Next Stop: The Crossroad of the Americas


 I travel through North and South America a lot but never at once. This feat can only happen in Panama, where the Bridge of the Americas, pictured above, connects both continents as it spans the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal.  I'll be exploring Panama on a media trip where I'll visit legendary structures like the Panama Canal, Bridge of the Americas and Casco Viejo (Old Panama), which dates back to the 1600s, when pirates controlled much of the region. I'm most excited about visiting an Embera Indian village tucked into the Panamanian rain forest, where I'll learn about native plants and rituals. Look out for posts on Panamanian culture, food and fun next week.

Comments

Catherine said…
I never managed to get to Panama when I lived in that part of the world, so will be very interested in your forthcoming posts....
April 18, 2013 at 7:28 AM
Fly Girl said…
Catherine,I promise they will be as interested as Panama's hybrid culture!
April 18, 2013 at 8:43 PM
Andrew Graeme Gould said…
Sounds like an exciting trip, Rosalind! Looking forward to hearing more...
April 28, 2013 at 10:13 AM
A Cuban In London said…
Beautiful shot. Many thanks.

Greetings from London.
April 28, 2013 at 1:25 PM
Fly Girl said…
Andrew, it was a very interesting experience. I look forward to sharing.

Cubano, thanks.
April 28, 2013 at 5:13 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Puerto Rico's Taino Culture

Image
The original inhabitants of the Caribbean region of North America were the Arawak, Taino and Carib  native peoples.  The Tainos are a subgroup of the Arawaks and are recognized as the founders of the island of Boriken or Puerto Rico.  These were the people who offered a peaceful welcome to Columbus in 1493.  They didn't know the cruelty and violence that would follow his so-called "discovery" of the land that they had cultivated for centuries. Despite official government pronouncements that the Taino have been killed off by the massacres and slavery that followed in Columbus' wake, they live on.  As demonstrated in the photo above by  members of  the Puerto Rico Folklorico Dance & Culture Cultural Cente r, Taino traditions, food and names remain strong. Throughout Puerto Rico, town names like Mayaquez, Utuado and Caquas echo the Taino language as do the musical instrument maracas and hamaca or hammock. Legends of Taino warriors, like Hatuey, who organized the ba
Read more

Traveling Through A Liberian Childhood

Image
I like to explore the world with books as much as I like to actually travel. A well-written narrative can transport you to places that you'd never experience with just superficial details like photos and descriptions. I've been interviewing writers about the criteria they use to select books for Summer reading and it made me think about my own general reading criteria. As a journalist, I'm really drawn to biographies, autobiographies and memoirs more than fiction. There's something about using the facts to entice readers into your world that gets me. It's no coincidence that some of my favorite writers--Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Zora Neale Hurston, Hemingway, started out as journalists. So when I glimpsed The House at Sugar Beach , at my local bookstore and saw it was a memoir written by a journalist, it was pretty much a done deal that I would buy it. Now it wasn't only that the author Helene Cooper was a journalist, it was that she was a Liberian journalist chro
Read more

Switzerland's Fete Des Vignerons

Image
                                               Once every generation, the centuries-old viticultural festival, Fete des Vignerons, unfolds in Vevey, Switzerland. Watching this spectacle of music, dancing, wine and fanciful costumes, felt like I had been transported to something out of a Dr. Seuss story. With a law that prohibits the fest from taking place more than five times in a century, I felt incredibly lucky to witness this celebration of Swiss wine traditions dating back to the 17th century.  Some of the fetes 5,500 performers in costumes strolled the narrow streets of Vevey after a show that featured fairies, bees, royal courts, playing cards and 17th-century wine growers. The performance was in French but the drama transcended language barriers. It's a difficult experience to describe but if I had to sum it up, I would explain it as the magic of Cirque Du Soleil combined with the pageantry of the Olympics, topped with the history of folk celebrations.  Take a peek at my v
Read more