One Week in Panama

Generally speaking, when something is referred to as a "once in a hundred years event" there's probably good reason to be excited. However, news of this event was rather grim. Horrible storms had ravaged the westernmost regions of Panama, causing massive flooding in some of the country's most popular destinations.

It was on Thanksgiving night, here in America, that I first learned of this news - less than 36 hours until my departure for Panama City. My plan all along had been to spend two nights in the capital before venturing off into my travels. And, as luck would have it, two of the other major places I planned to visit, Boquete and Bocas del Toro, both had taken the brunt of these storms, causing great distress amidst the raging rivers, rising tides, and vanishing infrastructure.

Online reports described non-stop downpours the likes of which some residents claimed they hadn't seen in their lifetime, and the Council of Ministers even declared a state of emergency. In Boquete, the Caldera River overflowed its banks, wiping out roads and bridges. The destruction in Bocas del Toro appeared to be even worse. Tides had literally swallowed restaurants from the archipelago, and, in addition to countless displaced residents, travelers were more or less stranded on the islands. Message boards and news sites told varying stories from Bocas, but the general idea was that this was not a great time to be traveling in Panama.

So, after reading all the discouraging news, I found myself in a tough position: cancel the trip, shorten my stay, or go ahead with everything as planned. My initial thought was to just grin and bear it. However, after mulling over my options late into the following afternoon, I finally decided to shorten the my time in Panama by one week, thinking if I couldn't get to all the places I wanted to go, and if the weather was going to be lousy, I'd simply just laugh it off as seven strange days in Central America. Two weeks - not so much.

Now, instead of returning on the 13th of December, I would return on the 6th - rain or shine. And that's exactly what I got. A little bit of rain. A little bit of shine.

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