Trip to Central America: Panamá

We saw several of these worker's villages...

...and miles of banana fields that all belonged to
Chiquita for over an hour as we drove south from Costa Rica to Panamá.

We boated from Changuinola to the Bocas del Toro archipelago...gorgeous!

People living along the water using traditional dugout canoes,
though many of them now have motors.

This is some coral that grew up around the support beams for our hotel.

Although eco-tourism has been heralded as a savior for natural areas such as those mentioned previously, the recurring theme we noticed throughout our travels is that foreign-owned businesses are the backbone of the tourism industry in Central America, which minimizes the financial benefit to the local population by putting them in subordinate roles, working for ex-pats. We tried to support local business as much as possible, but found these services to be less reliable and less aware of what a tourist/backpacker wants (not in every case, we did find some great local-owned businesses). Many of the foreign business owners we spoke to attribute the domination of the tourist industry by foreigners to the locals' inability to afford travel, which denies them the understanding of what travelers want. Additionally, because locals have lived in these places for generations, they sometimes take them for granted and fail to realize what an attractive destination or activity they may have in their own backyard. As one Nicaraguan put it, ‘If locals would never pay to go snorkeling or hiking in the jungle, why should we think you would?’

The Red Frog Beach Club, on Isla Bastimentos, Panama is a great example of an emergent trend in Central America: retirement resorts. The island of Bastimentos has a population of about 1,100 people spread between a small town and an indigenous village. Approximately three percent of the island is currently developed. The majority of the island is made up of pristine beaches and untouched jungles full of birds, sloths and native strawberry poison dart frogs.
A project is currently underway that will change the face of the island forever. A North American developer has purchased nine percent of the total land area of the island and intends to develop a third of that space into 250 homes, 550 condos, two marinas and a resort, as well as several roads, walking trails and potentially a number of other large structures. There were plans for a golf course as well which the Panamanian government recently decided not to allow. If the current plan goes forward, there will be more people living in the Red Frog development than currently populate the entire island. The unique red poison dart frogs that are the beach’s namesake are expected to become extinct if the project is completed, what to speak of the impact thousands of North American retirees would have on local culture.

This little guy and his sister were "borrowing" frogs from the jungle for tips... we traded our chips for a promise to return the frogs to where he found them. His little sister was mad that she didn't get the package despite getting an equal share of Pringles.

We spoke to two local gentlemen who were employed by the Red Frog Beach Club developer and they had predictable responses to our questions. They said that although they had heard of the controversy over the environmental and cultural impacts of the project, they didn’t think much of it. The two men told us that the developers were being “careful” with the forest and beach and that the project would bring much-needed opportunities for economic development in the form of construction jobs and service sector employment. Red Frog Beach Club (RFBC) claims repeatedly on their website (redfrogbeach.com) that they are dedicated to environmental preservation as well as to supporting the local community of Bastimentos and Bocas. A large portion of this support will be in the form of 1,000 new jobs for the locals of the area.
While it is easy to disagree from afar, we can understand why these young men would want access to the opportunities that a mega-development like Red Frog promises. It is our sincere hope that such people will find contentment with the opportunities that they seek, but based on our visits to other heavily developed locations such as Mexico’s Caribbean coast (Cancun is Mexico’s leader in suicide and divorce rates according to a local friend) and Honduras’ Bay Islands, we expect that such opportunities will come at a higher cost to their traditional way of life than they might anticipate. http://www.redfrogbeach.com/