「Panama」
One is famous for its canals
At the same time, it carries 5% of the world's trade freight volume
In everyone's imagination
It should be busy
I used to think so too
By chance, a friend who had lived in Panama for nearly a month gave me a selfie video about his experience of living in the local area, and the lifestyle presented in the video was unusually real, like a hermit, unhurriedly telling me one old story after another.
At this time, I realized that the Panama I saw at the moment was completely different from the description on Google or Baidu. I couldn't resist going to discover the hidden stories myself, looking forward to being complacent about what I had accidentally discovered, and feeling a sense of what I had inadvertently experienced.
"Harvest stories on the go
— Discover your true self in the story
As I crossed Panama's long coastline, lush mountains spanning the country and vast, well-preserved rainforests, I came to Boca Chica, a northern fishing port where just over 400 people live.
It has a beautiful natural beauty and is surrounded by hundreds of islands that are part of a national park. These islands in the national park have retained their natural appearance because they have not yet been developed. Activities such as diving, fishing, and whale watching are also unparalleled in the world. You don't have to worry about sharing a sandy beach with others, as there are so many islands with sandy beaches that you can explore in a month.
After staying for a few days, I found that the beauty of this place was hidden in the streets and alleys, hidden in the intimate greetings of people. Panama is the happiest place in the world (Gallup released the list of happiness in each country Panama ranked No. 1 for two consecutive years), the indigenous people here are hospitable, no matter where you come from, you can go to other people's homes to be guests, the host will be warm to the guests, the guests and hosts have no strange feeling, like family. Music fills every alley and every street corner, and the smell of coffee fills everywhere.
It is most appropriate to use the 8 words of quiet and peaceful movement and free mind to describe the state of life here. In Panama, one of the most heard phrases on weekends is: Let's go, let's go to the beach! Yes, the beach is the stage that best showcases the health and life energy of Panamanians. People ride horses on the beach, but without saddles, they can gallop on the seashore, and the horses can swim in the sea; the wild boars there run freely, the vegetation there is overwhelming, and the surfing skills of ordinary girls there amaze me. With every breath I take, I can smell the purity of nature blending with the free-spirited genes of Panamanians, and life here seems to be a paradise.
Every day at Boca Chica, I can see their carefree and happy smiles, because they do not have an excessive pursuit of economic income, and what sustains them to live in such a simple way of life is the skill passed down from generation to generation - fishing.
Panama is derived from the Indian language "the land of many fish". There are four high-value fish species in BocaChica: yellowfin tuna, Pacific red snapper, stingray and amber. Snapper is by far my favorite ingredient for sashimi, it has a very rich and tender taste, which gives me a pleasant feeling like never before; red snapper has the same red color as its name, it is also one of the best species of seabream; yellowfin tuna is called "cow" by the locals because of its huge size like a cow, they can weigh more than 300 pounds, and the fish has a beautiful deep red color.
Fascinated by the wonderful story of our captain Macho, I am most interested in the red snapper of all these species. Red snapper is difficult to catch with hooks and fishing lines because red snappers are very picky about bait and they won't bite the bait whenever you put it down. To catch red snapper, local fishermen usually dive 30 metres below the surface. The time to trap the red snapper must be in the middle of the night, and the fishermen will go out at this time, working on the boat until dawn, and thousands of pounds of fish will appear in the fishing market the next day.
BocaChica's trip was really a must-have for me. And my yearning for Panama is not just about space, but about blending into its time and feeling its history and story.
Boca Chica, where I came, is just a tiny microcosm of Panama, and Panama is the tip of the iceberg for the endless unknown world.