Back to Taboga, Panama

PANAMA – FEB 14, 2011

We’re back in Panama, still on a mooring at Taboga Island. The island of Taboga is about 10 miles from Panama City, a beach town where the city folks flock on weekends to relax and party at the beach (mostly very loudly and till past 3 AM). All the approx. 900 residents of Taboga take a ferry into the city regularly to do all their grocery shopping, there are few only one or two shops on the island and they don’t carry much. There are a few small hotels and a couple of restaurants as well.

Taboga has it’s share of history, Capt. Morgan amongst other pirates came in search of gold and pearls. Francisco Pizarro and Paul Gauguin each lived here for a short time; it’s told that Paul Gauguin worked on the canal after having run out of money. Taboga was also a place where workers that had fallen ill, while working on France’s early failed attempt at building the Panama Canal, came to recuperate. Many people came from all over the world to work on the canal and many stayed, you can easily see that in the vast ethnic diversity in the populous of Panama. Yesterday after having spent the day in Panama City we caught a cab to get back to the Calypso Queen ferry by 4 o’clock; our driver spoke with a very definite Jamaican accent so I asked where he was from. Dawson said he was from right here but that his Great-Grandfather had come from Jamaica to work on the canal, and had stayed on. I thought about it and his accent made sense, growing up here he spoke Spanish but at home they spoke English, with, of course, a Jamaican accent.