I drop out of the clouds into Murillo, a tiny, charming town that sits at almost 3000 metres in the shadow of Los Nevados. A hiker I met on the road told me that there is a place – called Casa Murillo – in Murillo that offers accommodation free of charge. It seems like such […]
Tagged colombia, wildlifeSanta Catalina is not, in general, a village where relationships between the resident expats and the locals run particularly deep or warm so I was touched when Leonida invited me to her home. * A finca is a plot of land, generally with a garden and some livestock, where people eke out a semi subsistence […]
Tagged friends, panama, santa catalinaThere are a lot of dogs in Santa Catalina. Rowdy canine congregations hang about on the beach digging up crabs, playing, fighting and, very often, breeding. Even the dogs with owners are an independent lot that spend a much of their time doing their own thing. Most people don’t feed their dogs anything other than […]
Tagged community, dogs, panama, santa catalinaHaving a house has made me extremely domestic and one of my favourite activities right now is baking bread. I quickly got a basic loaf dialled with the addition of a few ingredients that, in the absence of wholemeal flour, add a bit of substance and interest – oatmeal is readily available and ground linseed, […]
Tagged food, panama, santa catalinaThe hostel thing is done and dusted and this is where I work now.
Tagged friends, pacific ocean, people, santa catalina, scuba coiba, the sea…
Tagged panama, santa catalinaSanta Catalina, for all practical purposes has no shops. At frequent, but entirely random, intervals a small fleet of fruit and vegetable trucks arrives in town. Santa Catalina is a fishing village but this doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s always simple to buy fish. You can hang out on the beach waiting for a boat […]
Tagged panama, santa catalinaThere is a Canadian girl in Santa Cataliana at the moment doing research for her Masters. Her topic is sustainable tourism. She is interviewing as many people in the village as she can. I only had one thing to say to her. SUSTAINABLE TOURISM = OXYMORON Check this video out for a plastic beach story. […]
Tagged community, panama, santa catalina, tourismI suppose that people might think that living in a small village on the Pacific coast of Panama is an endless holiday but in general, it is not. However, my friend Lauri came to visit me recently and we did take a holiday together.
Tagged friends, islands, panama, santa catalina, village life