Life in Gamboa

Place for lunch!
Originally uploaded by adaminlatinamerica

Well, I’ve been in Gamboa for almost a week now, though I’m currently spending the weekend in Panama City (more on that in a later update…) Gamboa is a really great town – there isn’t much of anything there other than a bunch of houses, plenty of abandoned buildings (some of which are no longer abandoned and are being rebuilt), a few places to grab food, like the place shown in the photo, a post office, and a very small convenience store/kiosk type place that sells drinks and some basic food items. The town is surrounded by rainforest and is absolutely gorgeous, but the noises will take some getting used to. I wake up very early every morning to the sounds of parrots and other birds, who start making noise before the sun comes up. In time, that will be great, but for now, it’s getting in the way of my precious sleep! The people in the lab are great, though the work itself is a bit trying. I constantly find myself being bitten by ants and just simply frustrated, especially when digging up nests in the field. Soon enough I’ll get accustomed to it all and it will hopefully be somewhat enjoyable. I’ll start taking my camera into the field next week, and hopefully I’ll be able to share some pictures of what the process is like…

Also, the town is right on the Panama Canal, so every so often I’ll be walking down the street that parallels the waterway and I’ll glance to my side and be surprised by an enormous cargo ship making its way through. It’s pretty fascinating to see the contrast of the rainforest all around with these enormous boats passing through throughout the day. Additionally, in the coming weeks I hope to head to the outskirts of town a bit more to do some wildlife searching with my camera – I haven’t seen too much so far, just some frogs, toads, lizards, spiders, butterflies, and agoutis (sort of like big guinea pigs, they’re all over town…) but hopefully soon enough I’ll see sloths, monkeys, and all the fun stuff one hopes for in the jungle. I’ve added more pictures to flickr of the town itself and my living conditions (I rent a bedroom and bathroom in a house, which is a pretty nice situation other than a lack of internet access, which is fine except for the fact that the Smithsonian blocks all forms of chat programs on their network, my only way to get online in town…) That’s it for right now, but I’m sure another update will come soon!