Middle Age and Happy Monkeys

As many of you noticed I turned 40 years old on October 9th (thanks for all the emails!) which means I can't go around denying that I am middle aged anymore. I believe life expectancy for a man is in the low to mid 70's, though I suspect surviving adolescence and early adulthood improves this number. Anyway you cut it though, odds say I have lived half my life. Most professional athletes have retired by now, though many writers, artists, and politicians are just getting started. George W. Bush became sober at 40 after an intervention by Mrs. Bush. What would the world be like if he had stayed on the sauce? My guess is Barack Obama doesn't win the Nobel Peace Prize (WHAT?), at least not in his 40's. By 40 Jesus, James Dean, and my mother were all long dead. Somebody said life begins at 40. I guess what I am trying to say is that I have no idea what it means. All I know is that on my 40th birthday I had no urge to buy a Maserati, run off with a secretary, or join a cult. I did, however, greatly enjoy having a squirrel monkey sit on my head.

The reason I had that opportunity is that Hilary and I made our last stop in Panama at the Mono Feliz, an amazingly isolated little outpost on Punta Burica, a peninsula near the border with Costa Rica. After three buses of decreasing size and quality, we made a two and a half hour walk with Pascale and Isabelle (police officers from Montreal who are working with the UN in Haiti training police and soldiers). The path was incredibly muddy. Hilary, aka Boggyfoot, went in over her knee, Isabelle stepped in a patch that swallowed up her entire leg. By the time we got to Mono Feliz we were just about done in. Luckily it was pretty close to paradise.

The Mono Feliz is a group of small simple buildings with a spring fed pool in the jungle next to a beautiful deserted beach. John¨"Juancho" Garvey created the place and lives there with his girlfriend, Luzmila, her kids, and whatever travelers are willing to make it through the mud. It was certainly worth it for us. We enjoyed great company, good food, beautiful scenery, and a huge troop of endangered squirrel monkeys which stopped by at least once a day and would happily relieve you of any bananas you happened to be holding. I finally understand that old saw about the entertainment value of a barrel of monkeys.

I am not normally a big fan of feeding wild animals, but these monkeys are in no danger of becoming domesticated. They must forage for the real meat of their diet, mostly delicious bugs and bats. Juancho's bananas are just a treat. Central American squirrel monkeys are in trouble partly because of poaching but mostly because of habitat destruction and fragmentation. Juancho's dream is to see Punta Burica turned into a sanctuary for them. It seems unlikely, but if enough people get to meet these monkeys at the Mono Feliz maybe there will be more of an effort to save them.




It is difficult to describe in words a magical place. I hope these pictures give a sense of it. Say hello to our little monkey friends:





















The Mono Feliz was also swarming with these colorful crabs, hermit crabs, and huge bugs including this vicious grasshopper-eating spider. We also got to know Pinto the dog who guarded our tent at night and Blaquito the cat who is the only cat I know who enjoys coconut, popcorn and bread and will let you pick it up by its tail.






The jungle flanked beach was breathtaking, especially as the huge cumulus clouds of the rainy season gathered in the sky. Once again, on our final night, we were treated to a spectacular sunset.










































We finally tore ourselves away on Sunday, avoiding the mud by walking three hours along the beach to the town of Limones where we were picked up before even attempting to hitchhike by Bernard, an interesting and humorous Iranian expat who lives in Panama and has owned several restaurants that sound delicious. On the way to the bus station he took us for a brief beer at a local rodeo and told us how he came to be a chef. He came from a wealthy family in Iran that had a full time cook. This cook had no professional training or teeth, drank Iranian firewater by the gallon, and smoked like hell. Bernard's mother would page through magazines and point to pictures of dishes she wanted for the following day to feed fifty and the cook would pull it off every time to rave reviews. Bernard figures he must have absorbed a bit of that talent, because when he first opened a hotel and restaurant in Panama, he couldn't find a reliable cook so he just started doing it himself, all kinds of food, again to rave reviews. He loves Panama because his girlfriend, Emily (if I remember correctly) is here, because he can completely avoid the news, and because there is no mail service.






If I got any meaning out of my birthday weekend, other than that it is fun to have a squirrel monkey on my head, it was from Juancho and Bernard. I can picture Jauncho after years of sailing around Central America, picking out his beautiful spot on Punta Burica and settling down to the task of turning it into the monkey paradise it is. I see him living out there with Luzmila and his beloved monkeys, hoping enough tourists will make it through the mud to keep him afloat, and that Club Med will never move in next door. I can imagine Bernard coming to Panama from Iran and creating a completely different and delicious life for himself, one entirely without mail (Yes, Grafton, it is possible). No one taught them to do these things. There is no guidebook for it. Most likely they didn't get a whole lot of encouragement at first. Maybe they still suffer uncertainty and wonder what it is all about, but what I admire about them is that they have had the courage to create an interesting life. I hope Hilary and I, as we enter middle age will have that same courage, so that twenty or thirty years from now we will have as interesting stories to tell as Juancho and Bernard.

Panama City

In Panama City we stayed at Luna's Castle in the oldest part of the metropolis, a neighborhood called the Casco Viejo. The Old Quarter sits on a promontory jutting out into the Pacific and reminds those who ought to know of old Havana. Up until quite recently its graceful 18th and 19th century buildings had been left to go to rack and ruin, abandoned by those who could afford to move elsewhere.

In the past few years it has been undergoing renovation, some might say gentrification (there is a wonderful gourmet ice cream shop), and restored residences stand beside dilapidated homes and crumbling facades that house nothing but grass. The area is a historic site and the old buildings must have their remaining original elements retained as they are renovated, meaning that in 10 years this is going to be a quite beautiful, probably quite expensive neighborhood. Whether the people living in those unrenovated buildings are going to be there still we don't know.







The Casco Viejo is home to the presidential palace, also called the Palace of the Herons. On passing we were amazed to see a pair of tall blue herons standing in the marble tiled courtyard. A smaller white heron stood in the fountain that is visible from the sidewalk. From what I read online, herons have been living at the palace since 1922 when the then president's poet friend gave him a pair. There is also a report that President Carter's Secret Service detail accidentally poisoned the herons when he visited in the '70s, never officially confirmed.

Across the Plaza de Francia from the French Embassy stands a monument to the French who died in the first attempt to build a canal across the isthmus. Mike delights in calling the chanticleer and obelisk chicken-on-a-stick.



A good deal of our time in Panama City was spent visiting the museum of the Panama Canal, contemplating the locks or esclusas on the Canal, and riding the Panama Canal Railway. Mike drank a ceremonial beer at the Miraflores Locks, and we spent a pleasant hour riding the rails from Colón to Ciudad de Panamá. On the train we met Christina and Devin, a norteamericano couple driving their Westfalia van from Canada to Patagonia. We were quite jealous contemplating their upcoming introduction to South America.











Along with repeated visits to Granclément (the aforementioned ice cream parlor) we spent time walking on the waterfront where a lovely path stretches from the red roofs of the Casco Viejo to the highrises of the relentlessly modern banking district. And we met up with our friend Steffen, probably for the last time south of the Rio Grande, though he and his parents will be visiting the U.S. sometime. Steffen, Colonel Sanders is waiting for you!