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The Wise Glass Frog of El Valle de Antón
isthmus | September 24, 2009
Travel can seem dual acts of nostalgia and ancestor worship, with all our package tours to museums and churches and places that seem stuck in the past. I find that what is happening now, or about to happen tomorrow, reveals more about our world than tumbled-down bricks and aged parchment.
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The Coconut Train to Cuero y Salado
isthmus | April 15, 2009
There is a moment in all of our lives that it happens. When experience has beaten us down. When responsibility has trained us to caution above all. When our failures and losses in life finally make us bow our heads and accept the linear line of our destiny. This is the moment, I have always believed, we lose our youth.
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Letters from the Canopy
isthmus | Updated January 8, 2009
"Atop Panama's Soberanía jungle and near the banks of the canal, I write a series of letters to a mysterious pastor,offering a conclusion to a long debate between us about monkeys, birds and beetles in the context of science, religion, intelligent design and the importance of preservation."
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The Kuna Islands
isthmus | June
"They ended up with a gorgeous Shire, and a sweet deal, and an almost impossible ability to live exactly as they always did. Their land includes both these 400 San Blas Islands stretching for 160 miles along the coast of present-day Panama, and the nearby Panama mainland with all of its mountains and jungles and fresh rivers. Their land is called the Comarca da Kuna Yala, and the Kuna live as if this is their country. Few Panamanian laws affect them."
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The Philosophy of Monkey River Town
isthmus | April
"They
are traveling long distances at age eleven, unguided, expected to make
a profit, to hitchhike with people of unknown integrity, to be able
to pay for their boat back home. They are inquisitive, polite, and comfortable
in the company of adults."
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Old Highways of Peten
isthmus | April
"Army
and police officers in Guatemala have begun a new campaign of abuse
to cover the tracks of their past. Although from the left-wing that
supported the demands of the Indian insurgents, Portillo has been unwilling
to take steps against the new bloodshed. But all Guatemala's killings
and bombings seem silly for a country of farmers. Who needs an anti-communist
Gestapo when it's all mostly a matter of cutting sugar-cane and sifting
coffeebeans?"
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The Howling Coast
isthmus | February
"When French-born agronomist Clemente Poncon went to The World Bank for a loan to develop the Morgan's Rock property, The World Bank conducted a report, the contents of which recommended that the best solution for the property would be a golf course hotel mega-development. "
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Granada Libre
isthmus | February
"In the hotel’s small courtyard, there's these two age-ripened Canadians feeding the hotel's pet parakeets. They had lifted them onto their table, to let them peck at their butter and jam. Margaret, who was wearing a medic-alert bracelet, lit up a cigarette."
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Jungle in the Sky
isthmus | February
"While the old toothless man describes the view, Ramón explains that to him, the old man sounds funny. He looks at him and laughs, and then looks back at us and whispers, “He is a country man, and his accent is very stupid to us city people.” "
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