Pura Vida!

Juan presenting Geotourism guidelines

My first day of work in Bocas del Toro consisted of attending/hosting a workshop for local hotel, restaurant, and small business owners with in the islands.  The workshop discussed Solimar International’s Geotourism initiative for the area with efforts to sustain or enhance the geographical character of Bocas. Weather it be its environment, the culture, aesthetics, or well being of its residents, my team and I spent two days working with the Bocas community to promote these new ideas of sustainability and geotourism. This is the project I have been working on for the past three weeks and will continue to volunteer for up until May.

The Solimar Team taxi back form the workshops

Having several presenters including Juan Lunes (A co-worker in Solimar International) who works directly with National Geographic on several of the geotourism issues, the workshops were very interesting. The best/worst part of the workshops was that they were four hours each and presented entirely in Spanish. This could be considered a positive aspect because it aided in my spanish practice and really allowed me to gauge what I have learned thus far. However, it can be seen as a negative because these workshops were my introduction into my project. Mind you I initially was not placed here in Bocas, but rather worked for the same company on a different project in Costa Rica. Therefore, when they urgently needed me down in Panama I had no time for preparation and not a clue what my scope of work was before agreeing to volunteer. So, the workshops were my crash course, but still not even close to fluent in Spanish, it was a bit more difficult to completely comprehend! IEIEIE.