullies with soil from another place and we have planted trees at the head of these gullies. This way, we will slow down the water, which will result in less erosion and more infiltration of water.

In the near future we are going to start the next project: to build a small bridge over our little stream. For the time being Kees is mostly thinking and gathering courage to start, because it looks like quite a job. We also want to make a proper work bench. We soon hope to connect electricity (that is another story maybe) and a stable bench where you can safely use power tools seems like a good idea. For the time being we are using the furniture which was left behind: Loes on the table and Kees on the bench (see photos).

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/loesroos/album?.dir=/ec88re2&.src=ph&.tok=phUnHdGBDwR_UgvK

Another project that is looming in the future is the construction of a 3 feet high wall along the front of our farm. We want to build it with natural stone in such a way that small wildlife can easily pass over and through, but cattle and wild fires cannot pass. We also think that a low wall looks more friendly and welcoming to tourists than barbed wire.

Since the dry season is dryer than we thought, we want to improve the natural supply. The stream that runs through our property has mostly dried up now. A few pools are left, one of them actually dug out by us. We use the water to water our trees and quite a few birds come to drink and bath in the small pools that are left. We intend to increase the pool we have dug quite a lot, until we have a more or less natural looking lake with a sandy bottom and one bank clad with stone where one can sit and dangle ones legs in the water to attract alligators and such.

We are quite busy. So busy that we missed most of the carnaval at the end of February. We only went into town the last day and saw a (lousy) band and the princess. Compared to Holland, where carnival is always led by a prince, Panama appears gender sensitive. But appearances are quite misleading, even though the princess is very beautiful. Because being beautiful, swaying her hips and getting kissed by important people are the only tasks the princess has to fulfill during carnival. These tasks should not be underestimated. Getting kissed by drunk sweaty mayors and such can’t be much fun and swaying your hips during a three hour parade in the town is probably just as tiring as digging a pond.

Measuring, analyzing and building

2007-03-03T08:34:00.000-08:00

During the last month we contracted the Technical University of Panama to analyze some soil samples. If we want to build a canopy tower with four floors, we need to know what the physical carrying capacity of the soil is. So one day we had a team come around to drill a hole of about 4.5 meters deep to take soil samples. When they came, I wondered why the scientist had brought two bodyguards. But those guys were not bodyguards, they were the drill operators; the drill is driven by human power. And part of operating the drill is repeatedly lifting and dropping a 60 kg weight to hammer the drill into the soil. So now we know that the carrying capacity varies from 7.5 to 28 ton per square meter. Carrying capacity appears to increase with decreasing water content.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/loesroos/album?.dir=/6d43re2&.src=ph&.tok=phRdvYGBIPA7HAcB

We had already mowed the grass and measured the height differences on the hill where we want to build the tower. But we needed to have more information about surrounding altitudes to decide where to locate the tower. At the moment, most of our treetops are less than two feet high, so the view is the best selling point. Therefore we have to make sure we can look over the next hill to the sea and Cébaco island. So we contacted the university again and arranged for someone to come and measure altitudes etc. on part of our land. And now we have a map of 1.6 ha of our land, scale 1:400. We have sent this map to the architect and are now waiting for a first design.

In the mean time we have found a carpenter in Mariato who can build two wooden ‘ranchos’ for us. Basically this consists of a wooden platform a foot or two above the ground with a thatched roof. The platform is large enough to accommodate a roomy two person tent and a verandah with a hammock. Finding the materials to build these rancho’s is very much like trying to get something done in Mozambique: I was taken by somebody who knew everybody to someone who could certainly get the wood. However, this someone was busy doing something else. But he knew a second someone who could surely help me. This second someone would gladly do it, but his chain saw was broken and he did not know when he would get the spare part. But he had a friend who had a brother in law whose third cousin once removed probably knew someone….etc.
After doing away with following all these intricate family connections, we finally found someone in Arenas who will get us the wood. We have ordered ‘nispero’ (Manilkara zapota) and it will be delivered at the end of February. Getting the 500 palm leaves for the thatch is also not easy, but we have made that the carpenter’s problem. He will contact us as soon as the thatch is ready to be delivered and we will pick it up (that will probably need a few trips between our farm and the pick-up spot, but so be it). In the mean time, we visit the carpenter regularly, he lives along the way to our land, to make sure he is actually doing what he says…

Dry Season

2007-02-24T13:05:00.000-08:00

Mid February and we haven’t seen a drop of rain since Christmas. That is a little bit dryer than we had expected. To keep our trees alive, we go to Malena once or twice a week to water them. That is quite a job; the water is, obviously, at the lowest point of the plot, while some trees are way up the hills. (Now when you read this, do remember that we are Dutch and therefore call anything ten meters higher than its surroundings a hill and would only attempt to climb a mountain (100 m or higher) with full mountaineering equipment.)

But as a result of all this watering, almost all our trees are still alive. You can view several of them and other photos in the yahoo album:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/loesroos/album?.dir=/8f39re2&.src=ph&.tok=phpMcWGBesK0UhNG

The Panama tree has new leaves again, the tabebuias are growing fast, the sauces, harinas, schizolobiums, mahoganies and wild cashews are all still alive. Most of the palm trees have formed new leaves, the heliconias have flowered and are producing new shoots and the gingers are also still alive. Of the cocoa trees that Loes has sown on the farm, eight have germinated and they are all alive and growing. We have had some damage from insects, but even if all leaves are eaten, new ones appear pretty soon.

But there have been a few victims. One ‘caucho’ and most ‘pera rojas’ died. We planted a few breadfruit trees and soursops on top of a windy hill and those are struggling, but still alive. We have already organized more seeds from a soursop by eating one, which is quite a pleasant task, so we will be planting more of those in the rainy season. The bamboo and one ‘campanula amarilla’ (yellow bells) have been dug op by an unknown animal that appears to like digging around in the soil that we have dug up before. We replanted those trees and the campanula and two bamboos survived this. Unfortunately, one of the replanted bamboos was dug up again last week and it did not survive a rereplanting. We can only hope that this animal, possibly a coati or an armadillo, won’t come back too often. Or rather, that it starts digging up grass rather than our precious trees.

Our verandah nursery is also having success. Four of the five seeds of the stinking toe (Hymenaea courbaril, and yes the fruit smells like unwashed feet) have germinated and the seedlings are nearly a foot high now. We also have another ten cocoa seedlings, about five germinated palm seeds from Bocas (no idea which species) and the first seed of five Panama seeds has germinated. The first two of 28 ‘monkey condom’ (Couratari guianensis) seeds germinated after 30 days. We continue to wait patiently because the seeds of this tree need an average of 45 days to germinate. We also have seedlings of coriander and hot pepper waiting to be planted near the future kitchen.

There are still lots of little bags with seeds standing where nothing has happened yet, but we also keep a close watch on these enigmatic entities…. And there are many more seeds waiting to be planted. Some of stinking toe, Panama tree, monkey condom and fourteen other species. That will probably take place in the coming weeks, so that we can plant them at the beginning of the rainy season.

And if we have too many trees (although that sounds very unlikely), there are alternatives. We just read that cocoa and stinking toe are suitable for Bonsai, so maybe we will start torturing young trees as well (but only as a hobby). There is a guy in the Metropolitan Park in Panama who has a large collection of Bonsai trees and we might visit him to get some ideas and guidelines.

Meanwhile we have discovered that planting wild cashew falls in the category ‘carrying water to the sea’, just like planting guava and nance. We have at least a dozen full grown wild cashews on the property as well as dozens of seedlings. We also won’t need to grow ‘roble’ (Tabebuia rosea) because there are plenty of those already present as well. By now we have identified at least 50 species of trees and 10 species of shrubs growing on our property. Most species grow along the little stream on our land or are part of the living fence. One of them, the Erythrinia fusca, is visited by at least three species of hummingbird when it is flowering. These are among the 50 species of birds that make a regular appearance on our property. Among the residents are a breeding pair of great kiskadees (Pitangus sulphuratus) and a family group of groovebilled anis (Crotophaga sulcirostris). The anis normally follow cattle to catch insects. They now occasionally follow us when we water the trees but they seem to regard us as a rather poor substitute.

A visit to Bocas

2007-01-19T14:56:00.000-08:00

Bocas del Toro is one of the areas of Panamá that people were always talking about, but which we had not visited yet. Bocas is situated on the northwestern coast of Panama, near the border with Costa Rica. We knew many tourists and expats went there and that Bocas has a wet season and a wetter season. Reason enough for us to decide not to live there without even seeing it.

Friends of ours in Mozambique had brought us in contact with Karen and John Wagner, friends of theirs who were in Panamá for three months, working voluntarily at the Smithsonian Research Institute in Bocas del Toro. So we decided to go and visit them.

The weather was beautiful and clear when we left. We had beautiful views of the Pacific plains and later the Caribbean plains while we crossed the mountains that divide the two. At some stage we passed a sign announcing that we crossed the continental divide at 1100 m above sea level. We stopped frequently to admire the sights and photograph some of the orchids that were growing along the road like weeds. The forests were very dense and looked pretty much untouched. The trees were covered in bromeliads, mosses, lianas etc. Since we crossed late in the morning, we saw relatively few birds.

We have selected a few photos and put them in this yahoo album:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/loesroos/album?.dir=/afd1re2&.src=ph&.tok=phCnUKGBUpL5OBUs

The Caribbean side is quite different from the Pacific side. There are many more American Indians living here. In Bocas del Toro, Ngobe Bugle are the dominant Amerindian people. And on this side the women have not adopted the shapeless dresses that the missionaries forced on their nieces at the Pacific side and dress much more fashionably and elegantly. Along the Caribbean coast most people live in houses built on stilts. The tides are negligible, but a lot of the land is marshy and floods every time it rains. And it rains almost every day, so building on stilts makes a lot of sense. Building on stilts also allows you to keep your distance from all sorts of riff raff creeping around on and in the mucky soil. Unfortunately, perhaps because of living on stilts, people appear to be completely oblivious to garbage and waste on the ground and they dump household and human waste straight into the sea.

The province Bocas del Toro seems to consists mostly of small islands along the coast and the provincial capital, Bocas, is situated on one of them, Isla de Colon. Almost all islands are surrounded by mangrove forests that merge into humid rain forests. There is a lot of marine traffic between the different islands and the mainland. Vessels range from dugout canoes to ocean-going container ships. We were transported from the mainland to Bocas with a water taxi. These are about 6m long, fit 18 passengers and are equipped with a 200 hp outboard. When the sea is calm enough, the ride takes only 20 minutes. Karen was waiting for us at the dock and we spend the nights at their place because it was high season and all hotels were full.

The next day Bocas proved its reputation as rainy destination: it rained on and off during the whole day. We had planned to visit Swan Key, a small island where tropicbirds and other seabirds breed, but decided to change to plan B, which was wander around town and visit some of the tourist outfits to see if we could make some links. Bocas is not that big, but full of hotels, hostels, restaurants and other tourist traps, so we had plenty of time to make contacts. Best place was Spanish by the Sea, a language school run by a Dutch lady. She told us that their pupils often were looking for other things to do and for places to practice their Spanish. Well, we can easily offer that.

People rise rather late and so did we. Mostly because it will be raining anyway, so what is the point of getting out of bed? After a bit of work in an internet café we took advantage of a dry spell to hire a canoe and paddle to a butterfly garden. One of the owners, Luis, guided us around. His presentation was frequently interrupted by Vuzi, the tame but very opinionated aracari (small species of Toucan). He (Luis) and his partner have been preparing to breed and export butterflies, mostly Heliconias and other colourful tropical species. There seems to be a huge market and he suggested we do the same as a side activity. We might just do that. We are both biologists and we can probably breed different species quite easily. And a butterfly garden is also a nice attraction for tourists.

In the afternoon we visited the Smithsonian where John works as a volunteer to help improve the educational and public relations activities of the Smithsonian. An area where there is a lot of room for improvement. John and Karen had also invited quite a large group of children from the neighbourhood. The visit was very interesting, but unfortunately there were no scientists to show and explain their work. John is still working on that, so by the time you get there, things have probably improved even more.

After the visit we took a boat to Isla Bastimentos. This is somewhat more remote and not quite as commercial and touristy as Bocas. And the restaurant Pelicanos serves a very good pizza. We managed to get back to the lodge where we stayed just before it started raining yet again.

The next morning it was dry while we walked to Tio Tom, who would take the Wagner family and us on a walk in the National park. While we were having breakfast and Just after the Wagners arrived, it started raining again. We took advantage of a dry spell to set of to the national park in a rather unstable dugout canoe. By the time we arrived, it was drizzling again, but it did not start raining properly until we were in the forest and got some protection from the trees above us.

The main aim was to see the red frog. This frog is endemic to Bocas and populations on different islands have different colour patterns, ranging from yellow to brick red and with or without stripes or spots. The frog is quite common in the national park; we saw dozens during a two hour walk through the rain forest. However, the frog is considered endangered, because its habitat is under pressure from a rapid economic development driven by tourism. More and more forest is cut down for tourism development, to extract building material and to grow food for tourists and Panamenians. Red Frog Beach is the name of a huge tourist development elsewhere on the island, but the locals call it Dead Frog Beach and that name, although less attractive, is much closer to the truth.

At the end of our walk we had the effects of tourism development rubbed in rather severely. The walk was supposed to end in an area of primary rainforest with several caves. Instead it ended in a clear cut and the cave entrance was blocked by one of the giant trees that were cut down very recently. Our guide was even more upset than we were and lost his enthusiasm. We walked back to the boat rather depressed. When we got in the boat, it started raining even harder and we got truly soaked on the way back.

Yes, Bocas is beautiful, but only if you like to see lots of drenched tourists.

Reforestation

2007-01-15T09:33:00.000-08:00

When the first lot of planted trees was still alive after two weeks, I planted another two trees, soursops and a few days later I deposited some germinating coconuts on strategic places on our land. And because we want flowers, and especially flowers that attract hummingbirds, I also planted some heliconia plants, which I obtained froma bit of fallow land of our neighbour (who is only interested in rice anyway...) When Loes came to have a look at our land on 19 December all trees were still alive and the mahoganies must have grown at least two inches. So we were convinced our planting technique was correct.

December/January is not the best time to plant trees in Panama because the dry season has just begun and many species do not survive the stress of being replanted. But we could still get a few hardy species, so we have been planting during the last few weeks. Around 21 December we planted 15 Sauces (willow). We know it is native and provides shade, but we do not know exactly which species this is (there are three tree species commonly called sauce). We also planted about a dozen palm trees and two guava trees. Planting the latter was not strictly necessary, because we later realized that there are already quite a few guava trees spontaneously growing on the property. But we only recognized them as guava trees once we had planted the ones we bought… The same goes for the native nance. Oh well, at least we now have guava and nance exactly where we want them and these trees do attract many birds.

Op 28 december we planted another 80 plants and trees that we bought in another nursery. We planted another 10 mahoganies, these ones slightly larger than the first lot and 10 guayacans (Tabebuia ochracea), another tropical hardwood, which also happens to have beautiful bright yellow flowers. Furthermore 10 wild cashews (Anacardium excelsum), 10 “red apples” (Not the European one, but probably Syzygium jambos), 6 Campana amarillo (Schizolobium parahyba), 5 red dwarf gingers, 5 pink giant gingers (Zingiber spp.), a Panama tree (Sterculia apetala) and two “caouchoucs” a latex-producing fig species with large leafs. We started the new year by planting another 32 heliconia plants of four different species. We also bought 24 seedlings of a tree called ‘ harina’ (literally ‘flour’). Those are still acclimatizing in our own nursery.

Photos are available via a yahoo internet album, click the link here:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/loesroos/album?.dir=/970bre2&.src=ph&.tok=phpumIGBxI5Zi6q4
(the numbers behind the photo titles is the percentage of reduction applied nothing special...).

So we now have an additional 100 trees and 50 shrubs on our property. Some of the trees have been attacked by a leafcutting caterpillar and crickets/grasshoppers. One tree has definitely died and we are not yet sure whether our panama-tree will make it through the dry season. We got the last one and they are supposed to be planted in the rainy season… According to the literature that Loes found in the Smithsonian Institute, it is supposed to lose all its leaves in January, so we remain hopeful.

In the mean time there are quite a few trees coming up spontaneously now that they are not longer grazed by cattle. As we said, we have dozens of nances and guava trees, but there are also a few beautiful fig trees (Ficus insipida) and a shrub/tree that the locals call ‘canela’ (Mesembrina spp.).

But 8 hectares is a large area (we estimate we need about 3000 trees in total) so we concentrate on a few areas. We have already placed an order with one nursery: a list of 115 species of which 30 have high priority. We only asked for two to five individuals of each because tropical forests are very diverse. We also want to buy trees from several different nurseries to increase the genetic diversity. In Malena we also dropped 85 bags for seedlings with a farmer who is going to collect seedlings of various trees for us. And we are producing seedlings ourselves as well. Our neighbour gave us a cocoa fruit and we planted the seeds, as well as seeds of pawpaw trees. So those have to be planted in May-June as well. Pawpaw, guava and nance are very popular with fruit-eating birds such as tanagers and toucans and they are typical pioneer species that will provide shade to young forest giants such as the Tonka bean (Dipteryx panamensis).

From May onwards we will be starting to plant about a thousand trees. Would you like to come and help us as a volunteer?

Xmas in Panamá

2006-12-22T16:09:00.000-08:00

A shorter version than the Dutch entry, but that is because Xmas has already passed... sorry for the delay! We put a new one up too!

During Christmas some Panamanian customs are even more clearly displayed than normally. One custom is to organize a parade at the smallest provocation. And a parade in Panama is not a parade unless at least five drum bands, each with its group of cheer leaders, are involved. Drumming seems to be a national passion and the louder the better. They do try to keep the beat, but volume appears to be their first priority.

The parade is always graced with the presence of at least one saint. In fact, Panamanians appear to walk their saints in much the same way other people walk their dogs. The Christmas parade was, of course, graced with the presence of numerous tableau vivants with people dressed up as Josef, Maria and even a few unsuspecting babies dressed up as Jezus. Furthermore, there were quite a few Fathers Christmas (and a few mothers Christmas as well) as well as reindeer and snowmen. Oddest participants of the parade were probably a Nemo, a Peter Pan, a Cinderella and Bear Pooh. Whether they were thoroughly lost or just happened to pass by and decided to join the party was not altogether clear to us, but they definitely were a pleasant change after fifteen Jezusses.

Supermarkets provide a wide choice of statues of Jezus, Maria, Joseph, the three wise men, angels, Santa Claus, stars, snowmen, candles etc. You can buy them in sizes ranging from 4 inches to over 6 feet. The bigger ones come with lights inside that you can switch on at night so that everybody can admire your Christmas show 24 hours a day. Most houses are also decorated with long strings of lights flashing in all colours of the rainbow or just modest white.

And... yes we have photo´s for the new blog on:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/loesroos/album?.dir=/e818re2&.src=ph&.tok=phrfxAGBsKRC8D2O

We wish everybody a happy holiday season.

Avoid Panasonic Products at all costs

2006-12-01T08:20:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the lousy products and services of Panasonic and Digitec Panama, I have not been able to publish any photos on this blog. Our brand new Lumix DMC-TZ1 camera broke within six weeks and reparation is going to tale more than two months. Panasonic has outsourced its services to Digitec and that company is so inept that they take three weeks to tell you haow much the repair is going to cost. Granted, they did tell me immediately that the repair was not covered by any warranty.

After those three weeks, they still have to order the spare parts. And ther spare parts have to conme from Japan, ... by ship. That ship will dock on 15 December, so I don´t think we will get our camera back until the new year. I only found out about this shipment story after I got so upset with being told that the spare part was going to arrive ´tomorrow´that I contacted Panasonic. They contacted Digitec and found out about the december arrival. So these Digitec people have been lying to me through the teeth!

A bit of searching on the internet revealed that at least five more people have had the same problem with the same model. And that is only the ones that write about it on the internet.

So I strongly suggest that you avoid buying any Panasonic products. You really do not want to give your loved ones a Christmas present that breaks down just after New Year do you?

Reforestation

2006-11-28T15:43:00.000-08:00

Last week I have planted the first trees on our new plot. Because we hope to receive tourists, and tourists are generally more interested in animals than in plants, we have decide to plant trees that attract animals because of their fruit, nectar or leaves. Furthermore we want trees that produce good tropical hard wood. If we want to seel our plot in 20 years time and tourrism isn’t so popular anymore, we will have at least some valuable wood to sell.

Our eight hectare (19 acre) has been enriched with the first ten mahogany trees (Swietenia macrophylla) locally known as Caoba, four Zapotes (Pouteria sapota), a tree that produces fruit and high quality wood, four Bread fruit trees (Artocarpus altilis), which, you guessed it, produce fruit and one rambutan (Nephelium lappaceum). Furthermore I planted three ginger plants (Zingiber officinale) and five clumps of lemon grass for use in the future kitchen. Finally, I have planted four Schoe makers trees (Byrsonima crassifolia), locally known as nance. The latter is a small tree that gives fruit and produces good hard wood.

I bought the trees in a government run nursery. These nurseries only sell ‘productive trees, such as fruit trees and hardwood producing trees. Unfortunately there was rather little choice. What I bought represents about three quarters of all the species they had available. But because we do want some more variety and because I wanted to get soem experience first, I have only bought a few of each. Especially the mahoganies were small, just 20 cm (8 inches) high and with 5 to 7 leaves. The other trees were up to half a meter high.

Furthermore, tree planting is hard work, and I wanted the trees planted as quickly as possible. First you dig a hole of 50 x 50 x 50 cm, mix part of the soil you dug up with fertilizer and rice chaff (to increase the water holding capacity of the soil), throw the mixture back in the hole, put the tree in the hole, fill up the remainder with soil and give lots of water. Then cover the planting hole with a thick layer of rice chaff as mulch. Quite a lot of work but the reults are good: tress produced the first new leave within four days of planting! However, we still have a long way to go, right now, each tree has just enough wood for one mahogany match stick

The plot is surrounded by a ‘living fence’ of mostly ‘Gumbo limbo’ trees and a few mahoganies. Although I think that the barbed wire that has been hammered into the trunk does not increase the value of those mahoganies. The fruits of Gumbo limbo are eaten by capucin monkeys and several species of birds. The wood is just good enough for match sticks and crates.

Several of our neighbours came along to have a chat and look at my tree planting technique. Most people here just stick a branch in the ground at the beginning of the rainy season and hope for the best. Two of my visitors also asked if they could rent our plot to graze their cattle. Nope, those beasts would just eat my newly planted trees.

I´m Back

2006-11-24T17:19:00.000-08:00

You have not heard from us for a little while because Kees was not well and Loes is doing a conultancy in Mozambique. Shortly after we returned from COPsta Rica, the land was finally publicly registered in our name. And I started work right the next day. But I was not very well prepared. I had set water ready to take along, but forgot to take it when I left the next morning very early. Neither did I take a change of clean clothes. I am not at my brightest in the early morning.

After six hours of wandering around, digging and lugging things around, I stepped into the car, perspiring quite profusely, without my shirt because I did not want to make the car dirty. I put on the airco full blast to cool down. This resulted in a heavy cold. A cold that I carefully ignored until it developed into sinusitis. I had to spend two weeks sitting at home, feeling very sorry for myself while drinking large amounts of thea with fresh lemon juice and honey to get rid of it. But it worked and I am hale and hearty again.

The last weeks I have been busy starting the transformation of our grazing land into a lush tropical paradise. We already have a small seasonal stream and I have been widening and deepening a small stretch to create a pond in the hope to create a permanent pond. The dry season starts in a couple of weeks, so we’ll see how long the water lasts. Furthermore I have made some of the tracks used by the cattle more suitable for humans. And now I am busy constructing a small nursery where we can cuddle our saplings with water, shade and compost until they are strong enough to fend for themselves in the big bad meadow.

I have also reconnected the water to our plot. That sounds like quite something, but all I had to do was replace a clogged tube. Water is for free and is supplied by a small local system. Somewhere nearby ground water is pumped up to a high point and then piped to all consumers by gravity. Pressure is quite good, good enough for a decent shower. Whenever something breaks down, all consumers have to chip in with money and labour to repair the system. So I think we better construct a storage tank somewhere to make sure we have water when the system breaks down. Because i assume it will take a day or two to organise money, buy spare parts and effect the repairs.

I have encountered some wildlife while working and wandering on our property. There are at least twenty species of birds, among which a kingfisher, hummingbirds, several flycatchers, warblers and a rufous pygmee owl. In the stream I have encountered five fish and three fresh water shrimp. There is a multitude of butterflies and I have encountered one small scorpion and a huge tarantula. Unfortunately our camera is still being repaired, so no picture of the tarantula, but the beast was 20 cm long and 10 wide. That includes the legs, but I think that is the only measurement that counts. You do, after all, rarely see legless spiders in the wild.

Our experience with a new digital camera

2006-11-07T16:38:00.000-08:00

Panasonic Lumix Dmc Tz1 Silver

Well, not a very good camera at all. I hoped to be able to shoot some nice macro pictures and maybe aven get nice pics of birds that are not too shy.

Unfortunately, the auto focus is not very good in macro mode, the camera lag is quite considerable and auto focus was often accompanied with a rather loud whirring sound that most birds did not like at all. ANd that resulted in quite a few shots of branches and blue air just vacated by birds.

And, worst of all, I have to write all this in the past tense. Within six weeks the camera broke down. And I now have to wait seven weeks for it to be repaired. At my own cost, because, as Panasonic lost no time opiinting out, there is no international warranty and I emigrated shortly after buying the camera.

So my advice is tro stay well clear of this camera in particular and of Panasonics lack of customerservice in general.

Rated 1
by Kees Groenendijk
on Nov 08, 2006

Find more real-world reviews or create your own at Reevoo.

Costa Rica

2006-10-31T09:01:00.000-08:00

After 90 dagen in Panama, we had to leave for three nights. After that, you are allowed to enter Panama again as a tourist. With a neighbouring country like Costa Rica this is not much of a problem. This first time we did not go too far. Just over the border, at Ciudad Neily, we turned to the interior, to San Vito, which lies in the foothils of the Talamanca Mountains. San Vito lies at an altitude of about 800 to 1000 m., so it was a refreshing visit.

Kees had chosen San Vito because there is a botanical garden close by (Wilson Botanical Gardens) with lots of birds and, of course, lots of trees and plants. We hoped to learn a bit more about reforestation and also about tourism in Costa Rica. Costa Rica is, after al, supposed to be far ahead of other countries in the region.

The botanical garden was beatiful, although not quite as good as the Vumba Gardens. But the shop had a good selection of books about plants, trees, birds and animals. Most books are poublished in Costa Rica. We did buy a few books because the Costarican flora and fauna are not that different from that in Panama, especially western Panama, where we are located.

The Costarican books are much more practical than there Panamanian counterparts. The Panamanian books place a lot of importance on taxonomiy, while Costarican books tell you more about the uses (modern and traditional) and occurence. Where a Panamanian book would note under comments that a particular tree is the only one in its genus with hooked hairs on the underside of its leaves, a Costarican book would tell you that the wood is excellent for carpentry and that this tree grows easily in former grazing ares and is thus good for reforestation.

Kees also had a good look at the birds flying around in Costa Rica. Bird life in the Wilson Grardens is not very different from that in western Panama, but we had not looked around at this altitude before. And the Talamanca mountains (which stretch into Panama and are protected by the transfrontier park La Amistad) are a region with huge biodiversity and alarge number of endemic birds and plants. Unfortunately we did not have the time to enter La Amistad, although the botanical gardens are also part of the park.

Anyway, I recognised four species of hummingbirds, although 30 species occur. Identifying hummingbirds is always difficult, they are all green and they fly very fast through the rather dark undergrowth. This makes it difficult to see whether the lower bill is black or dark grey. And when a hummingbird hovers in front of you for five seconds, you are too surprised to have a good look.

We did not think that tourism was that much more advanced in Costa Rica than in Panama, at least not in San Vito. True, there is hot water everywhere and accomodation was slightly cheaper, but that is about it. It looks like Costaricans are just better at selling their country as a holiday destination than the Panamanians. It is mostly marketing that is doing the trick. But, please believe us when we tel you that Panama is at least as beautiful as Costa Rica, safe, and it has better surfing. And, even better, please tell this to everyone you know.

Soccer

2006-10-03T13:40:00.000-07:00

In the framework of our integration in the Panamanian society, we went to see the local soccer team Atlético Veraguënse (VA) play at home against Plaza Amador, the leader of the competition. VA is fourth, so we were going to see one of the more important matches of the Panamanian soccer competition. This was quite obvious because all around the stadium people were sitting on the roof of their house to be able to see the match without paying the entrance fee. Watching the match from your own roof has the added ‘advantage’ that you can smoke. Because although the stadium is in the open air, it is a public building and in Panama smoking in public buildings is prohibited.

Now, the biggest stadium in Santiago, which is also the only one with artificial lights for evening games, is actually a baseball stadium (baseball is much more popular than soccer). And this was the stadium where the mach was played, to everyone’s dissatisfaction. The baseball players are unhappy because they claim that the soccer players damage the grass and the soccer players complain because it is difficult to play in a field that contains a pitcher’s hill and four bases connected by gravel pathways. But the supporters were happy because there was more place for them to watch the match. The atmosphere in the stadium was excellent, perhaps partly because half the spectators were women in love with the captain of the home team (the captain apparently excels in other physical activities as well).

Plaza Amador won the toss and choose the goal at the side where the bases and pitcher’s hill were situated. They hoped that the attacks of AV would be hindered by all the irregularities in the field. This turned out to be correct, but on the other hand, the defense of Plaza Amador was at least twice surprised by VA attackers suddenly appearing from behind the pitcher’s hill (Panamanians aren’t very tall). So, yes, VA dominated the first half, almost continuously attacking and pushing Plaza Amador into the defence. But although they had at least three good chances, they did not manage to score.

Plaza Amador managed to break out of AV’s grip only three times. The first two times they created two good opportunities from these counters, but AV was lucky. A large puddle in front of their goal changed two low hard shots into balls that harmlessly floated towards the goal keeper. But the third time the attackers from Plaza Amador cunningly aimed for the upper corner of the goal and in doing so managed to score a psychologically important goal just before the interval. The player even had the guts to do a little victory shuffle, but since everybody supported AV, he didn’t get much response. Loes didn’t quite realize that a goal was scored because she was in an animated discussion with her neighbour who showed her pictures of his amateur gymnastics club.

AV started the attack with renewed energy and courage, but the defenders of Plaza Amador stood up to the pressure for a long time. Finally, in the 75th minute, did AV manage to somehow get the ball behind the keeper of Plaza Amador in a very confused situation with at least 19 players within the penalty area. The players of Plaa Amador contested the goal hotly and at great length. I am not quite sure why, but according to the fans they only tried it because the referee was from the same city as they were and they hoped he would rule in their favour (the fans of AV do suffer a bit from an underdog syndrome).

AV was not satisfied with a draw and continued to attack, enthusiastically and loudly encouraged by the fans. And yes, in the 85th minute they scored another goal. And what a beauty it was! They got a free kick which went into the left upper corner of the goal, Ronaldinho would have been jealous, had he seen it. The keeper didn’t stand a whelk’s chance in a supernova and actually only started to react when the ball was already in the net. The fans were delighted of course and proceeded to shower everybody with beer and everyone was hugging everybody else. Because of all these showers, we didn’t see much of the remaining five minutes, but apparently no more goals were scored.

Building plans...

2006-09-29T14:12:00.000-07:00

Those who know us are aware that we built a house in Mozambique, which we designed ourselves. The construction was a long andpainfu lprocess and in the end we kicked out the builder and finished and renovated the house ourselves and with another builder. That house is for sale by the way.

And now we are about to embark on a similar process. We have finally been allowed to open a bank account and have transferred the money needed to pay for the land to Panama. So we are nearly the owners of 8 hectares of Panama and we are now more actively looking for an architect and a builder.

During our visit to Chiriqui (see previous blog) we encountered an American couple that was building a house they designed themselves in Barqueta. They invited us to come and have a look, which we did. We immediately noted that builders here are far better trained that in Mozambique and the quality of the workmanship is a lot higher. This American couple was happy with the Panamenian builder they had contracted and said the construction costs were below 300 USS/m2. Another couple were also building in that area, but they were far less satisfied with their contractor and suggested that they paid a lot more than 300 US$/m2. A cheaper contractor that is also better? Seems to be too good to be true.

Anyway, we now have contact with two Panamenian architects and we showed both of them a photo of the area and gave them some sketches of what we had in mind and asked them to come up with a plan. One of them came to see the place for himself (on our costs) and showed some sketches and interesting variations on what we suggested. Unfortunately, his quote was more than twice as high as what we told him we had budgeted for. So that was a bit of a non-starter. He wanted to do all the plans for the project at once (and get paid for them, of course), while we are looking at a phased approach, in which the length of each phase will be determined by how fast we can refill our pockets after paying for the previous phase. So we are looking for someone else.

The second architect is architect by training, but works for an NGO. So she has not too much time for our project. However, see introduced us to a Panamanian couple, both architects who have developed a system that is both flexible and economical and can make use of recycled materials. The system can be used to build up to four floors. These architects have put their money where there mouth is and live in a house built with this system and have used recycled materials wherever possible. The husband of this team has already been nominated best Panamanian architect once.

The house, or rather houses, they live in three or four units that have been connected, hve a very nice atmosphere. This is difficult to explain and it is also difficult to judge a design from a house that is being lived in. The finishing details can really make or break a house. In this case they have used pieces of broken tiles to make mosaics that give each floor a theme. So the ground floor is adorned with mosaics of the earth, the first floor has mosaics of animals and trees etc. Even the burglar bars are made in the shape of insects, branches and birds. All of this gives the house a special atmosphere that is independent of the actual design, but makes it very attractive.

The architects are also practical. They prefer working with concrete, alumin(i)um and other materials that need little maintenance. The other architect suggested to place a tree in a patio enclosed by the building, but these guys said that this looks good, but requires a lot of work. Trees have a habit of growing roots and branches where they are least welcome, they sway in the wind, dropping leaves and entire branches, damaging your building etc. A beautiful plan if you have enough money to hire a gardener to attend to that tree only.

We like the design, but it needs a few alterations. We want it at least one foot higher because Kees (6’1) had to stoop regularly to avoid hitting his head. We also want the pillars to bee a little bit further apart, to create more space. That probably makes the building slightly more expensive, but also much roomier. We houden iedereen op de hoogte.

Some may have seen the beautiful pink kitchen on our Yahoo photo album. That kitchen belongs to the house we are buying. The house actually belongs to someone else, or rather, to the inheritants of someone else and the process to buy this house might take a while. But as soon as we can occupy the house, we will start repairing and rebuilding it and the kitchen will at least be painted.

Monkeys and Turtles in Chiriqui province

2006-09-23T16:21:00.000-07:00

About a week ago we travelled to Chiriqui. Because of our activities with the Apenheul Primate Centre and Summit Gardens, we also came into contact with the NGO CREA (www.crea.org) and Susan and David Waligoora. The latter two are Americans building a house in Barqueta, which is situated on the coast south of the city David. Close by is the wildlife refuge Barqueta which consists mostly of mangrove and secondary forests and beaches. It is one of the few places where squirrel monkeys still occur and turtles use the beaches to lay their eggs. However, according to David and Sue, the protection of this refuge is less than perfect. So we wanted to have a look and see if we could somehow help and if we could bring tourists to this area.

Well, do not get up your hopes just yet, the place is not very suitable for tourists at the moment. There is a choice between an expensive beach resort ($ 125/night) or a cheap room without mosquito net and communal and not too clean sanitary facilities. Sand flies and mosquitoes are active from 4 pm until 9 am in most places and 24 hours a day in shady areas such as forests, so you are continually applying repellent and still swatting at the ones that try to bite you on your face.

But the local community is very friendly. The family that runs the cheaper accommodation is also involved in protection of turtles. The husband is a fanatical runner and every day on his early morning beach run checks for new turtle nests. Those are dug op and the eggs are reburied in a protected area. Unfortunately, they sometimes do not release the hatchlings immediately, but prefer to wait until a second nest hatches so that they can release a larger number at once and invite school children to watch and help. While we were there, the hatchlings from the first nest, which had hatched 36 hours before release, looked dehydrated and behaved rather disoriented. But that might be a small price to pay for the awareness that is being raised among the future generation.

The beach at Barqueta is not great. A lot of sand, yes, but the surf is too strong for a pleasant and safe swim and too close to the beach for surfing. Therefore, the reserve is the only tourist attraction in the area. But the reserve is not very accessible. There is one circular trail, which is not easy to find. Walking it at a normal pace will take you all of 15 minutes and even if you stop to study every little brown bird, as Kees likes to do, it still won’t take more than a good hour. It took us more time to find the trail than to walk it twice….

The first day we couldn’t even find the trail, let alone any monkeys. But in the afternoon the owners of the beach cottage took us along to an unprotected bit of mangrove creek that they use to clean their catch of fish. They said there were always monkeys in that area, even squirrel monkeys. We did see (and hear) howler monkeys, but no squirrel monkeys that day. We thought that that was not much of a problem, because we had found the one and lonely park warden earlier that day and agreed that he would take us to an island in the reserve where we would certainly see them.

Unfortunately there appeared to have been some misunderstanding; the park warden took us to the trail mentioned above (which is indeed on an island, seeing as it is surrounded by smallish mangrove creeks), rather than to the island we wanted to go to. The warden is actually quite busy during this time of year, he has to monitor and protect turtle nests inside the reserve, so maybe he just didn’t have the time to go on an expedition.

But Kees at least was happy because he saw a male yellow-billed cotinga (Carpodectus antoniae), which is rare in Panama.

Cleaning up

2006-09-19T11:56:00.000-07:00

We arrived in panama with two laptops and one portable hard drive, together providing 160 Gb of storage. The five year old laptop also contained a back up of the information from our even older desktop computer. (The latter was donated to a museum for their display of Stone Age office equipment before we left Mozambique) When our old laptop showed signs of an imminent crash, we copied the folder ‘my documents’ to the portable hard drive.

The remaining hard disc space had thus clogged up rather badly and I decided to see if I could clean up a little bit. Since there were back-ups nested in back-ups, I first hunted for duplicate files. Below follows a brief account of what I found:

In the folder ‘Back up Laptop’ I found a folder ‘Work Kees’. In this folder I found three folders named FAO 1, 2 and 3 (I had three contracts with FAO). Each of these folders contained a folder called ‘Proagri2’ of 34 Mb as well as reports from my colleagues Carol Djeddah and Paulo Israel. I had also started to collect useful back ground information about Mozambique in a folder. This folder also contained a folder ‘Proagri2’ and copies of the Djeddah and Israel reports.

Then I had a look in the folder ‘Back-up Desktop’. Lo and behold, I found the folders FAO1,2 and 3,complete with their subfolder ‘proagri2’ and the Djeddah and Israel rapports, as well as a similarly endowed folder with useful background information about Mozambique. Another folder on the portable hard drive was titled Mozambique and contained a folder named ‘Work Kees’. And, this is becoming somewhat repetitive, that folder contained the folders FAO1, 2 and 3 and a folder with background information about Mozambique. Each of these contained, you guessed it, a folder named ‘Proagri2’ and the reports of Djeddah and Israel.

Our portable hard disk thus contained 12 copies of the folder ‘Proagri 2’. Now we are talking about the five-year Agricultural Strategy documents for Mozambique, so it is important information, but I admit that twelve copies on the same drive is somewhat exaggerated. And now Loes tells me that there are probably a copy or two of the same folder hidden in her folders. This is worse than cleaning up your desk.

Travelling

2006-09-11T17:40:00.000-07:00

One of the advantages of working in the tourism sector is that you get to visit places for work that other people visit for holidays. And you might be one of the first to be there. At the moment we are looking around in the area for people/organizations with whom we can join collaborate. We prefer to work with community initiatives. Last week we visited a small association on ‘Isla Gobernadora’.

Isla Gobernadora is an island situated on the western side of the Gulf of Montijo, close to Santa Catalina (which is on the main land). The association on Isla Gobernadora is supported by a Peace Corps Volunteer. They are almost ready to receive visitors, but no-one knows about their activities. The association does not have the capital to send the boat to Santa Catalina to try and lure tourists to their island. That would be difficult anyway because none of the members speaks English and few tourists speak Spanish. There are quite a few tourists in Santa Catalina because it is one of the best surfing spots in Central America.

But now we can tell you from experience that it is worth your while to go to Isla Gobernadora. It is a fairly typical tropical island with coconut palms, fishing boats, deserted beaches, jungle and one public phone that is often out of order. The people are very friendly and take life one day at the time. Many inhabitants have changed from agriculture to fisheries because that means they only have to work when they need money and the work isn’t so heavy. It is, in other words, a very good place to de-stress in a hammock.

A double room at Mario’s costs seven USD (special offer for us) and the only functional restaurant prepares chicken or fish for 1.5 USD. If you want to eat iguana (bred by the restaurant owners) you will pay more, but hey, at least this delicacy(?) is available at the island! So, despite the relatively expensive trip (30 USD for the boat, but it takes up to 8 people, so if you are with a group, it only costs 3.5USD/person) staying at Isla Gobernadora can be relaxing as well as cheap.

But, like we said, few people get there because it is not mentioned in any guide. And, contrary to their claims, many backpackers are not adventurous at all. So far not one has had the bright idea to rent a boat and have a look at this beautiful island right under their noses in stead of slavishly following their travel book.

That is a problem that we will also have to solve. How do we get people to visit our place without having to wait for the next edition of a travel guide to appear? What we will try is to organize regular transport from Santa Catalina to our place. Many tourists already visit Santa Catalina and this way they get to see the Gulf of Montijo and they do not have to go back the same way they came. On top of that, they can drop of at Isla Gobernadora before continuing to our place (or to Santa Catalina). We plan to organize two trips per week during the coming holiday season and see how it goes.

Alone on the World?

2006-08-31T12:53:00.000-07:00

No, not exactly. Not even in Panama and we are not even the only investors in Mariato district.
During our first visit, we negotiated with a Señor Remigio, who wanted to sell 47 ha. At that time he did not go lower than 17,500 US/hectare and he wanted to sell it all. Well, since we do not have a million to invest, we looked elsewhere. Today we heard that he did manage to sell to an Austrian investor for 16,500 USD/ha. That is still about 750,000 USD and much more than we can afford. But good for him.
There is also an American who is investing in Veraguas. I really couldn’t help overhearing him in Clarocom café since he seemed to think he had to shout in his phone to make himself heard in the US.
Somewhere else in the district a plot of 500 hectare, initially bought by Swiss people for reforestation with teak, has now been sold to a Norwegian who is going to build a golf club. Apparently the area wasn’t good for teak at all (makes you wonder whether those Swiss were stupid or played some game to make money).
We also heard that a french couple, who already worked in eco-tourism in the Dominican Republic, have settled on Gobernadora Island.

Are we afraid of the competition? Not at all, most of it isn’t competition in the real sense anyway. Most investors buy land, subdivide it in smaller plots they prepare for construction and then sell those plots on. This appears to go a lot slower than people want you to believe.
Again, when we were in Mariato in January, one guy had sold two plots: one to himself and one to his brother. Now, half a year later, he has sold another one.
OK, there is a lot of money coming in when you sell a lot (they go for about 65,000 USD) but the costs are quite high as well. Getting electricity to his plot costed about 20,000 USD. So I doubt he will be a millionaire after having sold his 20 plots.

The French couple are far away on an island, so we could probably collaborate rather than compete. When all is said and done, it appears that the Peace Corps is the most active organisation in ecotourism here. Peace corps is trying to help local communities to take advantage from the rising number of tourists by helpoing them to provide the services tourists are looking for.

More about them soon!

p.s. It should now be possible for everybody to make comments direct.

Land again , but also about a house

2006-08-17T09:47:00.000-07:00

Yes, we have advanced another step on the road to landownership. Last Monday 14 August we signed the commitment to buy the land in Veraguas. The official ceremony took place in the town council of Mariato because one of the parties involved cannot read and has to put his fingerprint.

The Sunday before we also visited the plot ‘briefly’. We went to bring a copy of the commitment of the landowner, for him to read or to have it read to him. That was done by the granddaughter of the owner. The granddaughter is the owner of the house we want to buy, and she came along to show us the house that we would like to buy. We had a good look and noted that a lot of work has to be done to rehabilitate the house, so we offered less than the asked for and got the price we had in mind. The house has somewhat deteriorated because no-one has lived in it since 2001, except for a couple of bats and spiders.

However, real estate is about location and this house is right on the road and surrounded on three sides by the plot of land we want to buy, so it makes sense to get the house as well and include it in the property. And we can use the house, after substantial rehabilitation and some extension, as reception and office

Yes it might look quite decent on the picture but it really needs a bit of work. It needs a new roof (some of the beams are rotten) and we want a steeper roof angle of stronger material that insulates against the heat. And we want to install solar panels and solar heat collectors on the roof. The floor needs to be tiled and we will have to inspect the water and electricity systems. But the good news is that there actually is electricity and running water. We also want to put in more glass windows, to make it lighter. The picture only shows the front of the house. At the sides and the back, windows consist of ornamental breeze blocks. Very safe against thieves, but not against insects and they let in very little light.

While granddaughter spend tim ewith her famliy, we also ran around on the plot of land we want to buy with a tape measure, paper and pencil. Since it is rather hilly, we tried to establish the location of the peaks and valleys so we can start thinking of what to put where. This is physically quite challenging at 30 degrees centigrade and 85% humidity. We now understand better why the livestock keepers want to sell hilly land: Cows spend so much energy grazing on hills that they do not gain weight But it is interesting for our purposes. You can lay out the buildings in such a way that guests can have the privacy of their own little valley or hill top. We could also get into de diet-holidays: To get from your room to the restaurant you need to climb ten hills so weight loss is guaranteed!

p.s. sorry today somehow the photo´s do not want to upload.

Measuring up in Panama

2006-08-06T15:38:00.000-07:00

To measure is to know, as the Dutch saying goes, but what do you know when more than one measure is being used? Well, we advise you to pay close attention. Apparently, the Panamanian government has never decided which set of measures they prefer or which should be legally displayed prominently in order to protect the customer, so you have to be careful when you shop around.

Distances are measured in meters and surfaces in hectares. Unless you talk to a building contractor, who will give you a cost estimate on the basis of the building area in square feet. However, should you decide to tile the place yourself, you will discover that tiles are sold per squere meter. You probably know that Americans use ‘letter size’ rather than A4, because of that option in a well known text editor. But did you also know that, in order to file that paper in ‘letter size’ files, the holes you perforate in the paper need to be a little bit closer to each other than for filing in A4 files?

By the way, speedometers indicate speed in miles per hour and in kilometers per hour, the first in large numbers than the second. However, the total milage the car has run is given in kilometers. Fuel is sold in (US) gallons, as is milk and paint. Wine however, comes in 0.7 l bottles, soda in 1 and 2.5 l bottles, but also in cans of 12 fluid ounces.

Fresh food, such as fish, meat, vegetables and fruit is sold per pound, but butter and margarine are measured in grams. Prepacked food comes in just about every imaginable size and unit. Size and unit usually depend on the country of origin. So balsamic vinegar is sold in a bottle of 250 ml ℮, locally bottled olive oil in a bottle of 8 oz and peanut butter (from the US, where else?) comes in a 12 oz jar. Panamanian coffee is sold in packets of almost 1 pound (212 g. = 7.5 oz). Note that packaged food from the US and Panama does not use the ‘℮’, which means that the weight stated should be the minimum weight, rather than the average weight.

You can buy Panamanian rum in bottles ranging in size from 175 ml to 1 gallon. However, be very, very careful. Next to the bottle of 1750 ml, a large sign from the supermarket claims that this bottle contains half a gallon, which is incorrect. After all, half a gallon is 1892.5 ml. Perhaps they think that peolpe who drink such quantities of rum are unable to calculate anyway?

Birds of Panama, the Tanagers

2006-08-04T08:59:00.000-07:00

That Panama is located in the tropics is obvious, even from the birds you see in the city. In the city centre, not exactly a green zone, I have already seen three species of parrots, humming birds and a bat falcon. Other common birds are kingbirds and tanagers

If you go to the metropolitan park, you will see many more species. The Metropolitan Park is actually about 200 hectare of tropical forest, now virtually surrounded by Panama city. Apart from over 200 species of birds, you can see sloths, the endemic Geoffroy’s tamarin (a small monkey), coatis and agoutis. The tamarins are getting more and more rare because their habitat is decreasing rapidly.

But back to the birds and more specifically the tanagers. Tanagers form a large group of neotropical birds. Most are brightly coloured and feed on fruits. You see them quite often in gardens and if you put out some fruit, you can easily lure them quite close. In the tree nursery located in the metropolitan park, the staff put bananas on the fence and this attracts many tanagers. Tanagers appear to be quite social and friendly birds.

Because Kees, as you might know, likes to watch birds and hopes to become a bird guide and accompany other birdwatchers in Panama, we wanted a bird in the logo of our company. Since tanagers are colourful, social and friendly, we decided to name our company after them and to put them in our logo.

The tree trunk shaped T (big and small) symbolizes the reforestation part of our project in Veraguas and the birds and trees together symbolize our commitment to the environment.

What do you think of our logo?

Land

2006-07-25T08:58:00.000-07:00

Last week we went back to Veraguas, the province to look for some land on which to start our tourism business. When we were there in January/February last year, our interest went out to the area around Morillo. The beach there is quite good for surfing and swimming. But land there is expensive and due to a change in the law, many landowners are still acquiring title deeds over the 200m closest to the beach. Until last year, you could only lease the land from the high water mark to 200m inland. Many farmers only go through the process once they know they want to sell, or have already found a buyer.

The plot that had our interest, was about 3.5 hectare in two pieces divided by a small tidal creek river and some mangrove forest. The owner wants about 240,000 U$ for that plot. Another plot of 47 hectares with 200 m beach front was for sale for 750,000U$. Neither of the plots has direct road access, nor water, electricity or phone connections. There are also no villages nearby and no shops or bars. So apart from a hefty sum of money for the actual land, we would also need a lot to build our little resort.

Therefore we decided to have a look around for plots that are close to, but not actually bordering on, the beach. Those plots tend to be a lot cheaper, but still have a lot of potential. While looking around, we were approached by a young guy who had 180 hectares for sale at 500 U$ per hectare, with see view and not too far away. But to get there you had to go by foot, or use a roundabout road only accessible with 4 wheel drive. We decided to check it out. Kees went ahead with the guy and Loes went to get some water because we brought none and she would follow later together with Rodrigo, our friend.

After about a one hour strenuous hike, crossing a fair-sized river at a shallow point and walking mostly uphill, Kees and the guy were still not at the plot. Loes and Rodrigo got lost, but could see Kees somewhere ahead climbing towards the hilltop where the plot was supposed to start. At the one hour point, Kees could see where it was, but that was at least another half hour by foot and still uphill. Yes, the view was marvelous, but you almost needed binoculars to see the sea. So we decided to give it a miss and return to the car. On the way back we got a good drenching by the first rain shower of that day (it is the rainy season).

We looked at two other plots, significantly closer to the sea and the road etc. than the other one. And twice we got rained upon. Oh well, since we were not made of sugar, we didn’t melt as the Dutch saying goes and it helps to keep your head cool. But it was rather nice to be able to wash and dry off and dump our clothes in a dryer at the house of the friend of the owner (are you still with us?) after the visit.

The two latter plots look quite promising and the little village nearby also appears to be nice. There are about 135 people living there (30 households) and the village has a primary school with 25 pupils, two shops, and buses stop four times a day. If you want to have something to eat in the one shop that doubles as restaurant, you have to give advance warning. All inhabitants belong to some Christian sect that forbids alcohol consumption, so you can’t buy alcohol in the village and people lead a sober life (sorry, couldn’t resist that one). However, rumour has it that they don’t take that rule too seriously and occasionally slip away to the next village for a drink or two.

Another interesting point is that the villagers have started a small association to protect the turtles nesting on their beach. During the egg laying season they patrol the beach and after the turtles have laid their eggs, the patrol digs the eggs up. The eggs are buried again on the beach in a special enclosure that keeps out the dogs. Dogs apparently are the main threat to turtles here. The villagers have been doing this for a couple of years and have had assistance from Peace Corps. In the last year they claim to have seen an increase in the number of turtles that come to nest on the beach.

The association is now going to apply for a concession to manage the beach, so they can continue with this work. Beaches are in principle public and anyone can do whatever (s)he wants to as long as it is not illegal, even if that endangers the turtles. The association obviously wants to prevent that. And since they cannot prevent developers buying surrounding land, they can ensure that they have the right to manage the beach as they see fit. To do this, they have asked support from a local NGO called Mar Viva.

There is also a local boat builder in the village, and we are thinking of letting him build us a boat so we can take people for a tour to the nearby Cebaco Island or to Coiba island, which is a World heritage Site. So, there are exiting developments and we will keep you informed.

TANAGER TOURISM corp.

2006-07-23T17:53:00.000-07:00

Hip hip hurrah, we’ve got a company: Tanager Tourism corporation officially exists in Panama as of Friday 21 July, when we signed the paperwork at our lawyers’ office. Tanager Tourism has 500 shares, the value of which we have yet to determine in a meeting o the board of directors (Loes and Kees). Before getting on with that though, we had a beer (or two) to celebrate this fact in a pub around the corner.

Unlike in Mozambique, all paperwork was organized within one week and we received everything at once from our lawyers: statutes, impressive looking certificates, each worth a number of shares and value. Furthermore a book in which we have to register who has how many shares and a book with numbered pages in which to keep the minutes of annual board meetings. The latter book is no longer obligatory, but it looks very formal and impressive.

A process like this would easily take six months or more in Mozambique. Statutes are still written by hand in two separate official registries maintained at the notary office. Just verifying whether the name you want is available, takes one week. After that you have to write another umpty letters, all with notarized signatures to all sorts of important people, requesting them to certify something which is their job. The book for registration of the minutes has to be sent to the court to have the pages numbered by hand. So time flies…

So Business set up in Panama was a pleasant surprise. Registration was accomplished within the time estimated by the lawyer and, actual costs were only 3$25 above actual cost, an error of only 0.3%. We are quite impressed with our lawyer so far. There remain things to be done (of course). We can now apply for a commercial license to start trading in Panama and register ourselves as investors, to take advantage of a number of existing incentives and tax exemptions for tourism businesses. But we have taken an important first step. We can now open a bank account without having to deposit and maintain a ludicrously high amount of money in the account.

We still have to get a declaration of good conduct for our visa application. We’ve got an impressive looking piece of paper from the Mozambican government with about 6 stamps, each one more impressive looking than the previous one, but not impressive enough for the Panamanian government. Since we don’t want to go back to Mozambique for just one stamp (and we did ask specifically for the one we need, the Apostille of the Convention of The Hague, but no official knew where to get that) we will get one from Holland. That also has its little problems (translations needed), but those appear to be easily surmountable. As you can see, bureaucracy is keeping both us and the Panamanian government pretty busy.

Public Transport

2006-07-21T09:39:00.000-07:00

Panama has an amazing public transport system. That is, we assume there is a method to this madness, even though we haven’t discovered it yet.

Panama is a pretty noisy city as we wrote before. Taxis assume that every pedestrian is a potential customer whose attention has to be drawn by a short double hoot. In the commercial part of the city about 1 in every 3 cars is a taxi and they all drive around slowly looking for customers. So there is a lot of hooting going on. This seems strange to us because most people who need a taxi clearly indicate this, usually by waving or jumping in front of it.

If Loes walks alone in town, she also hears another variation, which is a mechanic version of the wolf whistle. Taxis drive by even slower and often the driver actually asks “No quieres un taxi, babe?” (Do you want a taxi, babe?).

Because of all this looking for customers, taxis drive slowly and when they finally have a customer, they stop in the middle of the road to let them get in or get out. Other road users occasionally get upset by this behaviour and make this known by extensive use of the hooter. In general, when traffic comes to a grinding halt, which happens often, the drivers of stationary cars use their hooters often. This is of no use, because usually it is a traffic light that interrupts the flow of the traffic and those are not impressed by hooting.

Anyway, Panamanians love their cars and middle class households have a car for ever adult member of the household and they use their car a lot. Not very efficient, but fuel is relatively cheap in this part of the world: 2$90 per gallon (3.78 litre). Compared to Maputo, very few people walk in Panama.

Panama city and Panama country are all connected by bus services. In Panama city there is a large bus terminal called Albrook. It looks like an airport, with arrivals at the first floor and departures at the ground floor. The intercity destinations actually have their own terminals and gates on one side of the terminal. Only passengers are allowed to enter the terminals, a favour for which you have to pay and admission fee of 5 cents (on top of your bus ticket). Provincial towns have similar bus terminals, but smaller.

The size of intercity buses varies from 9-passenger minibuses to big coaches. The latter usually serve the long distance routes between the larger cities. To travel on such a bus you have to be prepared. Take a jacket or pullover because the air conditioning is always on and invariably set and locked on ‘freezing’. Ear plugs are useful as well because the radio also has only one setting which is ‘very loud’. Your MP3-player or iPod are no match for the sound systems on the Panamanian bus. Taking a blindfold can also be useful because some buses show violent action movies (definitely 16 years and older).

Panama city itself is also served by buses. These stop in a rather less organized way on the other side of the Albrook terminal and in the city you can hop on and off at nearly every street corner. You pay a quarter (pronounce: quarra) irrespective of your destination. The buses are old US school buses with a new, and much better, customized paint job. They are not as crowded as those in Mozambique and there are many, so it is actually not too uncomfortable a way to get around town.

Monkeys in Panama and Holland

2006-07-17T17:16:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year we spent two months in Panama, trying to assess the opportunities. During that time we attended a presentation by Adrian Benedetti for the Panama Audubon Society (www.panamaaudubon.org). Adrian is the director of the Summit Gardens in Panama and presented the master plan for the Summit Gardens (www.summitpanama.org). The Summit Gardens were constructed/planted by the Americans early in the last century to do research on tropical plants. Nowadays it s a zoo/botanical garden/picnic area. Adrian mentioned that it was not difficult to obtain sponsorship to renovate the enclosures of the Harpy Eagle, (Panama’s national bird), the jaguar and the larger and colourful parrots and macaws. Finding money to renovate the monkey enclosures proved to be far more difficult.

So when we were in Holland, we decided to try and help out. We approached the Apenheul Primate Park (www.apenheul.nl) a zoo specialised in monkeys. They were interested and invited us for a meeting. So we got some more information from Adrian via e-mail and went to have a chat.

The Apenheul Primate Park has established a trust, the Apenheul Primate Conservation Trust (APCT) and donates 2% of its income to the trust. The trust also receives gifts from individuals etc. The trust uses this money and the expertise of Apenheul staff to help protect wild populations of primates and to improve living conditions of primates kept in zoos. The trust is especially interested in long term collaboration with partners and in projects that are or will become self sustainable. Furthermore, they have a particular interest in squirrel monkeys.

Well, squirrel monkeys do occur in Panama, in the international park La Amistad on the border with Costa Rica and the Summit Gardens are aiming to become self sustainable, so the match was pretty good. The meeting went quite well and we sent the minutes to Adrian for his information as well.

And last week we received good news. The board of the APCT has approved collaboration with Summit Gardens! We told Adrian the good news and also gave him all the information from the APCT and the Apenheul Primate Park. Together we designed a strategy to start with small a project and slowly increase the collaboration as trust between the organisations grows. We also visited the primate enclosures once again, this time in together with Halit, who was recently contracted to improve care for the monkeys. Adrian had certainly been busy during the last few months. This is all quite exciting and although we are doing this as volunteers, and therefore won’t be able to make a living out of this, it will help to build some social capital in Panama.

First Impressions

2006-07-15T18:02:00.000-07:00

We came in a bit late, the plane was half an hour late and one of our new suitcases was damaged. We refused to accept that this was ‘wear and tear’ and had some discussion to that effect with the Delta person on the ground. We will have to talk/mail to someone manager because the gentleman on the ground said he could not take these decisions. Makes you wonder why he was there.

The next day was Sunday, which we spend mostly doing nothing very much. We did watch the final of the soccer championships intermittently while we were trying to get connected to the Internet in the Clarocom café. The latter is a nice place. If you have wireless, you can connect for free and do your thing. You can also get connected via a wire, which costs a little bit. The company appears to take its social responsibility serious; most of the staff are people with Down’s syndrome and they would probably have difficulties getting a job.

After the match we had a look at an apartment, but it was not quite what we wanted. Basically we want to get in now and get out in two or three weeks time, when we can leave the urban jungle and head for the real one. Before we can do that however, we need to register a company and get us a set of wheels.

Tuesday we got ourselves a room in an apartment. It was the only possibility at short notice and for a short time. So it is back to our student days, sharing a kitchen and bathroom and living in a rather small room. The good thing is that we have a huge balcony, so plenty of space and a good view of the urban jungle and direct exposure to its noises. The noises of the urban jungle consist of taxis that continually hoot to attract the attention of potential customers, i.e. every pedestrian, and car alarms set off by the more violent thunder during the daily afternoon downpour.

We have already contracted the law firm De Sanctis/Bufete to register a business for us. Next week, Tanager Tourism Corp will be a reality and our wallets will be about U$ 1100 thinner. So be it, at least it can be done in less time than the Mozambicans needed just to check whether the name you wanted was not already taken by another company.

Today and tomorrow we will be building some social capital. The last time we were here, the director of the Summit Gardens (http://www.summitpanama.org), the local zoo and botanical gardens, told us he had difficulties finding funds to improve the housing for the monkeys. In Holland we got into contact with the Apenheul Primate Park (http://www.apenheul.nl/) and they are willing to provide some funds and knowledge to the Summit Gardens. If all goes well, this should result in a long term collaboration. And there may also be something in it for Tanager Tourism in the longer run…

Why Panama?

2006-07-12T19:57:00.000-07:00

In late 2003, we started the process to establish a private game reserve in Mozambique with joint ventures for services with the nearby community that included possibilities for education, research and promotion of responsible tourism with fair trade. The first few steps went smoothly, but then we ran into a wall. Somehow, things didn’t move anymore, or, if they moved, they went the wrong way. In January 2005 we decided against our further investment in this Mozambican project due to bureaucracy, lack of legal protection for our foreign investment and (increasing?) corruption.
We reconsidered our steps, studied the internet and other sources to identify another tropical and magical country where we could invest relatively safely and securely in eco-tourism. Amongst some other possible countries, Panamá was often indicated.

In September 2005 Loes made a two-week reconnaissance visit to verify in person the investment possibilities in Panama. The visit focused on our areas of interest and expertise:
· nature research, conservation and sustainable exploration
· sustainable rural development and fair trade to benefit communities living nearby
· responsible eco-tourism
In January and Februari 2006 both Kees and Loes spent time in Panama. This time the focus was on:
· laws and lawyer(s) for how to set up a business and acquire a residence visa
· land to verify where we could settle and how property is transferred
· finance to find a local trustworthy bank and the requirements to open an account
· more contacts to find out and verify as much as possible on all of the above…

And now the adventure really begins. Is it going to be Panamagic or Panamadness?
It is now July 2006 and we arrived only a few days ago and must think and work hard to make it all happen. Lots of friends back in Mozambique and elsewhere in the world said they would like to hear how we are doing n Mozambique and some claimed they might follow us if all goes well. This weblog seems the easiest way to keep them and other interested people informed.

In the mean time, we still have a beach house for sale in Mozambique (see picture) If you are interested, or know someone who is interested, visit us www.viviun.com/Real_Estate/Mozambique.

You are all welcome to post your comments and ask (relevant) questions, but be patient with us because we are only just starting!

Hi everybody

2006-07-12T19:49:00.000-07:00

Here we are (Loes at the right)