ISLA TABOGA

All of us, except for Richard, decided to take a ferry from Panama City to the island of Taboga.  It’s a short ferry ride from Panama City.  The island has a rich history being colonized by the Spaniards in the 1500’s and then frequented in the 1600’s by the famous pirate Henry Morgan and Sir Francis Drake.  Its claim to fame was when pirate Captain Townley was on the island, in command of French and English buccaneers.  They were attacked by three Spanish galleons.  Townley’s men blew up one ship and captured the other two.   Upon Townley’s victory, he demanded from the then president of Panama, supplies, and the release of five pirates held prisoner on the mainland.  The President unfortunately ignored his request and sent only medicine.  Townley replied by sending back a canoe filled with 22 severed heads from the Spanish fleet.  The President then swiftly complied with his wishes but Townley didn’t live long after as he died of wounds incurred during the battle.

I was also intrigued when I read Gauguin, the famous painter, stayed on the island for a while.  He came to the island having heard rumors that one could live off the fruits of the land.  This he found out quickly not to be true and soon got a job working for the French excavating the canal for a brief time.  He couldn’t take the hard work and didn’t last long.  It is said he was arrested for peeing in the streets of Panama.  The only defense that he gave was that he didn’t think it mattered because the streets of Panama were filled with filth.

The colorful history and stories of its beauty drew us to the island.  It was a chance to getaway from the hectic pace, noise, and heat of the city.

As we reached the ferry terminal we could only get tickets on the fast ferry on the way over but had to take the slow ferry coming back.  Apparently they won’t allow anyone to go over if you didn’t have a return ticket or a place to stay.  The fast ferry looked like a rocket out of Jules Verne’s, 20000 Leagues Under the Sea.  It didn’t looked like it could possibly float let alone be the “fast” ferry.  It was all banged up and the windows were cloudy plastic so you couldn’t see in or out.  It was a mix between a primitive submarine and rocket gone wrong.   I really didn’t want to get in and was contemplating getting a taxi back to our boat.  The inside was laid out like an airplane and maybe the chairs came from an old defunct airliner.  It had two rows of chairs on each side and an aisle down the center.  There were tacky curtains with tiebacks that revealed the hideous plastic windows that you could barely see out of.   A monstrous fan was mounted on the wall to represent AC, which was never turned on.  I must say though, the ride was much better than I expected.  Once it got going, they left the front door open and we had plenty of air.  I think once we were sure the thing wasn’t going to sink, the tension left and all four of us immediately nodded off.  I imagine we were also tired from the strain of the last few days.

When we arrived, the ferry unexpectedly drove right into the shore and beached itself.  Once it stopped we just walked out the front of the thing right onto the shore.  Vendors renting bright colored umbrellas to use on the beach immediately accosted us.  We wade through them and others selling food and other beach items.  We walked down the beach past the hotel (in order to walk on the hotel property you had to pay $5 to come onto their grounds which could be applied to a drink or food) and up a narrow ratty looking walkway onto the main street.  The island was pretty much a walking island.  I did see one small-scale pick-up truck but that was it.  The village on the island was so small that you could just walk everywhere.  It had one concrete road that ran the base of the hill at the shoreline.  From there you could take the many walking paths up the hillside to the houses, church, and small restaurants.  It was as they said, a picturesque place, but was not cool like we had thought. 

                                                            CLICK ON ANY PICTURE
                                                            TO ENLARGE

The heat was unbearable and soon we   found a “soda” (small restaurant) to get some refreshment.  The village served as a resort for those who wanted a day to escape from the city.  There were many old buildings, run down, and probably historical, that had been slightly refurbished and were rented out to visitors of the island.  Many of the buildings were painted bright colors and colorful laundry was hanging out front.

It didn’t take long to walk the village. I loved the little footpaths that the residents used to get to their homes.  There was no privacy for these residents, as the paths would go right by their open-air windows.  The place was littered with sickly looking cats and dogs lying about with their rib cages showing from lack of a decent diet.  One dog took a liking to us though and insisted on following us most of our walk around the town.

We found the main plaza in a most unlikely place, almost hidden within houses and small paths.  The centerpiece of the plaza was the small church painted white with a concrete basketball court in front.  Draped across the court were lines with colorful plastic sheet advertisements strung along them advertising or promoting whoever was running for the upcoming election.  This little church, that you would not have given a second look, was built in 1550, and is the second oldest church in the Western Hemisphere. 

We walked on and noticed various crumbling ruins of some ancient building that I’m sure had a story to tell.  I had imagined pirates living there.  We had also read that during the French construction of the canal, a hospital was built here to house the sick workers who had contracted malaria and yellow fever.  It was far enough from the city to not contaminate the others.  The hospital is no longer there.

We found a nice little hotel on the side of the hill that we hiked up to.  It provided a nice cool breezy spot to have lunch.  I finally fulfilled my craving for pizza on this trip here. It was a charming hotel decorated in bright colors and very clean.  A very friendly French woman ran the place and insisted on talking to us in French though none of us understood a word she said.  We spent most of the afternoon just sitting on the balcony and looking out over the bay.

It’s hard to imagine that intermixed with all this Spanish history, including vagabond pirates, there is a more recent history involving our US government.  During WWII, US troops used this island for target practice and a good hike above us were the remnants of the old bunkers. 

I was surprised also to learn, amongst the beauty of this island, that as recently as 1970, this was a refuge for a colony of lepers and the buildings now have been converted to a retirement home!

There was much to see but the heat just prevented us from exploring anymore.  We headed back towards the beach and rested under the only shade of the covered pier waiting for our ferry to take us back at 3:15. Larry indulged in an old-fashioned ice cone with syrup.  It was so green that his lips and tongue were almost permanently stained.  It was not long before a friendly islander was chatting away with Larry about boats and life. 

 We’ve come to the conclusion that Panamanians love to talk or chit chart.  He happened to tell Larry that the landing for the pier had washed out last week.  He said that’s why the ferry dropped us off on the beach the way it did and that we would have to catch a launch from the beach to get to the older, slower ferry.  No one told us this from the ferry service so we were glad we talked to this gentleman.  We hustled down to the beach as it was near departure time.

The old slow ferry going back didn’t really look like a ferry in the ferry sense.  It looked like a double-decker-trawler-looking thing.  We boarded the launch at the shore, which took a group of us to the side of the ferry and it soon became evident that we were expected to crawl up the side of the ferry on a hand made wooden ladder that was pretty rickety.  We climbed aboard and two fellows working on the ferry grabbed our arms and pulled us aboard.  This was the scenario to board for about 80 people.  We headed up to the top deck, which was open-air but part of it was covered under a sun shield.  We headed for the shaded seats and watched the show begin.

The harbor was small and very crowded.  It was the weekend and there were many pleasure boaters juggling for position.  Some were anchored and others just floating and enjoying lunch.  Our ferry kept running the launches back and forth from the boat to the shore, picking up and loading passengers onto the boat.  The water was a bit rolly and at times it looked like the captain was going to back down onto a mooring or at other times bump into other boats.  He was doing his best to stay in one position during the confusion to get all the passengers loaded.  Also, in the harbor nearby, were two of the “Jules Verne’s speedy ferries” waiting for their time to pick up passengers to take back to Panama City.  They were leaving later so they were just hanging out adding to the confusion and then for some reason, which I don’t understand, they would sound off a loud alarm, which sounded like an air-raid strike siren from WWII.  It added to the hilarious chaos of the scene.  Another boat next to us was blasting salsa music and had pretty girls hanging on the back of his boat.  He was yelling at our captain, telling him he was getting too close to his boat.  Nothing seemed out of the ordinary to any of these people though.  We were amazed at the scene but to them it was as commonplace as any daily activity. This was the way life was around here, chaotic but happy.  Meanwhile our ferry kept filling up way beyond the capacity that we thought it should be.  We had visions of sinking at sea in this ferry after this long hard trip to reach this destination.  We were listing from one side to another but they just kept loading them on.  Once we were filled to the captain’s satisfaction, whatever that was, off we went.  The winds were blowing and the seas were a little rough for this overfilled boat but it traveled just fine.  Families were having a great time and they were throwing pieces of leftover bread from their days picnics to the flying birds that came within reaching distance of us.  There were frigates and arctic terns.  They came so close you could see the whites of their eyes!  The music was blasting some Cuban beat all the way back and it was fun.

The captain arrived at the ferry dock and to us; we could see no place for him to squeeze into.  We immediately thought we’d be sitting there for a while waiting for a boat to leave and make room.  Not this captain, he just squeezed himself in and I swear there wasn’t an inch to spare on each of the ferry.  I gave him thumbs up as we left and told him “good job” in Spanish and he just beamed back with a huge smile and nodded.  We unloaded onto the ferry dock in the middle of nowhere and not a taxi in sight.  The heat as usual was still unbearable.  We decided to walk down the main road until we had a better chance of getting a taxi rather than fighting the crowd at the ferry building.  It wasn’t long before we got one and headed back to the boat.  Follow our trip through the PANAMA CANAL.