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How can such a tiny, two-foot animal be the second loudest mammal on Earth? It has to do with a unique part of their physiology which we touch on in this episode.

Monkeys and people share space on the islands. People slowly push the edge of the jungle inward and bifurcate the old monkey routes with widening roads and power lines. These cause injuries and deaths.

The community wants to limit the impact and has been working with power companies to insulate and bury the power lines. These efforts delivered a few wins, but also ran into some pushback.

The work continues. The local citizen groups installed monkey rope bridges across roads. The effort is nascent but is making a difference. It is not enough to entirely tip the scale yet, but all big things begin small.

If you are on our island, or elsewhere, and interested to help the monkeys thrive, you can donate to @keepbocaswild on Facebook and Instagram.

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We wanted to see for ourselves and stepped into the dark confined tunnels of the caves on Isla Colón.

Home to bats, spiders, giant crickets, and caymans, the caves are key elements of the jungle ecosystem. The creeks running through them spread the bat guano and fertilize the jungle floor.

Bocas Del Toro archipelago sits on the bed of old coral lifted from the Caribbean Sea. The rainwater, made acidic by plant vegetation, dissolved the limestone over millennia. It formed the caves and sink holes. The old fossils from the sea are still visible in the limestone walls.

I am neither religious, nor particularly ‘spiritual’, but a sense of awe grabbed me in those magical underground spaces, and left an imprint on my mind. Maybe I touched the past?

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Some players were seasoned veterans. Others just came to throw discs at trees, drink beer, and enjoy the view. It was hot, messy, a little chaotic — and absolutely worth it.

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I noticed over the last few months that expat communities are lively and engaged beyond what I saw among their peers in the United States. Maybe the extra effort it takes to make a life in another country and culture winnows the group to those eager for experience?

Such energy is contagious. It encourages saying yes to life in all its forms. Pushes one off a comfortable seat and onto muddy trails. Eases the choice to do something when everyone around embraces opportunities for experience.

I am not a disk golfer, but I loved the day. Disk golfers are a passionate, welcoming community that values fun, nature, and good conversation over scorecards. Plus, we ended the day with a truly proper IPA, brewed right here on the island. That was my first IPA in six months, since I sailed out of Key West. Thank you, Hercules.

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Last weekend, I set out to ride my bike around the jungle of Isla Colón in Bocas del Toro. On the map, the roads follow the coast but end on each side of Mimitimbi wilderness. However, I've heard there is a way to connect. I am going to find it.

My bike is a folding Dahon, with rust in places where rust should not be. It is not the best suited bike for the tough dirt roads and trails of the island. Will it make the tour?

I take care of our bikes, but I still lose the battle to rust. Salt ions, humidity, and galvanic corrosion win overtime. But the bike served me well so far. I am going to trust it. Watch the episode to see if the trust was misplaced.

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We did not find them last time. But some mornings, I hear Oropendola calls near our boat. The calls are unmistakable, deep, and distinctive. To me, they sound like a melodic gurgling or bubbling of water through a metallic pipe.

The calls tempted me to explore the jungle next door. I found the birds, and I found the nests, but not where I expected.

Join me for a walk through the jungle, feel the heat, and wonder at the thick vegetation. Check out tiny immature bananas on a tree when I stumbled into a remote ‘finca’ - a tiny farm an indigenous person is keeping atop a random hill.

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She wants it, that photo. The starfish is in her hands. She looks at it with an Instagram smile. Her boyfriend is five feet away, bending over with the phone, just inches above the clear water, looking for angles. He takes a few seconds, then a minute, then more. Enough time for a stellar image. Enough time for the starfish to die.

She wears a stylish hat, propped atop thick curly hair. Her swimsuit has golden rings between the breasts and on the hips. The face is in makeup, out of place on the beach, and in the water. She could be pretty if not for the ugliness of the action.

“I hate them,” Alex says.

“Fuck them,” I agree.

But we say nothing to them. Should we have?

Playa Estrella is a gem in Bocas del Toro, Panama. Starfish Beach. The stunning, calm waters of the bay attract the tourists and starfish. Starfish are still here. Once, it was abundant, but the number is dwindling, losing to the race for ‘likes.’ The situation is not yet dire, and the efforts to conserve are yielding results.

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The locals understand the dynamic of the struggle between tourism and the starfish. The growth of one impedes the survival of the other. So they put up signs explaining to new arrivals the harm they cause by picking up the starfish, often killing them.

The starfish are not fish at all. They are echinoderms, from the family of sand dollars and sea urchins. They don’t have a heart, nor a brain, nor blood. Their vascular system pumps seawater around their body, propels their movement, digestion, and life. Taking them out of the water, even for a bit, disrupts the system. Imagine sucking a litter of blood out of your human body each time you smile for a camera.

Yet, we say nothing, just seethe with indignity.

You can watch our video episode about about Starfish Beach on YouTube:

I could walk up to the lady and politely explain the harm she is about to cause.  I may have done so in the United States. I’d convey my message politely, with a quiet force. I have sufficient command of English.

I could tell her about the second external stomach of the carnivorous starfish. They are like aliens. They push the second stomach out and digest their prey outside the body, then suck it back in to distribute the nutrients with the internal currents of seawater. That may gross her out enough to set the animal on the bottom.

But my Spanish skills are stuck at the basic daily chat. It lacks polish and nuance, so I can only master direct statements, which in the circumstance will translate as confrontational. That boyfriend is big, I don’t want a tussle.

And I am a tourist. Well, I live in Panama now. But still, I am in their country for only a time. I cling to that excuse. I stay put. Instead, I look around for the proprietors of the stalls, in the hope that they see the woman and say something. They are all busy selling beer or looking at their phones.

The photo session ends, and the couple sits back down on the sandy bottom in the warm and shallow bay. She sets the starfish two feet away in the water, then forgets. They banter and chat and point around.

We watch the animal from a distance, through the clear water. It slowly curls its feet upwards. It flips and floats near the bottom, upside down, in a way the starfish should not do. Then it drifts towards shore on the waves from the passing pangas and gets stuck at the edge of the beach.

Soon, the couple wades to shore. The man picks up the upside-down starfish by one foot and flings it like a Frisbee into the deeper water. Too late, my friend, I think.

I could have said: maybe it is your country, but it is my planet. Our planet. And you just took away a moment of joy from a kid or an adult who could have watched this starfish slowly prowl the sand.

They caused harm. I hope not out of malice but ignorance. Although that is hard to defend in light of the many signs on the beach. But I am complicit in my silence. Social media is complicit with their ‘likes.’ Many of us are complicit in rewarding ‘the experiences’ we see in photos while scrolling without the consideration of the harm they may have caused.

Will I say something next time? The sad truth is that most likely not. I am averse to conflict where I am handicapped. But just in case, I now have a speech prepared in a local flavor of Spanish.

“Hola, amiga. Esta estrella de mar está bien bonita.
Es un animal raro: en vez de sangre, usa agua del mar para vivir.
Cuando está fuera del agua, pierde mucha y a veces se muere.
Sacarlas seguido las puede matar.
¿Será que la puedes poner de vuelta al agua? Gracias.”

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Darwin focused on the beaks of finches but the Poison Dart frogs of Bocas Del Toro are another great example of such polymorphism. The many islands are only a mile apart, but each has a frog of its own color. And they are beautiful. We go to Isla Bastimentos to look for them, and find them.

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I am deeply in love with nature and the manifestations of its creativity. No one would argue nature’s impact on art. But few realize how powerful its influence is in my own field of mathematics. In fact, the ants were responsible for my choices in life, with their uncanny ability to optimize travel routes. The ants are amazing at efficiency, and the understanding of how they operate, led to the modern optimization algorithms. Not of the social media variety, but of the type that allow your phones to work.

The realization that individually simple, but socially complex ants could perform the nearly intractable computations for millions of years ahead of us made me interested in understanding how to crack their code.

I digress. Or maybe, I am making a point that nature is the rock which informs my thinking, and my relationship with the world. So, when an opportunity to explore a new magic of nature arrives, Alex and I usually take it. And when it does not, we turn off the noise of modernity and go looking for it.

While my mind is entirely consumed by my book project until the end of August, I am happy to find respite in telling stories of what excites us through video.

We chat about a few facts, and watch the frogs hop around. They are very difficult to stop watching.

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The following is an auto-generated summary of the show:

We took a trip to Isla Bastimentos in search of the famous red poison dart frogs, one of the many colorful frog varieties found throughout the Bocas del Toro archipelago. Each island has its own unique frog coloration due to geographic isolation—on Bastimentos, they’re bright red; on Isla Colón, typically green; and on the mainland, some are black with green spots.

As we hiked through the jungle, we were excited but cautious, especially with our dog in tow—we worried he might try to lick or eat one of the frogs, which could be dangerous. Fortunately, he seemed to instinctively avoid them, maybe put off by their striking red color.

When we finally spotted the frogs, we were amazed. They were even smaller than we expected—about the size of a thumb—but incredibly vibrant, glowing red with tiny black spots. Though they’re known for their toxicity, we learned that these frogs don’t start out very poisonous; they build up their chemical defenses over time through their diet, and the mothers feed them unfertilized eggs to boost their toxicity as they grow. Watching the frogs sit still and puff their tiny throats in and out as we approached was a surreal and unforgettable moment.

But after you walk past lovely ex-patriate homes only possible with the ex-pat money, the contrast of the poor local settlements is jarring. Yet, the locals smile and laugh, play futbol, dance and hang on the beach - resilient and vibrant, even if the island’s wealth only brushes their lives. Most welcome the tourist and their money, and welcome a modest share of the windfall.

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Carenero is a tiny example of the mixing of cultures. Paradoxically, it is also an example of segregation by ethnicity, race, and language. Within a few square miles of the archipelago, distinct groups live in proximity but are separated by the boundaries of their settlements. Native Ngöbe speak their own language. Afro-Caribbeans speak Patois. Latinos and Chinese speak Spanish. Ex-pats mostly banter in English.

Spanish might bring the group together, but culture, money, and a thinly concealed prejudice of each group against the others, keeps everyone apart. It is dismaying. But fortunately not universal.

On Carenero, at a beach bar, you can see all stripes of people getting along. That gives me hope.

There is much joy and beauty here. This is a happy episode about the sights of the island. Come see what we saw.

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Episode Summary (below is automatically generated using AI):

We began our day at Coquito’s Beach Bar on Isla Carenero, a place filled with charm, history, and great food. From there, we walked the island’s coastal trail, passing beachside cafés, small hotels, and colorful homes. Along the way, we saw signs of daily life—laundry drying, dogs lazing, and people enjoying the sunshine. Some night, the island comes alive with music and dancing, with live jazz and salsa lessons drawing people to open-air stages right on the water.

The island surprised us with its peaceful, raw character. While some areas are developed with expat- and locally-owned properties and surf-focused bungalows, much of the interior remains jungle. There are no roads—just footpaths—so everything and everyone arrives by boat. We learned that the island might even have hosted Columbus during his voyages, as its shallow shores made it an ideal spot for careening ships. Wildlife is still present here, from parrots to howler monkeys to sloths, and the surf spots attract adventurous travelers.

What we love most about Carenero is how it balances simplicity with beauty. It’s small—only a couple of miles around—but it offers everything: great views, cool breezes, friendly locals, and a laid-back vibe. It still feels authentic, not overrun by commercialism. Though we know that change may come as more investors arrive, for now it remains a special place. We ended our loop back at Coquito’s, where John Valiente welcomed us warmly and invited everyone to come by for pizza, tacos, sunsets, and live music.

We spend a weekend wandering the lush jungle, mangroves, and beaches looking for their nesting colonies. Not everything goes according to plan, but we spend a lovely weekend outdoors nonetheless…

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Episode Transcript Summary (auto-generated):

We set out on a sunny day in search of one of the most fascinating birds in Bocas del Toro—the Black Oropendola and its incredible hanging nests. Since it’s nesting season, we decided to bike about ten miles north through the jungle of Isla Colón to a place called Mimitimbi, where a colony might be hidden in the canopy. The sand road made it tough to ride, so we pushed our bikes for a while.

As we reached the forest, we kept our eyes on the trees, hoping to spot the birds or their long, sock-like nests. These birds are communal nesters—up to twenty nests in one tree—and while the females build and raise the young alone, males show off with their size and calls. The nests are beautifully woven, about a meter long, and some may be decoys to trick predators. We also ran into massive termite nests along the way—huge and not exactly elegant, but impressive in their own right.

Although we didn’t find the birds this time, we learned a lot and still enjoyed the journey. We saw the forest, ate fresh coconuts, found a quiet swim spot, and laughed about the sand stuck to our faces. It wasn’t a full success, but the day wasn’t a loss either. And the search isn’t over—we still have one more place to check out. First, though, we’re rewarding ourselves with a local $2 Balboa beer. Cheers to the adventure!

The stilt houses are not new. The indigenous people have lived in these since before Columbus visited the area in 1502. And they only have grown in popularity since.

Watch the episode for a glimpse of these places…

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Episode transcript summary:

In this episode, we explore the unique charm and long-standing tradition of stilt houses built over the water in Bocas del Toro, Panama. From restaurants and homes to hotels and even co-working hostels, the over-the-water lifestyle is deeply integrated into daily life here. We visited an indigenous community in Salt Creek on Isla Bastimentos, where people have been living in stilt homes for generations—long before Columbus arrived in 1502. The geography of the region, with steep hills and flood-prone mangroves, made elevated housing practical and necessary. Later, Afro-Caribbean workers brought additional stilt-house traditions during the banana boom of the 1800s, further shaping the region’s architectural identity.

We noticed that construction methods remain simple and consistent—wooden stilts (now often concrete-wrapped in PVC), open walls, thatch or zinc roofs, and even floorboard gaps for airflow. These structures are often built just beyond the mangroves, helping preserve this vital ecosystem and buffer against sea surges. However, there’s an ecological downside: older homes sometimes lack proper sanitation systems, with waste going directly into the water. That poses risks for marine life and local residents who fish and swim nearby. It’s a clear reminder that traditional living must also adapt to modern environmental standards.

As we talked about whether we’d live in an over-the-water house ourselves, we found ourselves split. The views and tranquility are tempting, and there are fewer bugs out on the water. But practical concerns like space for our dog and long-term effects of climate change gave us pause. We’d need some essentials—a composting toilet, for one—before making that leap. For now, it’s a solid “maybe,” but we definitely appreciate the beauty, culture, and ingenuity behind this way of life.

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What is it like to live with it? Surprisingly fine. We unpack the story of the rain and share what it’s like to be here.

Episode Summary:

In this episode of Travel Banter, we talk about what the rainy season really feels like here in Bocas del Toro, Panama. While the forecast from April to December often shows daily rain, the reality is more balanced. Yes, it rains frequently—sometimes every day—but usually only for a few hours. We still get plenty of sunshine, whether it’s a bright afternoon after a morning shower or a sunny morning before an afternoon thunderstorm.

We compared Bocas to Seattle and were surprised by the numbers. Bocas gets nearly four times as much rain—about 140 inches a year—but also nearly twice as many sunny days. The rain here is warm, and the weather shifts quickly. It’s all driven by trade winds from the Atlantic colliding with the mountains, and the convective build-up from the hot ocean. Some days, we watch the clouds grow into giant thunderheads and light up the night sky with lightning.

Living here means adapting. We always carry rain gear—umbrellas, trench coats, and rubber boots. Our dog loves playing in the rain, though it means extra clean-up before he comes aboard. Locals often collect rainwater from rooftops into big tanks, which we use too—for drinking, washing, and showering. Rain is part of life here, and we’ve grown to love the rhythm of it. It’s lush, it’s practical, and it makes Bocas feel alive.

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They are unique creatures, docile symbols of the islands and the island life. We ran into one on our recent walk. We talk about their habits, habitats, and unique symbioses - mammalian-plant mutualism.

This episode is both video and audio. The audio is available on all podcast distribution channels. And you can see the video episode on Substack at blueplanetstories.com, or on YouTube:

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In this episode of Blue Planet Travel Banter, we dive into one of our favorite topics—the sloths of Isla Colón. These peaceful, slow-moving animals have fascinated us for years, and we share some of the most surprising things we’ve learned. From their habit of only coming down from trees once a week to poop, to the green algae that grows in their fur as camouflage, sloths are full of quiet complexity. That algae isn’t just for show—it forms part of a remarkable plant-animal mutualism, one of the only known examples in mammals.

We also recount a personal encounter with a sloth that had wandered onto the forest floor and was being harassed by a couple of dogs. After chasing the dogs off, we helped the sloth back into a tree and contacted a local rescue group to make sure it was okay. Watching the sloth move so slowly, unsure if it was injured or just doing what sloths do, reminded us how vulnerable and misunderstood these creatures are—especially on islands like Colón, where dogs, roads, and shrinking habitats create constant threats.

Throughout the episode, we talk about where you can find sloths on Isla Colón—places like Playa Bluff, Big Creek, and near cecropia trees, their favorite hangouts. We offer tips for spotting them in the wild (bring binoculars and a lot of patience!) and reflect on why these animals mean so much to us. In their stillness and simplicity, sloths model a kind of natural mindfulness—and remind us that slowing down isn’t always a bad thing.

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We talk about the two main boat types that make life possible here for the locals and tourists.

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But first, we chat about machetes, the most useful tool in these parts and the shortcut to feeling like a local.

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I start on Malecon, the main boulevard connecting Punta Gorda to the center of Cienfuegos. The Malecon is busy on the weekends and for an hour before sunsets, but in the morning it is mine. Only a few electric tuk-tuk taxis, and a smoky car or two.

I run between the Cienfuegos Bay and the parks, among palms and potholes, and through the memories of my youth. No palm trees in my teenage years but the potholes and the strife of life in a communist country. Deficits, limited future, and creative ways to have fun without the amenities to spend your money, or without the money to spend. Cuba reminds me of too much.

I ran the Malecon three times since we arrived last week, and I am looking for something new. I turn away from the bay and towards the only high-rise apartment building to the East. It is no higher than twelve stories tall, yet the most prominent feature for miles.

I zig-zag towards it. A right turns me directly into the sun and its growing heat. A left brings me into the shade of the low-slung two-story homes. Calling these “two-story” oversells their size. They are tiny, two rooms stacked above each other, with the second floor offset to make room for a balcony. Once bright in magenta, yellow, light blue, and rose, they are now grey, the color of crumbling concrete, with the evidence of old paint as stubborn flakes refusing to let go.

An elderly man sits in a chair on the flat roof of the first floor. It is not like a balcony as it is open to the sky. Nor like a patio as it has no rails. Just a flat section of roof in front of the second-story room offset to the back of the home. Two children exit the door underneath the old man, parents follow them out, then the grandma. I assume they are a single family, all living in a tiny home.

Such concentrated living is a plight of Communism and a plight of poverty. I saw “Komunalki” in old Soviet Union. They were the four or five-bedroom apartments that housed multiple families. Before the revolution of 1917, a large family owned each flat. After the revolution, in a version of people’s justice, half of that family was thrown out on the street, and the other half “disappeared” into the camps or to the mass graves. Other four families moved in, a family to a room, four families to a toilet. I wonder how the Cuban revolution managed that transition.

I run into a busier avenue. The high rise is two blocks away, but dead-end streets and fences block my path. I turn and run along a stream of walkers. They are packing the sidewalk, so I run on a road against the traffic, between people and cars.

Most people are in uniforms on this block. There are nurses in white dresses, white stockings, and white hats, as if from a World War I movie set. There are boys in blue shorts and white shirts, and girls in blue skirts and white shirts. Girls wear white knee-high socks. Both wear little red pioneer ties tucked under the white collars. They could be from a Soviet propaganda film about happy children marching to school.

In two blocks, I see the school on my left and the hospital on my right. The uniforms make sense now. In two more blocks, the uniforms change to the military greens of interior ministry, and the universal uniform of office workers: skirts and blouses with heels. Although, I don’t see dressed-up men. I can’t explain it.

The traffic is busy on the main streets. It is hard to breathe. The pollution is in my lungs. The morning humidity smothers the smog and keeps it hovering near the ground. I can smell it and feel it in my lungs. It acts like altitude hypoxia suppressing my breathing and slowing my running pace. I turn onto a small street past a busy bus station. The stench of pollution lessens.

I run into a crowd of kids. They are younger, elementary school-age, but wear the same uniforms as the other schoolchildren, only the ties are light blue.

I remember the red ties, but not the blues of the young kids. In elementary school, we wore a lapel pin - a red shiny star with a gold bust of Lenin in the middle. We were the young “Octobrist,” then young “Pioneers” after the third grade when we graduated to red ties. I slow to ask the kids what they call themselves but I realize I don’t have the vocabulary for a chat about dogma.

I climb a hill and pass a horse carriage. Six people are in the cart, mostly well dressed, three on each side, facing each other. “Taxi de Caballo” is hand-painted on the boards of the cart in a well-executed font. The man prods a diminutive horse, or a mule, to pull up the hill, and it does, yet slower than me. The fact that it does at all, astounds me. Then the carriage passes me on the downhill. How does it stop?

I run toward the city center. I see less color of concrete and more paint on the homes. A few buildings grow taller, up to three stories, some grow wider. The ubiquitous anti-theft cages on windows and doors are more ornate and painted black. They show no rust of poverty.

I pass a newer Mercedes, a lightly used GMC pickup truck, an old Soviet Lada, a Czech Java motorcycle with a sidecar, a 1950s well-used Chevy, and two more horse carriages. Two centuries of transportation in two regular blocks. The past, present, and future.

They simultaneously exist in Cuba in a nod to physics’ theory of Eternalism. The flow of time is an illusion, it says. Past, present, and future all exist at once, laid out across time, comfortably coexisting. The idea was born from a theory - the scientific revolution of Einstein’s special relativity. Cuba’s Eternalism was born from a failed experiment, a people’s revolution, grown from aspirations of equality but fizzled from the mandates of realities and reluctant human nature.

A motorcycle nearly hits me at a cross street. He beeps and swerves. I jump back to the curb and resolve to run without esoteric diversions. The tourist city center is too busy for that. The chaos is already on the streets.

“Cambio, cambio,” a man hollers at me. He offers to exchange my dollars for pesos. Why me? I am in a running tank top, hat, and running shorts. Where would I keep the money? But I am white, and I am running. I have not seen Cubans run here. I am a foreigner indeed. Why not try yelling at me?

I jump over a gap between the road and a curb. It is a foot deep and is common on roads with sidewalks. When the city lays a new layer of asphalt to improve the road, it does so directly on top of the old, without the hassle of grinding and hauling the asphalt out. Efficient, and dangerous. The road repairs grow the road taller, the asphalt layers divulging its age like a cut-down tree.

The downtown square is beautiful. The description of Cienfuegos's Spanish colonial architecture is in every tour book. I will leave it out. But under the trees, next to a statue of some once-important fellow, I see a scene of note. A young man and a young woman, in their school uniforms and their red ties, are in a tight embrace. They look into each other’s eyes and kiss. Ten yards away, another girl in a red tie is smoking on a bench and stares at the couple. She looks at a girl in a hug and clenches her fist. She clenches her jaw. She looks at a guy and her features soften. Well, shit. The story is the same world all over.

I laugh inside. And then I think of their future. These young people believe it is in their hands. I silently urge them to act on their hopes before life’s disappointments morph them into the complacent fatalism of the adults. Their futures ought not to be determined, not by governments nor by physics. Forget Eternalism, predestination, and fate, and let them choose what they want to be, and what their country can be. Let them have the agency to steer their future and break through the restrictions of ideologies and stifling embargoes of the West.

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The sand is the whitest in Cayo Largo. It is coral ground by the relentless swell of the Caribbean Sea. The swell crushes against the reefs, breaks the dead bits, and abrades them against the older sand in a slow motion of years. It uses the sand to make more of it.

The reefs run for a hundred miles along this South Cuban archipelago. Its entire length. They form quiet lagoons and protect them from the anger of an open sea. The sand is soft and warm, but hard on the eyes with the albedo of snow. Sunglasses help.

We walk along the beach, Alex and I. The dog runs. He dashes between the bushes and little palms where the lizards hide, sniffs there, wags his erect tail, then dashes back into the clear azure sea to cool off from the heat. He is relentless.

Tourists walk by. Not many but a steady trickle, every minute or so. A group of Europeans speaking French. A young couple bantering in Portuguese. An older couple, nudists, the woman is wearing panties and no bra, and the man wearing nothing at all. He has the biggest hairy bush, trimmed in a perfect cube, and the longest, and possibly, the oldest penis I have ever seen. Flaccid and tired.

‘How is the island?’ Amaury asks on WhatsApp. ‘I hear it is the most beautiful place.’

‘Yeah,’ I type back, ‘have you never been?’

‘Cubans are not allowed there. It is for tourists. For generating convertible cash.’

Foreigners only on Cayo Largo beach. Cuban’s trim palms, lay palm fronds on a roof over a stage, sweep, running a bar and a store. They are the workers, the cogs of communist machinery perpetuating tourism and showcasing the communist paradise. This beautiful piece of Cuba is off-limits to Cubans. Fucked up, isn’t it?

The next day I run along the beach and think about the injustice. I am part of it in a way.

But, is it not the same in most places of beauty? Here, the locals work for the tourists on government orders. Elsewhere, the dictates of economy enforce an implicit divide. Around the all-inclusive resorts of the Caribbean, the tourists spill out of the airplanes, pack the gated walls of a contrived paradise, party, spill their drinks, and spill their stories to each other, without noticing that the only locals around are the ones changing their bedsheets. It is the same around the world.

I run another mile then slow. The sun is higher now, and hot. I fight the urge to check what is around another corner. I still have to run back. I whistle to the dog. He turns, sees me stop, and dashes for the bushes. I let him.

This part of the beach is empty. I am the only one. I take off my clothes and wade naked into the sea. This is after all a nudist beach, but I am uncomfortable without the small patch of my running shorts. Why is it so hard to shed the puritan dogma? Even in places where it is suspended.

I float in two feet of water. My knees scrape the waves of sand on the bottom. The dog rushes into the bay and shatters the mirror surface of the turquoise water. He comes over to check in, then wades among the starfish. They taunt him with their bright color and complete indifference. He is fascinated by these creatures in plain view, a foot away, but out of reach.

Soon we are both cool. I put on the shorts, and we run the miles back to Alex. I round a tiny inlet and jump away from the water. A small salt-water crocodile glares at me. I catch him on a video scurrying away and settling on the sandy bottom a few feet away. A youngster - only five feet long, most of him are tail and teeth.

“Hey, look,” I show the video to Alex when we are back. She shivers. “That’s the only local on this beach,” I say, “and I still ran him off his spot.”

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It is a slice of paradise, a site for a study of human impact on remote areas, and a place to ask ourselves questions about what we want to see for ourselves.

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The Streets

Old Havana is old. It is in the name, and it is in the way things look and no longer function. Everything is tired. Unkempt. Drawn. As if the city streets suffered a century of insomnia. The tourist center looks good, of course. The government still spends money to impress the others. But the streets where people live their daily lives have been forgotten by the maintenance crews, garbage collectors, and cleaners.

People themselves still try. A man is sweeping the curb with a makeshift broom of fronds without a handle. Each frond is only a foot long, and the man must bend double to reach the ground. He sweeps the trash a few feet down the street, away from his tienda. He leaves the small pile in front of a shuttered, disused door hanging crooked in a crumbled concrete facade. He has nothing to pick it up and nowhere to toss it. Then he walks into his little shop, and I can see him behind the iron window gate arranging the few things he has to sell. Not many. An assortment of cans and peppers.

The streets are narrow and busy. Loud. People walk in both directions on the road itself, competing with the forty-year-old cars, mopeds, bicycles, and hand-pushed carts. Beep-beeps of horns warn people of them coming. People don’t move away but know not to step further into the street. The cars and motorcycles weave around them and around the minefield of deep potholes. The traffic moves at the speed of a fast runner, which is too fast for the chaos of cars and walkers.

There are sidewalks, but they are empty. Nobody uses them in Old Havana. ’No, no! Walk on the street.’ Our host explained, but my slow Spanish lost the why in his explanation. In two blocks, I understand. I see concrete rubble on the sidewalk - jagged blocks the size of baby heads lay crumbled as if tossed there. I look up, and the balcony above sports a fresh gauge, where these strewn rocks had been the morning before they fell to the street.

We will walk on the street and heed the beep-beeps.

The Money

The Western money is not good here. We need to exchange it for the $CUP - the currency used on the street. The official exchange rates are ludicrous; you get almost nothing for your money. But it is fair on the streets.

We wander the neighborhood, twenty minutes out of Havana, looking for someone with whom to exchange. It is not obvious. People are going about their business or just sitting on the curbs. A mob is queueing at a Mercado selling bread and vegetables. “Ultimo?” A new arrival yells. Someone raises their hand. The new arrival will follow them once the queue moves. But they still have to wait for the counter to open.

Dollars are still in our pockets. We found no one. Instead, we walk on a pedestrian median of the main boulevard through the smoke and pollution of old cars. A military complex to the right, then another on the left, then a hotel. It is nice, has a club, a guard station and well-maintained grounds. For the foreigners, most likely.

On the way back, there is a lady with a dog. The dog is small and as old as the owner. We say hello as we pass her in the opposite direction. She holds a leash in one hand, the fingers of the other are stretched wide to hold five packs of cigarettes. She asks us if we want to buy any after we already pass. No, but we are looking to exchange dollars. She walks over.

“I can help you,” she smiles. “What rate are you looking for?”

“At least three hundred.”

She smiles and nods.

We follow her on a dirt pass between the trees and the fences, then onto a street that is not much wider. We ask questions, she talks. Life is hard here now. Was it ever easier? Yes, when Obama was president, more people came, and more people spent money, and there were more jobs. What happened after? Trump and Rubio - they hate the Cubans. Then, the pandemic. No, there is no future now. She drops her dog at her place, then takes us up the steps a few homes away. “Can’t exchange today,” a woman upstairs tells us.

Our guide shrugs and takes us to the next place. Talking all along about her job at the policlinic. She is a clerk handling paperwork there, but the pay is enough for only half a month. She needs to do more. Yes, do more, like the rest. But she is lucky, she says, she knows how to make it work. Then she stops and tells us. “You said you wanted three hundred, but I can get you three hundred and forty. Could I have a commission?” I think for a second, but it is fair. I would accept three hundred, so why not. I nod. Sure.

There are two people at the house with the gate, waiting for their cash. The woman brings a neatly stacked pile of Cuban money to the first. The cash is in even blocks of five hundreds, wrapped with another five. The man leaves without counting. The woman takes green dollars from the next man, disappears inside, and shows up with another deck of money. She repeats the process with us.

Our guide takes the cash, counts her take, and gives us the rest. I don’t mind. She places her hand on my shoulder and nods. She places both hands on Alex’s shoulders and nods. Then, we watch her walk back home. She does not need to sell cigarettes today.

The People

Come, come visit us. Amaury urges on What’s App. He sends us an address in Central Havana. His wife, Yeni, sends additional instructions. Her English is great, much better than our Spanish. We have never met them, but Amaury is the father of my sister-in-law’s partner, Miguel. Miguel insisted his father wanted to see us; to him, we are family. I was not sure until I saw the urgency of Amaury’s texts.

Jorge picks us up. He is a driver for hire around where we stay. His car is a 1960s Chevy. It looks great on the outside and looks as good as it can on the inside after 60 years of use. Jorge was a kid when the car was built, so they are contemporaries, both creaky but resilient and able to handle the bumps of Cuban roads and the bumps of Cuban life.

He drives us on the most direct route to Habana Vieja.

“These buildings,” he points to the mansions on either side of the road, “belonged to the wealthy before the revolution.”

“Who owns them now?” I ask.

“The people!” He laughs at his own joke. He thinks for a bit, pushes the car back into the third gear - it stubbornly pops out into neutral every half-a-kilometer. “No, it is all embassies now.” He points at the flags. Algiers. Spain. India. Russia is in the largest complex. The United States is in a respectable corner building.

He talks as we drive on Malecon following the coast, but I no longer pay attention as the sites capture me. The old Spanish Fort bookends the city a few miles away, overwhelms all else. Four-story buildings expose their innards. Their facades were destroyed a few hurricanes ago and untouched since. Brand new hotel here, another there, in the midst of dilapidation. The sea crushes over the sidewalk and spills onto the road. So unlike anything else I have seen. The sights are captivating. I can’t pay attention to words.

We drive off Malecon and meander among the walkers on the streets of Old Havana. A few blocks, a wrong turn, but we arrive at the address and find Amaury. We sit in his tiny apartment and chat for a bit. Give him gifts from his son.

“I will show you the city,” he says. He speaks in slow Spanish, just right for us to follow. We follow him on the street. Walk the Malecon and past the Forts. He talks of history, what the city has been, what it could have been, and what it has not become instead. His head hangs low.

We walk past the art, the statues, and the antique cars, ready to whisk the tourists to the beach. We walk past restaurants full of people, none of them Cubans. Amaury talks of his life and his dreams. We are living his dreams, he says. Alex and I. Traveling the world, free to enter countries closed to him, because of the visas and because of the money. He does not complain. He just tells the story of his Cuban reality.

We meander the streets, take photos of the old buildings, say no to street peddlers who want to sell us a tour or to invite us into “the only Speakeasy in Cuba.” It is entertaining, like any other tourist traps all over the world.

We walk to a small hotel where Yeni works. She is a manager, and a host, and a boss lady to a skeletal staff. The place is beautiful and artfully designed, at odds with the ruin of buildings around it.

“Who stays here?” I ask.

“Mostly Germans. They come to learn to dance Cuban salsa, mambo, and samba. It is a special thing we have going here.”

A group of Germans arrive as if on queue. They hug the staff and ask for Crystal, the local beer. The three women and three men chat with us. For an hour and a half. Lovely people who just came from an excursion to the beautiful and historic Trinidad on the other side of the island. They like it here. The culture, they say. The people. The hardship, yet, the happiness of them. How? The dancing, maybe. It is easy to like this place when you have an option to leave.

We walk to a restaurant across the street from the Capitol. The main dining room is at the top of three flights of stairs. We pass the bar and waitstaff, all men, waiting for their turn. We order appetizers and wait for their friends. In two groups, four of them arrive to celebrate Amaury and Yeni’s anniversary. It is like any other dinner you would have with friends in any other place. Except Amaury says it is their only time in a restaurant this year, for the anniversary. It is only March.

After dinner, we get into a three-wheeled Tuk-Tuk. It is electric and new. Their friend bought it last year. It has enough room for a close five, but all eight of us squeeze in the back and the front bench. We drive through the streets of Havana to have cappuccinos at a bakery near Amaury and Yeni’s apartment.

The bakery is a newer place in an ancient apartment building, decorated like any Western coffee shop, with staff wearing stylish aprons. People come in from the street to buy a treat, a coffee, or a loaf of bread.

“They seem to have all the bread you want here,” I say.

“Yes. It is great. It is $200CUP per loaf. It is only $1CUP with a ration card, but with rations, it is only a few loaves per month. So, if you have a nice side hustle, you can buy all the bread you want.”

“It’s tough,” I say.

“Ah,” Rosallita, one of our group, waves her hand, “We are happy people. When the sun shines, we smile; when it rains, we laugh. What else can we do?”

They all laugh and raise the cappuccinos in toast.

The Dancing

On Saturday, we are back at Yeni’s hotel. The local Cubans are gathering on the rooftop space. It is their night to dance. Pedro, the owner of the hotel, opens it to the locals every weekend.

The Cuban salsa lessons start at five and go on until seven, and then there is a dance party. People walk to the bar and order a beer or a Canchánchara, a cousin of a better-known Brazilian Caipirinha. The crowd is mostly young, around thirty. A few are our age. They mingle and chat.

The lessons are fun. Men and women split into two groups and follow the instructor's energetic lead. His explanations are impassioned. His urge to pass his excitement for the music is contagious. It is clear that this group comes here every Saturday. The steps are advanced for the two beginners. But the instructor makes it work and we dance along without feeling abandoned.

When the party starts, people dance. Happy. The same scene I have seen everywhere else, carefree for the night, away from the pull of daily stress. But it is a civil affair. It has none of the feel of “meat-market” dance clubs fueled by booze, drugs, and overt sexual tension.

Pedro, the owner, chats with us about our journey. He tells us of his. How have you come to own such a niche hotel? I ask. He lived in Germany in his youth and got to know people, made connections, and brought ideas home. He asks if we like rum, and we nod. He brings out a bottle and sample glasses. We try it and it is good. Old Habana rum, he tells us, is the same as Bacardi. Literally, he says. I make a note to look it up.

You are not driving, are you? He inquires. No, I say. Every twenty minutes after, he returns with another bottle. He makes me open it, then splash a tiny bit on the ground to heed a tradition. “I hate this tradition,” he says, “such a waste, but you are a guest, so we have to.”

We try another rum. He tells stories of Cuba and his life. On the fourth rum I learn he is also a Spanish citizen. I ask why he chose to return to Cuba.

“This country has huge promise,” he says. “It has the makings of a paradise waiting for its chance. People here are hungry. We just need to wait out the government. They are already beginning to let things work. Because they have to, to stave off the ruin. Soon, we can move the economy forward.”

“What about the embargo,” I ask.

“Would be much easier if it goes away, but that is only a part of it. The change has to be from within.”

I look around at the happy faces of youth dancing around us. These resilient people make their lives work in difficult circumstances. Of course, they can sprint when the reigns are off.

The party ends at half past ten, on schedule. Pedro returns with a bottle of rum. Hands it to us.

“This is for your journey,” he says. “Next time you are here, you will stay with us as a guest. And no, you cannot pay.”

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The boat is ‘on the hard’. She is dirty.

We are in the boatyard now, preparing our boat for a long passage across the Caribbean. I thought I would hate it. I was sure of it. A long time ago, before my cushy office work, I fixed semi-trucks. The dirty, oily, in the winter frigid to the touch, unfeeling trucks. I had greasy nails and cracked skin. I had wounds on every knuckle. Bumps on my head. Cuts on my wrists. Eyes red from grease and melting ice dripping into them. I had enough. I hated the wrenches.

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But I like this boatyard and this work. Love - is not what I can say. But ‘like’ is right. Because the results of the painful hours are ours. Alex and I will saddle Monona, our sea-kindly, ocean-going sailboat, and will launch in a week away from the happy madness of Key West and the sad madness of Trump’s America. We sail in pursuit of a simpler life, where the focus is to create and to relate through stories the beauty of places and people free of the greedy impetus to acquire. Will we like it? Indeed. We lived this life for two years.

All of it is a week away. We still have to peel away the layers of the onion that is our boat. The layers of systems that keep you alive and independent. Watermaker turns seawater into fresh. Solar and wind make us power and charge the laptops we need for our daily jobs. The diesel engine powers us in and out of the tight harbors and into the open sea.

All those systems require attention, a lot of care, and a little bit of love. They pack a soul into their inanimate frames, and if you stop caring for them, they rebel. They go offline when you most need them. You must turn them into friends with grease, or new gaskets, or fresh halyards. Then, like good friends, they will show up when you are blue and need a saving.

Remember when I said the boat is an onion? Not only because it makes you cry. That too. But because it hides important things into successive layers of other things. You must remove four others to fix one.

I am peeling the onion today. There is no room to get to the engine. I can fit one shoulder and two half-collapsed arms into the compartment. No room for proper tools. I push back the drive shaft, but first, I loosen the dripless seal. Of course, it is stuck - the saltwater welded metals. One hour lost to remove a screw. The drive shaft is back. Take off the transmission, but the bolts seven and eight cannot be reached without Harry Potter’s wand. Three hours to remove two bolts. The transmission is off, but I can’t pull it from the compartment. The hole is too small with the engine in place. So, the transmission must stay. It sits there, picking at the skin of my hands each time I carelessly move them.

But there is a problem. The engine is mounted by the transmission on the back. So, we rig a pulley to our boom to keep the engine hanging without it dropping into the pan. Precarious leverages, pulleys, blocks, many feet of rope… The dog is fascinated. I am afraid.

A full day has passed, and I am twelve percent done. Why am I doing all of this? Because I need to replace a seventeen-dollar part. A stupid seal that lives deep inside another onion, which is the engine.

The work is challenging, but I learn how things connect and interact. So when a strange boat noise jolts us from a nap somewhere in the ocean, we know what noise can wait. We can go back to sleep without panic. The boat will make it, and we with it because we spent the days fixing the little things.

Still a purgatory. But in a week, we will sail past the reefs into the Gulfstream to a place of mental quietude and a welcome sea. There, we can unfurl the sails, shut down the noise of the engine, and the noise of expectations inescapable on ‘civilized’ land. It is all worth it.

It is exhilarating to move past stubborn problems and to collect small wins. Addictive even. The small wins accumulate into accomplishments and hand you a sense of power over your circumstances and agency over the chaos of life. Little things, to bigger things, to a satisfying knowledge that you can steer your own ship, and your own life.

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On the right sidewalk, two families pushed against the current of people flowing the other way. A mom and a dad, well-dressed, held hands with their son and daughter. Maybe visiting from Boston for a day by the high-speed ferry? Behind them walked a family, possibly Mennonite, with the man and two boys in white shirts and black pants and two women in long, flowery dresses and bonnets covering their hair.

On the left sidewalk walked a group of four bearded men. The two in front wore tiny, tight leather shorts. None wore a top, their big hairy bellies spilling over the shorts, their large chests covered in thick manes. Leather strap harnesses ran from the shoulders, around the globes of their bellies, and attached to the shorts. One wore knee-high boots, the other, inexplicably, Birkenstocks. They were holding hands. The two men behind them could have been their brothers.

The conservative and alternative on the same street, co-existing. Exactly how it should, but seldom so outside of special places in America.

I nodded to a cop, and received a nod back. “What is going over there?” I asked her. She snapped her head up the street and nervously scanned for trouble. Then, seeing none, turned back to me in askance, shrugged her shoulders. She was a local and nothing looked out of place to her. “Is there a festival in town?” I asked. She smiled, “Yes, Bear Fest. Big weekend.”

I nodded and started running. I left the boat to stretch my legs and leave the space for Alex to have her morning coffee and her solo time, if only for two hours. I wished she was here now. She would love the town, I knew. But we will have days here before we leave, and it was only Saturday. The Bear Fest was still on the upswing, celebrating a gay subculture characterized by the four men: big, burly, masculine. We will view the spectacle in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, I came to run the trail in the dunes. I argued for the detour to Cape Cod to see them on our sail further North. Henry David Thoreau made these dunes famous in the book of his travels through here, and I wanted to feel the magic he saw in the landscape and its people.

I took a few streets through town and soon was on a quiet bike path. The trail winded through the trees, at first flat, then rolling, then steep in short but aggressive assaults on the dunes. For the first five miles, I could not comprehend the scale of the dunes for the thick woods. But soon, the deciduous trees gave way to pines, and the pines thinned as the trail climbed higher. Then, they grew ever shorter, offering a glimpse of the sands. I am used to the dunes of the lower East Coast — sandy bumps covered in grass, still significant, and even imposing on the Outer Banks. But these dunes were a different species. The elephants to the mice.

They fully came into view after a climb and a turn, where the pines lost to the sand and opened the view to the ocean. Still, some miles away, the ocean was blue and happy, letting the wind pick up the salty foam off its top and carry it here. Out there were the whales, and boats with people who watched them, and fisherman hunting the bounty of the sea. Up here, at the top of the dunes, was desolation. Sand and the dwarf pines starved by the dead sand and unkindly salty wind.

These dunes are mean. They fight all things. They fought the Pilgrims. Indeed, the Mayflower landed here, but the Cape ejected them without effort after starving a good quarter of them. They did not adapt like these pines, which learned to need less and grow shorter, just sturdy enough to pull what they needed from the empty sands, air, and the sun, and no more.

I breathed in the salt air of the place and felt the same spirit lift off the mountainous dunes that lifted for me off the pages of Thoreau’s book. It made me smile. It woke me to what Thoreau saw, and what captured him. Yes, yes. You should see them.

I ran downhill on the paved bike trail. It remained clear in the wooded sections, but in the openings between the meager clumps of woods, the sand drifted across like the snow in a storm. It crunched under my feet and made the shoes slide with every stride. A good, fun run. Another five miles of it, down the tall dunes on the ocean side, and past the miles of beach. Then, into town from another side.

Resorts lined the streets. This was the gay side of town, and during the Bear Fest, I imagined they were all full. The streets were, anyway. Many bears, but other subcultures, too, were circulating in even numbers. Intermingling. Having fun. Living a gay life.

I ran past the bustling boutiques and busy restaurants. Past a magician and street musicians, a drag queen handing out leaflets, and families clumping around the ice cream shops. I weaved among the crowd on my run back to the dock, and my tiny running shorts drew glances, hellos, and nods from the men. I could not decide how to feel about the attention but chose to be quietly flattered. I am in their space, and I am in their culture. It’s fine.

Above the crowd, rose the Monument to the Pilgrims built a century ago. It is the tallest structure on the tallest hill, rising to the sky in its fallic majesty. An ode to people who despised fun, it now stood erect over the happy hedonists living their best life. I laughed at the irony. I laughed for two blocks, and my crazed laughter drew more attention than my tiny shorts.

I crossed the downtown back to the dock and took my dinghy a mile across the bay to our boat. We anchored it away from town by the empty sand beach at the very tip of Cape Cod. Alex was up on deck, sipping coffee and building her island game kingdom on the iPhone. She saved me a cup, and we sipped coffee without talking.

The curious seals that lived in the bay circled the boat and barked at the dog. The dog whined back, stretched his neck at the animals, and stared at the brave cubs that floated within feet. We watched them.

“Bear Fest is in town,” I said.

Alex looked at me blankly, then with understanding. “Is it a zoo?” she asked.

“It is,” I said, “You have to see it. You’ll love it. I may have to wear longer shorts to stand out.”

We drank our coffees and I thought about how such places emerge. They are vibrant. They are obviously different. You feel it upon arrival. Something in the spirit, in the vitality, that removes the shackles of invented restraints. They break the convention of what a typical place is and draw people to come and express themselves, without the filters imposed by their nervous caution.

These towns are started by artists, musicians, writers, the creative iconoclasts. They run away from the tedium of common success to find what fits them, and their actions attract others who elevate the place away from the routine. They build the community, the studios, the coffee shops, and start intellectual salons where they share inspiration and find it.

Then the word gets out, and we, the common folks, flock to them to feel like we are a part of something unique. Many catch a sliver of the iconoclasm and carry it back to our lives. It is a wonderful thing. Others try to own it. They are seduced by the creative spirit and want to buy it with their money. They move there and buy homes. At first, their money is a bonanza, but soon, it becomes a scourge. Their riches drive up prices and drive out the very core of who made the place, but can no longer afford to live there. And in a decade, the place will be a ghost with a reputation from the past but little creative impetus. Trinket shops and galleries selling prints. I have a long list of cities and towns in mind, imploded by the rich philistines posing as enlightened, but I will keep it sequestered deep in my disappointed mind. I don’t want to receive all the hate mail.

But I believe Provincetown will persist. There are a few a places that beat the trend. This will be one of them.

“Want to go have some fun?” Alex asks me.

“Indeed.”