Annalisa en Panamá

 Today, I finally got my immigration paperwork completed here in Panama.   Here's the post about the pre-departure paperwork and all that it involved. Here's the post about my post-departure paperwork and my first immigration appointment in Panama.  (I did not realize it was the first of two until very recently, in fact!) Both of these first two steps were a bit confusing beforehand.  I felt pretty sheepish for having so much difficulty figuring out exactly what to do until another Fulbrighter --- one arriving a few months after I did --- started emailing me with questions.  Many of these were the same questions I had had!  So I figure that explaining this process as it happened to me might be helpful to other people in our situation, and it's also (if you like this kind of thing) an interesting saga of how bureaucracy unfolds in this particular corner of the world.  Notification of the appointment As I mentioned above, I didn't actually realize t...

There's a Double-decker Red Tour bus ("hop on/hop off!") that travels around many of the places I've visited in Panama City, and I've long thought it would be fun to ride it.  For one thing, I have fond memories of riding in double-decker buses when I was a kid in London (my family spent 6 months there while my parents were on sabbatical).  For another thing, I figured this bus would be a good guide to many of the things I ought to see while in Panama but haven't yet, and would therefore be a nifty way to see what else I ought to visit. So, this past weekend, my husband got us a pair of tickets, and we planned to hop on.  Later on in the day, we found an app for the bus that tells us where all the buses are along the route, and I'd say Takeaway #1 for the day is download the app before you wait for the bus.    The route map that's on the website isn't up-to-date, and it's particularly incorrect as the bus passes through Ciudad del Saber, whic...

Forecast:  85°/74° with thundershowers possible after 2 p.m..  Humidity :  79% Sunrise  6:17 am.,  Sunset  5:57 p.m. I saw a parrot.  If you believe in angels, then seeing parrots here in Panama is hard in kind of the same way that seeing angels is -- that is, they're around, but somehow you can look straight at them without seeing them anyway. Case in point: the parrot in this tree.  Do you see it?  (I did). It helped that (a) Maria pointed out the parrot, and that (b) the parrot moved.  Since you don't have either Maria or a video, I'll zoom in and circle the parrot to help you out. There are, apparently, lots of parrots in the trees in Panama that we can hear all the time, and still not quite get eyes on them.  Speaking of hearing parrots, though, the other day I was walking along a path behind some houses and thought I heard someone talking to me, but there were no people around.  After turning my head in a bunch of directi...

Coati Mundis are these funky raccoon-like creatures that roam Panama City.  They're fearless, omnivorous, and kinda cute. The first time I saw some of them heading off into the woods, I asked a guy "¿Qué era ese animal? ( What was that animal? ), and he said, "Es un gato solo".   I thought he didn't actually see what I saw, because (a) it wasn't a cat ["gato"], and (b) they weren't alone ["solo"]. A collage of gato solos foraging outside the church I attend. However, "gato solo" is truly what everyone here calls the animal, at least in Spanish.  I've since learned the name English speakers use is "coati mundi" (except when using "gato solo" because of following local customs).  But that still begs the question, where does the name "gato solo" come from? Recently I heard an explanation that I love so much, I'm not even going to check to see whether it's true. I'm just going to shar...

Last week, I did my first real within-Panama travel.  Why and how did this come about? It was really a combination of three things: math, tourism, and amazing hospitality.  Here's a bit more on each of those three things. Where I went Chiriquí is a province on the western side of Panama, near Costa Rica.  I visited the Autonomous University of Chiriquí (abbreviated as UNACHI) in the City of David, with a side-trip to Boquete: a famous haven for expats and retirees.   I wrote about the air travel there and back in this post .  Math in Community The main reason I went was math, of course: both to give a talk, but also to scout out whether it might make sense to do longer workshops at UNACHI in my future months here in Panama.  I've tried to make contact with mathematicians here in Panama City, but I have been surprised how difficult it is to get people to return my calls or emails.  So I was thrilled, thrilled  I tell you, at how showing up at ...

Poor little creature was lying by the side of the road and couldn't get up by itself.  Awww.  I did have to clean the poor sloth up a bit, first in an outdoor utility sink, and then in the washing machine. The clean sloth gets to spend the day in bed. Poor little sloth is missing an eye.  Maybe I'll find one and sew it back on. There are two-toed sloths and three-toed sloths.  This is the three-toed, one-eyed kind. Sloth rescue is a bit of a big deal here in Panama. Usually, though, the rescues involve live sloths.  Still, I'm glad I could do my little bit to contribute to the greater cause.

So far, I've spent all of my time in Panama here in the city (Panama City, that is).  But I had the opportunity to visit Chiriquí for two days for math reasons, and took the opportunity to explore within-Panama transportation beyond the city limits.  I was told that this particular trip takes one hour by plane, six hours by car, and nine hours by bus.  Since I don't drive here in Panama, the six-hour option was out; faced with a choice between one and nine hours then, I opted for the airplane.   The round-trip flight cost $125, which seems reasonable to me.  Being the kind of eco-nut that I am, I do feel qualms about the environmental cost of air travel (but I don't know enough to say if the bus travel would be significantly better; figuring out all of this is so complicated).   So, with the decision to take a short trip via Air Panama, I got the chance to see not only a new province, but also two new airports.  Here's what that experience ...