Bird lovers will delight in new Panama Bay Wetland Wildlife Refuge

Panama is well-known for its famous Panama Canal, the modern Panama City, and its idyllic islands. Now, thanks to a newly created wildlife refuge, Panama is one of the best destinations for bird lovers in the Americas.


This month on World Wetlands Day – February 2 – Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela officially created the Panama Bay Wetland Wildlife Refuge. The huge five-million-acre expanse of estuaries, mangroves, swamp forests, freshwater pools and intertidal mudflats of the Panama Bay is a stopover site for two million migrating shorebirds in the Americas every year.

The Upper Bay of Panama is one of the most important migratory wetlands. In 2005, the area was designated a part of the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network.

Many birds travel from as far as Alaska to winter in the Bay of Panama, or stop to rest there before heading farther south.

This critical bird habitat on the western coast of Panama shelters 30 percent of the global population of Western Sandpiper, approximately 20 percent of the world population of Semipalmated Plover, and 34 other North American migratory bird species, according to the Audubon Society.



The new Panama Bay Wetland Wildlife Refuge also safeguards the vast mangrove forest, which protects Panama City and the coast against storms and hurricanes. In 2003, it was declared a site of international importance under the Ramsar Convention, an international treaty for the conservation of wetlands.

Panama should definitely be on your list of places to visit for phenomenal bird-watching, nature and adventure activities. In this most southern country in Central America, you have the impressive Panama Canal, modern Panama City, postcard-perfect beaches, pure rainforest, and cultural diversity with seven indigenous populations.

Central America Experience travel agency presents three exciting vacation packages to Panama – a historic and cultural tour of Panama City and the Azuero Peninsula, a cultural and nature tour of the Azuero Peninsula, and an island adventure in the Bocas del Toro archipelago off the Caribbean Coast. The Costa Rica-based travel agency offers family trips, honeymoons, luxury adventures and custom travel packages in Central America.

Article by Shannon Farley

St. Valentine’s Day history, traditions and romantic getaways

 

Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love.-- Leo Tolstoy

Every February 14, around the world, people exchange cards, flowers, candy and gifts with their loved ones on this day of romance we call Valentine’s Day. But who is this mysterious St. Valentine, and where did these traditions come from?

February has been celebrated as a month of romance dating all the way back to ancient Rome. The Roman fertility festival, Lupercalia, was celebrated in the middle of February from Feb. 13 to 15. In the 5^th century, two martyred saints named Valentine became the origin for the Christian celebration of St. Valentine’s Day.

One St. Valentine performed marriages for young lovers in secret before he was killed; another St. Valentine, sentenced to death, wrote his love a last letter from prison signed “From your Valentine” – an expression still used today. So when Christian and ancient Roman traditions merged, they created the February 14 celebration known now as St. Valentine’s Day.

No record exists of romantic celebrations on Valentine’s Day prior to a poem by medieval English poet Geoffrey Chaucer, written around 1375. The popular poem, written to honor the first anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia, refers to February 14 as the day birds come together to find a mate. During the Middle Ages, it was commonly believed in Europe that February 14 was the beginning of birds’ mating season, which sparked the idea that Valentine’s Day should be a day for romance.

The first mass-produced valentines, with lace, ribbons and colorful pictures, began in the 1840s, created by Esther A. Howland in Massachusetts, USA. Today an estimated 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards are sent each year, according to the U.S. Greeting Card Association, making Valentine’s Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year, after Christmas. Valentine's Day traditional gifts include cards, red roses and other flowers, chocolate and other sweets, jewelry, cute stuffed animals, and going out for a romantic dinner and evening.

How about a romantic vacation? In Central America, St. Valentine’s Day is known as “Día del Amor y la Amistad”, or Day of Love and Friendship. You can plan your romantic getaway to Central America and Central America Vacations with Central America Experience, a Costa Rica-based travel agency specializing in honeymoons, luxury vacations, family trips and adventure travel in Central America. Central America Experience offers vacation packages in Costa Rica, Panama, Belize, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.  

Article by Shannon Farley

Wonderful Pupusas of El Salvador!

Going through my mind as I took my first bite of steaming, fresh pupusa – after, “oh my god, this is good!” – was, “why don’t I eat pupusas more often?”

There is a pupusa restaurant in my little country town of Atenas, Costa Rica. I’ve eaten there a few times, but now plan to be a regular.

Pupusas are the main national dish in El Salvador, the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America. You can find pupusas anywhere in the world where there is a Salvadoran community, and there are many due to the mass exodus during their 12-year civil war from 1980 to 1992.

Every second Sunday of November – this year, Nov. 9 – El Salvador and all international Salvadoran communities celebrate the National Day of Pupusas. 

Made of a thick handmade corn tortilla that is filled with a variety of ingredients – soft cheese, refried beans, pork, vegetables, etc. – pupusas are eaten typically with a slightly fermented cabbage and carrot salad marinated in vinegar, called a curtido.

At the very popular La Fiesta de las Pupusas Restaurant in my town of Atenas, Costa Rica, founded 32 years ago by Salvadoran immigrant Julia Flamenco, pupusas are made with 100% homemade cornmeal dough called masa. Expert pupusa cooks work a large griddle in the kitchen. 

They first take a ball of masa, flattening it slightly with their hands, then adding little piles of filling ingredients on top – soft salty white cheese, refried beans, ground-up chicharrones (fried pork), stewed pumpkin and carrots, or cooked white flower buds from the Loroco vine (Fernaldia pandurata), which taste similar to asparagus. They close the dough ball around the ingredients and pinch off any excess cornmeal; then pat it back and forth rapidly between their hands to flatten it into a thick pancake –filling still in the middle – and put it on the hot griddle to cook with no oil. The result is delicious!

Travel to El Salvador, Costa Rica and Central America with Central America Experience, a Costa Rica-based travel agency specializing in family trips, honeymoons, luxury vacations, and adventure travel in Central America.

Central America Experience offers seven-night and four-night adventure packages to El Salvador; four-night and eight-night cultural and historical trips; and a nine-night cultural trip to El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua.

Article by Shannon Farley