Hello all!
Sorry I have not kept up with my blog for the past – egh…four months. Whoops.
Anyways. I graduated from Warren Wilson in December! I had a great final semester living with lots of thoughtful fun folks in Eco Dorm. It’s sad to be parted from so many people I adore.
Right after graduation, I spent the week celebrating the holidays in Florida with my parents, brothers, and extended family. We had a great time at a beach on the Gulf. We spent most of our days fishing, walking, finding seashells, and just talking.
From there I moved into my new apartment in Atlanta. The community I’m living in is called East Lake Commons. It is a co-housing ecovillage that won the World Habitat Award in 2001. It is awesome. I was only in Atlanta for about five days but it was a total whirlwind. I bought my first car! I’m still hoping to bike to work most days, but I just didn’t feel safe living in Atlanta without a car. Two days after I return to the States, I’ll be starting my fellowship at the CDC. I’m incredibly excited to begin!
That brings us up to the present adventure. I arrived in Panama City on New Year’s day and will be heading home in a week and a half. Landing – alone – in a country where I don’t speak the language and trying to navigate the city on my own for the weekend has been very exhilarating. I’ve managed to explore pretty much anything that I can walk or take a cab to. Actually, the amount that I’ve walked since Friday is starting to show – I just tore my Chaco’s completely in half. Unfortunate.
Yesterday I explored Casco Viejo, a section of Panama City that goes back to colonial times. It is stunning in bizarre ways. Some of the buildings are well-restored and the plazas make you feel like you’re in Spain. Other buildings are crumbling to pieces and you can see huge trees, ferns, and palms taking root in the lobbies of long-dead hotels. Muggings are pretty common in the area, but crumbling buildings are actually the biggest danger! After Casco Viejo, I walked along a broad boulevard on the Pacific coast. When I visited Panama two years ago, construction of the road was just beginning – now it is a huge highway and lovely park. With hideously ugly Christmas decorations. The number of construction cranes at work in Panama City doesn’t seem to have decreased since the last time I was here either.
In the afternoon, I walked up Ancon Hill to get a view of the whole city. Until just a few years ago, the area was closed off to the public and still in use as a military base. Now it’s just a nice stroll with a view. It is nice to see how things are transitioning – especially in the rare cases where military bases aren’t just being replaced by malls. After exploring the city some more I met up with a college professor from WWC, his family, and a former classmate to spend the evening out on the causeway.
This morning I went hiking in the Metropolitan Park, a huge tract of rainforest that’s right next to the hostel where I’m staying. I saw some tamarins and tons of colorful birds and butterflies. When I’d had my fill of kicking around the humid forest, I escaped over to the Mira Flores locks along the canal, which only served to replace humidity with heat. I got to see some massive cruise ships go through the locks and explore the museum that overlooks them.
I’m going to go spend some time in the hammock to get some rest. Tomorrow everyone will be back from holiday vacation so we’ll tackle the logistics of our trip out to Cocobolo Nature Reserve.
Ciao!