Page 243 - The Rough Guide to Panama (Travel Guide)

Mainland Bocas Bocas del Toro 241
arrIVal aNd INForMaTIoN HUMedales de saN saN PoNd saK
By bus or taxi To reach the reserve from Changuinola, AAMVECONA Activities in the reserve are managed by
take the Guabito–Las Tablas bus (see p.239) to the Río San AAMVECONA (T6679 7238, Waamvecona.com); the office
San bridge, or take a taxi ($6). is by the road bridge on the Río San San, 6km northwest of
Reserve fees The $5 admission charge, payable to MIA, Changuinola, on the road to the Costa Rica border.
can be paid at the AAMVECONA office on arrival.
ToUrs
The following tours are offered by AAMVECONA, from their office (by prior arrangement in Spanish). Note that turtle and 6
manatee tours can be combined. Tours are also offered (for guests only) by one or two of the pricier lodgings in Bocas, but
these will be more expensive.
Manatee tours The most popular excursion is the Turtle tours In the season (March–July) evening
manatee tour ($45/person; less for more than two people), excursions (8pm) are organized to watch leatherback turtles
which gives you several hours gliding through the wetlands nesting ($10/person) on Playa Soropta. This means staying
by boat, with great birdwatching opportunities, and with overnight in the rudimentary and rather unappealing
luck, manatee sightings. Go early in the morning, cover up bunkhouse at the far end of the lagoon ($10), where turtle
well and/or douse yourself with repellent as the sandflies conservation volunteers lodge. Take your own food, or ask
on the viewing platform are vicious. for meals to be prepared ($5 breakfast; $12 dinner).

Parque Internacional La Amistad
Divided equally between Panama and Costa Rica, the remote PARQUE INTERNACIONAL
LA AMISTAD (International Friendship Park), often abbreviated to PILA or Amistad,
covers a vast 4000 square kilometres of the rugged Talamanca massif, with a topography
and biodiversity unmatched in Central America. Precipitous volcanic tors clad in prolific
cloud forest, containing the greatest density of quetzals in the world, plunge into deep
ravines in Panama’s most dramatic mountain scenery.
From the treeless páramo of Cerro Fábrega (3336m), the park’s highest peak, to the
Caribbean rainforests only 40m above sea level, the park encompasses an incredible
range of flora and fauna, including many endemics and endangered species. All five of
Panama’s resident cat species prowl the forests while the soaring canopy is pierced by
impressive specimens of ceiba, almendro and cedar, home to endangered harpy and

THE NASO KINGDOM
When the spanish arrived in what is now Bocas del Toro (and southeast costa Rica), the
Naso (or Teribe) were both numerous and widespread, but centuries of conflict with the
conquistadors and other tribes decimated their numbers, which declined further in the early
twentieth century due to tuberculosis. of the remaining 3500 naso in Panama, around a third
have been assimilated into the dominant latin culture, living and working in changuinola,
while the rest mostly inhabit settlements along the Río san san and Río Teribe. Teribe is believed
to be a corruption of “Tjër di”, meaning water of Tjër, the grandmotherly guardian spirit of the
naso, one of the more tangible traces of a sorely eroded culture. since the naso language is not
taught at school, only an estimated twenty percent still know how to speak it, with spanish
often the preferred language even in the villages, though naso legends are still widely recited.
The more immediate threat to the naso lies in the form of the recently completed
hydroelectric dam upstream on the Río Bonyik, a tributary of the Teribe, which has ripped the
kingdom apart. in 2004, the reigning monarch, Tito Santana, approved the project without
proper consultation, for which he was deposed and chased into exile. His uncle, Valentín
Santana, who took over, garnered the support of national and international environmentalists
and human rights groups in a battle to stop the dam and safeguard their ancestral lands and
livelihood. However, as the Panamanian government refused to recognize his authority, the naso
were forced to elect a new king – alexis – from the santana dynasty in 2011, though he too has
failed to make progress with the naso’s long-standing petition to establish their own comarca.

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