Hiking el Chorro de la Chorrera

Panama Travelog #25
La Chorrera, Panama - Fri, 27 Dec 2024. 12pm.

Here's another blog from my Panama trip that I pushed the side so that my blogging wouldn't get too badly backlogged. Well, once I pushed it to the side it, along with several others, got stuck there for a few weeks. I'm going to try unwinding at least a few of them now.

After spending 4 days in El Valle de Antón we're driving back to Panama City. We'll spend 3 days there before flying home. The drive to Panama City would be about 130km if we were driving the shortest route, but we're taking slight side trips to visit two waterfalls along the way. The first of these is in La Chorrera... which is Spanish for The Waterfall. ...And that's the name of the town, BTW. The waterfall itself is named El Chorro, which is Spanish for The Stream. 🤷



Getting to the falls was quite the little adventure. And by "adventure" I mean it really tried my patience. ...No, it wasn't a tough hike. The view from the edge of the falls above was a stroll of 25 meters from where we parked the car. It was getting through La Chorrera that was crazy-making. Driving highways in Panama is relatively easy— aside from the poor signage for turns/exits— but driving in city-center traffic is like something out of a Mad Max movie. Anyway, I've written about that elsehwere, so I'll get back to the waterfalls here.



From the top of the falls we found an overgrown path leading down to the bottom. We picked our way over the slippery rocks near the falls for a better view.

You can see the interesting hexagonal pattern in the rocks we're standing on/next to at the near left. It's columnar basalt. Here's a wider angle that shows more of the rocks:



There were a few other cars of people at the top of the trail as we visited. Curiously nobody else came down to the bottom of the falls like we did, so we had the place to ourselves for the 15 minutes we spent down here.

Gaza Ceasefire Deal Wobbles but Likely to Proceed

I wrote the other day about the Gaza ceasefire deal negotiated between Israel and Hamas. I heard about it on Wednesday around lunchtime in California when President Biden announced it in a press conference. The deal was brokered by negotiators from the US, Egypt, and Qatar, and had been in the works for 8 months. By the time I posted that blog about it 24 hours later there were already trouble signs that the deal might fall apart before it even took effect. Now, despite wobbling it looks like it will begin Sunday morning at 0630 local time in Israel.

What have been the wobbles? Well, first, the deal had to be approved by Israel's cabinet. They set a date of Friday, then pushed it to Saturday, raising worries they might kill it with delays. A vote on Saturday would've pushed implementation of the terms out past Sunday. The cabinet moved the vote back up to Friday.

Not all of Israel's cabinet support the ceasefire. The far right components of prime minister Netanyahu's ruling coalition are opposed. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said he and members of his party would resign if the ceasefire passed, weakening Netanyahu's coalition possibly to the point of losing majority. That's why I noted yesterday that Netanyahu strengthening his majority recently was crucial to him finally agreeing to ceasefire terms that have been on the table for 8 months. Ben Gvir softened his stance, though, and withdrew his threat to resign even though he and fellow party member Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich voted against the agreement. Ministers of some other far-right parties are opposed, too, though they are only observers, not full voting members, of  the Security Cabinet.

The ceasefire agreement also faces threats from, well, not-ceasing fire. Israel has claimed Palestinian fighters are still launching attacks, justifying it launching attacks in return with tanks and airstrikes. And Houthi rebels in Yemen continue to fire missiles at Israel. Still, Israeli military units seem to be forming up to begin withdrawing on Monday morning, and authorities are working on details of exactly which imprisoned Palestinians will be released in exchange for freed hostages.

At this point we're only a few hours from 0630 Sunday morning in Gaza. Despite the wobbliness the ceasefire seems to remain on track. Of course, even once it begins it remains at risk. Not only is Israel likely to continue responding militarily to any armed provocation but the details of phases 2 and 3 of the plan are not yet hammered out. The agreement acknowledges a return to war if the two sides cannot come to terms.

Hiking El Charco Falls

Panama Travelog #26
Soberania National Park, Panama - Fri, 27 Dec 2024. 2pm.

This is another blog I've unstuck from my Panama trip backlog.

Today we're driving from El Valle de Antón to Panama City with a a few stops for short hikes. Around noon today we visited El Chorro de la Chorrera. Now we're doing a bit of revenge hiking.

It's revenge because this is a hike we tried to do Monday after we stayed nearby in Gamboa, but we were turned away by a sign that the trail was closed. The parking lot was gated off by a chain. "Maybe it's just closed on Mondays," we shrugged. Not wanting to run afoul of local authorities who might be upset we entered a closed park, we gave up and left.

We gave up and skipped a hike? you might wonder. Yeah, well Monday was a shit day overall. The first hike we did was a bust. It was supposed to be full of wildlife. We saw a butterfly. One butterfly. And the night before we'd had trouble with our room at the hotel. "Let's move past these snafus and get on to the next thing!" we agreed. HAHAHAHHAHA, was that ironic. Everything this trip has been a snafu.

Thus when we arrived back at the trailhead today and saw it's still closed, with the small parking lot still chained off, we were of two minds. One mindset was, "Everything this trip has included an element of failure. Let's just accept our bad luck and leave." The other mindset was, "Fuck it, we're going in!"

The second mindset won.



We parked in a pullout area on the side of the road opposite the small, closed parking lot. There was already another car there, just like there was a car there when we bailed several days ago, so that tempered our worries about whether the authorities would give us a hard time. Plus, when we crossed the street and looked more carefully at the guard hut at the start of the trail, we could see it wasn't just closed for a day or a week but looked like it had been abandoned for years.

The main attraction at this trail is a swimming hole and picnic area near a small waterfalls. There's also a nature trail that loops around about 1km. We opted to hike the trail count-clockwise, putting the falls at the far end as a bit of a reward.

Well, just like that guard shack at the parking lot has seen better days, the nature trail here in Soberania National Park hasn't been maintained in at least a few years either. There are two suspension bridges crossing the creek, and both of them need repair. I mean, we were able to cross both of them, but one needs several planks replaced, and on the other one the joint in the middle of the of the span is broken. Fun times!



When we got around to the falls and the swimming hole it was starting to rain. That didn't seem to bother a small family who were already in the water. I mean, why not? They're literally already wet. When I was a kid we used to go out and play in the rain on hot days.

The folks who were in the swimming hole started chatting with us in Spanish. We used our rusty conversational Spanish to converse with them. We talked about where we're from, where we've visited this week, and what our plans for the rest of the trip are. "What, you're not going to visit our beaches and mountains?" one asked, hurt, in Spanish.

What I wanted to say was, "Have you seen your damn weather forecast?"



It's rained every single day we've been here, and rain is forecast for the next few days, too. And it's not the type of "Oh, it rains for 30 minutes in the afternoon every day then clears up" rain that some tropical areas are known for. No, Panama's rain is on-and-off, all day.

Oh, and this is supposedly the dry season.

Chalk that up as another thing that's snafu this trip. 😡