The Ryan

I’m sure most of you were wondering where the entry from last week was. Wait, you weren’t? Well, last week I had my first visitor to Panama- my cousin Ryan. He arrived last Tuesday and departed early this morning. Here’s a recap of his time in Panama. I want you to read this.

After being picked up at the airport by new friends here in Panama that I met through the Peace Corps office – Rich and Anne – we went to the Metropolitan Park in Panama City. We hiked around the park to a view overlooking Panama City.


After grabbing a meal in the city, we took an overnight bus to the other side of the country near the Costa Rica border to the city of David. We got into the city at 6:00am and then took a bus north to the Lost and Found Hostel that is located in the mountains of the Chiriqui province. The hostel is just under a mile high from sea level.


Once there, we took a tour of a local farm that grows everything organic. The farmer had a wide variety of things that grew on his farm that ranged from tropical fruits to coffee to sugar cane. One highlight of the stop was Ryan helping in squeezing the juice out of the cane by swinging a log up and down on the plant. It might have been his first manual work in years.


Sadly we didn’t get to do the natural treasure hunt that the place offers because of heavy rains in the afternoon into the evening. We left the place early Thursday morning and ventured back to my community in the Azuero. Getting there in the late afternoon, we grab a typical Panamanian meal at a local restaurant ($1.60 per plate!) and headed to my site. There Ryan got to see my house (he thought it was extremely bare), my community and meet some of my good friends here. He was invited to come back in January when there wasn’t any rain.

The next morning before heading back towards Panama City, we took a walk down to the port in my community. From there, we hopped a bus out of Chitre with the intentions of stopping at a beach along the way. Through a little local knowledge and luck, we came across a deserted beach about an hour and half outside Panama City. This is when the fun picked up. While riding a wave, my cousin got tossed and flipped in a pretty strong one. It turned out he hurt his wrist pretty bad. Needless to say, that ended our time at the beach.

As we were on the bus to Panama City, Ryan, fearing that his wrist was in bad shape, decided that he needed to go to the hospital. After getting some advice from a taxi driver, we landed at one of the local hospitals. After five hours and an x-ray it was determined there was no fracture, just that he jammed it pretty bad.

Even with the wrist injury, Ryan was not going to be deterred from going on Saturday morning to visit my friend Alyssa’s site. Alyssa is a volunteer in an Embera community, which is one of the indigenous groups of Panama. Joined by Rich and Anne, we headed up towards Colon to her site.


There we were greeted by the traditional dances of the community as well as explanations on how they use the surrounding area to live. Ryan and I also got something to the effect of a painted, temporary tattoo that represented a cultural significance to the Embera people.

However, Ryan was in store for one more unique experience. While eating lunch, one member of the community noticed the bandage on his arm. When asked if Ryan would let the gentleman have a look, Ryan, figuring there was no harm, obliged the request. After a quick glance over the situation, the local medicine man started to pull and tug in the efforts of improving Ryan’s wrist. After about ten minutes of ‘physical therapy’ Ryan was pronounced ok, and things should be better in a couple more days.

While I tried hard to give Ryan a great cultural experience, it took a bum wrist to get the full effect. Nevertheless, even without the native medical experience, it was a great time. So come down and see if you can top Ryan’s trip.