Day 21
We woke to sunny weather and headed back to the beach before we had to leave Isla Grande. We weren’t sure exactly how to get back to the mainland, but figured we would just go back to the pier we had arrived at and just see if there was a boat around. After a bit of time on the beach, though, a boat pulled up and dropped off a bunch of tourists. We asked if we could go back with them and it was a go.
Back on the mainland, we waited for a bus to take us to the city of Colon. While we waited, a woman near our age, white with lots of piercings and tattoos, approached us. She looked familiar and Lise later said she had seen her on Isla Grande. She was a Venezuelan who had migrated to Panama after the collapse of their economy. She was working as a chef on Isla Grande, but was currently on her weekend (it was Monday) and making the most of it. That is to say, she was drunk as hell. We spoke in a mix of English and Spanish. She kept pushing English, even though, somehow, her English was actually worse than our Spanish. She said there was some kind of event or festival nearby and we could go get some food. It was unclear what she was doing in this dingy little town. She said she was just partying. She led us down the street to where a couple of tents stood over tables of food and drinks. Small crowds of people jockeyed for position around the tables as the food distribution got underway. I asked again what this event was for. She slurred something about politics and the church, insulting both, along with the nation of Panama itself. It may have been some kind of obscure Catholic holiday that local politicians were exploiting to hold an event to give out some food. I couldn’t really tell though. The Venezuelan girl went to the drinks table and got us some beers. It was a bit early for us, but I figured we’d better drink them so that she didn’t have to drink them for us. I tried to make conversation while we waited in line for our lunch, but she wasn’t really in the right headspace to do anything other than interrupt and repeat the same thing she said five minutes ago. Anyway, it relieved the pressure of having to have meaningful conversation, so I could just nod, or respond with whatever, regardless of how empty or nonsensical it was. At least she was leading us to food. She helped us get through the crowd and procure us a plate of food. I had felt awkward, being three foreigners, and by far the three lightest-skinned people (everyone else was black), getting food at an event that we had no part of or understanding of. But nobody seemed bothered. The food was some rice and a chunk of fried pork. It was good and I was hungrier than I expected. Our Venezuelan friend continued to insult everything, including the food and the hot sauce that I offered her to put on it. She gave the meat to her dog and went back for more beers. We said we were good, so she kept all three. What a fun person to be around.
Our bus ride to Colon started out nice as the bus was fairly empty. Eventually, though, the bus picked up about 500 high school students. They were loud and chaotic. I mean, no shade to them. They were just being 500 high schoolers on a bus. We didn’t love the vibes though.
Colon, Panama’s second city, is the one place in the country that seemed to have a terrible reputation. Bad crime rates, drug use, falling apart and nothing to do. I wouldn’t say that this reputation didn’t ring true, but I don’t like paying too much attention to overly negative reviews of places that seem based in fear.
When we first arrived in the city, it did appear a bit rough, but I quickly noticed all the delights that it had on offer. The sidewalks were lined with fruit stands and there were all sorts of shops and stands selling treats. Also, there was a market. It had been a while since we had been in a city, so I was excited about it.
I don't even know if this photo was taken in Colon, but maybe it was.
We walked through the rain past abandoned 4-story buildings exploding with vegetation. Empty lots were strewn with debris and garbage and homeless people got comfortable on cardboard in the covered crannies they could find. At first glance, our hotel looked like one of the nicer and more modern hotels we had stayed in. The check-in counter was formal and shiny. It was the cheapest place we could find in the city, and it still wasn’t cheap. On slightly closer inspection, though, there were signs at offered other kinds of services as well. The room seemed nice on the surface, but had been poorly cleaned and was a bit gross. We didn’t linger inside.
We walked around the market area, but it was mostly closed. We continued down the main, wide boulevard in the direction of the sea. A flamboyant man in stylish, if not quirky, clothing approached us and spoke in a mixture of English and Spanish. He was warning us that the city is dangerous and pointed out certain streets we should not walk down, night or day. Eventually we had to shake him off as he seemed every bit like he might be the one we should be watching out for. You know that whole thing of making someone feel in danger so that they gain your trust. It’s one of the things that most often marks a scam artist.
We popped into a pastry shop and there were so many delicious-looking treats that it was hard to choose. We shared a cinnamon roll and a carrot-coconut cake. Both were pretty good. We continued on toward the sea and eventually arrived at a concrete park and promenade called the Parque de la Juventud or Park of Youthfulness. A chintzy Christ the Redeemer served as the anchor point of the park. A woman on the edge of the park was fanning a charcoal fire under a grill. I went and asked what she was serving, but it wasn’t ready yet. We looked out over the Bahía Limón at all the cargo ships waiting to pass through the canal. While we didn’t realize it yet, there was a drought that was preventing traffic through the Panama canal, causing a buildup of ships on both sides.
We had hoped to have a seaside drink, but we had to go back across the street to find a bar. We at least wanted to sit outside, but the bartender was kind of weird about us wanting to sit at one of their two outside tables. She made us pour our beers into big cups before sitting out there. Apparently this city had a no-drinking-in public policy and that included bars serving alcohol outdoors. The bartender also tried to rip us off on our beers, but when I called her out on it, she gave me my correct change. As we sat there, watching life pass by in the streets, a large Colombian man came and talked to us. He explained the situation about the police and the drinks and pointed out a nearby surveillance camera as the reason why we had to hide our beer. The guy was really nice and friendly. He had left Colombia years ago for a better life and ended up doing business here in Colon. He said there were lots of Colombians here. He also said that while Colon has crime and can be dangerous, it isn’t that bad and people shouldn’t look down on it so much. He really seemed to like this place and that was nice to see. He asked us if we knew about Colombian aguardiente (moonshine, literally firewater). I said sure, and he offered us each a small glass of it. Now, I thought I knew what it was because I had had stuff called aguardiente throughout Central America and it tended to be some real evil stuff. This, however, was nice and was actually anise flavored. It was good enough to sip on. I was impressed.
We walked back up the main boulevard, looking for a place to eat. As it was after dark, it was hard to find an open restaurant. Eventually we came across a little family-run fonda (basic restaurant) and it seemed like what we needed. The options were limited, but Lise and I shared plates of salchipapas (hot dogs and fries) and fish while we watched the local news on the TV. The food was good and the family running the place was sweet and friendly. On our way back to our hotel we kept noticing police cars driving slowly near us. I wondered if this was something of an informal escort. Maybe the police would prefer to follow us around rather than deal doing paper work with us after we got robbed.
Back in the room we worked on making plans for our last week of the trip. The place we really wanted to go was the San Blas Islands. They had the reputation of being some of the best, most picture perfect white sand islands in the world. They were pristine and not spoiled by mass tourism. This was because they were in the Guna Yala, an autonomous part of Panama belonging to the Guna people. They had somehow managed, through an early 20th century struggle against the state, to have a fairly robust amount of independence. Historically the Guna lived off fish, small scale agriculture and the coconut trade. Nowadays, though, this is heavily supplemented by tourism and the sale of Molas, a colorful textile. There are no foreign-owned tourism establishments and all the tours and hotels and transport are operated exclusively by Guna families. Most accommodations are pretty rustic as electricity and fresh water are in limited supply. Most places to stay, for better or for worse, are also away from Guna settlements. This gave me mixed feelings. On the one hand, tourism can have a disgusting impact on indigenous communities, so I can see why they might want to keep it separated, but on the other, I would feel awkward going off to some paradise island and know that I’m being completely segregated from the people that actually live there. I mean, I don’t travel just for beaches. I want to learn about the culture too. We hadn’t been sure about going to these islands, partly because of cost. Most people tend to sign up for package deals in which they fly or are driven from Panama City and taken around on boats to one or several islands. These packages tend to be very expensive and out of reach for Lise and I. However, I couldn’t shake the idea that we could manage it independently for a bit cheaper. For example, I couldn’t find any resource explaining simply how to get from Panama City to the main port city in the Guna Yala. It seems that this only happens through private taxi. Also, there is a fee to enter the Guna Yala, a fee to enter the port and a fee to enter each island. I tried calling some of the cheaper hotels, as the guide book did print per night prices of individual hotels, but communication was difficult (their Spanish and my Spanish, not great) and they seemed to only want to sell package deals including transport from Panama City. We did find a tent to rent on airbnb for $20/night (still run by a Guna guy), so we thought there was still a chance. We would head to Panama City the next day to try and figure out the rest.
Day 22
We took a bus back to Panama City and when we got checked into our room, we started doing more research and making phone calls to figure out an affordable way to make it to the San Blas Islands. We weren’t able to make contact with any of the hotels out there or get any solid, reliable information. I kind of admired how the Guna really didn’t have any interest in making it easy for budget travelers to travel through their lands. They kind of seemed to have the attitude of, ok, if you got the money to come out here on our terms, sure, but we’re not going to put any more effort into this tourism thing than we have to. I think more places should be like that. In my traveling experience, some of the most rewarding were those that were difficult to have. The most accessible places to tourist are the worst. But we were on budget vacation mode, not long distance backpacking or luxury holiday, so the San Blas just wasn’t in the cards for us. If we were on a months-long trip with more time than money, we would have tried hitchhiking to the port and figuring out something affordable along the way. I’d heard back in the day that Jonathan hopped through these islands all the way to Colombia by bartering for boat rides. We just didn’t have the time for something like that.
So we went out on the town and Lise went to a hair salon to get her hair redone. The first time she had it done it had come out more yellow than platinum blonde, so she found a place that looked more promising to get it redone. I wandered around the city for a couple hours, purchasing whatever snack food or fruit drink people were selling on the street. The street food scene in Panama City was pretty fire. I mean, nothing compared to almost any decent city in Mexico or the entire continent of Asia, but still, not bad. The rest of the country, however, was pretty weak so I was really trying to live it up while I had the chance.
Panama City
When I got back to the hair salon, they were still doing work on Lise’s hair. The man doing Lise’s hair had a stylish haircut that was all shaved on the sides with a slick little tuft of bleached hair on top. I figured that it would not be controversial to assume that he was a gay hair stylist, like one could find in many many parts of the world. It turned out that the story was a little more complicated. It turned out that he was the husband of the woman owner of the place. He was some kind of a road construction worker. Real blue collar stuff. But work had been slow and he wanted to make more money so he was learning how to do hair from his wife. I sat in a chair and the hair stylists offered me a piece of cake. They were celebrating the husbands birthday. Of course I took the heavily frosted piece of sheet cake. Before he was done with Lise’s hair, he had to hand over the tools to another stylist. He had to go off to his main job. He donned a reflective vest and headed out the door. Lise’s hair turned out better than it had the first time (according to her, I always thought it was good of course).
Take 2 on Lise's hair.
That evening we went to the seedy strip just a wrong turn outside of the trendy, tourist friendly Casco Viejo. We stopped in at a little restaurant-bar across the street from street food and street walkers. We were hungry and thirsty, so we ordered a couple beers and asked what they had on offer. The man, who seemed in charged explained his options and spoke enthusiastically about his empanadas. It was clear that this guy cared about his food and wanted to up the game a bit. We ordered a couple of empanadas and a pork chop with ptatacones. The man sent someone to the club next door to get our beers while he made our food. The empanadas were light years ahead of anything similar that we had had in Panama. The pork chop was also cooked perfectly, although it was maybe a bit salty for our taste. Either way, it was just nice to see someone cooking with such passion in such a humble spot.
Day 23
We decided to end our trip with a little visit to an Atlantic coast beach town. We hadn’t seen much of that coast yet. So we took a bus for an hour or two to San Carlos, a little town set just off the coast. It seemed like a pretty quiet town. Probably the kind of place a lot of middle class Panamanians retire to. It seemed cold though. I noticed that people passing us on the street tended not to greet us or really even respond to our “good mornings”. Later, a Canadian man that we would meet, who has been in this town for months, confirmed that this town was uniquely unfriendly.
A cute house with a sign announcing that their plants are not for sale. In a lot of more rural areas of Panama, we noticed that people were growing and selling house plants out of their homes.
We had booked a room online in a pretty cheap guesthouse on the coast, but when we got there, the young woman at the desk seemed to have no idea that anybody was coming. We wondered if there was anybody at all staying at this guesthouse. She showed us to our room, which looked like a small dormitory with four beds. I asked if it was correct and that this would be our own room for the price we paid and she said yes. Ok, then. After putting our stuff down and getting changed, we went and asked the attendant if we could walk to the beach from here. The hotel was on the coast, but directly in front of it wasn’t really a beach. On our map it looked like we could, but I wasn’t sure if we had to walk on streets or if we could get there along the rocky swampiness directly in front of the hotel. She hesitated, then called out to some white guy who emerged. She said that he would show us the way. This guy, shirtless, in his mid-40’s was a clear surf bum who had been staying around here for long enough that he had become either a permanent resident or employee of the hotel. He was Italian and we spoke to each other in Spanish.
We walked through the front of the grounds, past a herd of aggressively honking geese and through the front gate. He asked if we surfed. I said no, well, yes I have surfed, but no I don’t really surf and would probably not be surfing here. We arrived at the bank of a small, brown river and the Italian started wading across it. I followed, not thinking much of it. The river was quit deep in the middle and suddenly I was waist-deep. “Disconnected” I heard in my ear. Oh, I had forgotten I had even had one of my little headphones in my ear. Wait, why was it disconnected. I suddenly realized I had left my iPod in my pocket. I quickly pulled it out, as the Italian guy went on about how he was taking us to the best surfing beach in the area. My iPod’s screen had gone dark. I didn’t say anything. The Italian was moving fast and we had to keep up with him. After ten more minutes of walking, we arrived at a scorching hot, black sand beach. We thanked him for showing us the way and he headed back to where he came from.
I was angry. Of course I was angry for myself for having left my iPod in my pocket, but also at this guy who had been living at the beach too long to remember that you can’t just say “I’ll show you the way”, without mentioning, oh yeah, we’re gonna be crossing a 4-foot deep river. He had also taken us to the worst beach, if you’re not surfing. The black sand was insanely hot, there was absolutely no shade anywhere and the waves too intense for Lise to want to swim. He also warned us that if the tide came in far enough, we couldn’t get back to the hotel the way we came. Cool. We would later figure out that we could have reached a different beach, that was the complete opposite if we’d just walked the other direction for the same amount of time. So now I was panicking, trying to figure out what to do with my phone. I figured I needed to go buy some rice, right? I took the path from the beach toward what I assumed was town. I arrived in a neighborhood of homes with high walls and fences. There were no shops or businesses to be seen. I walked down a street which turned out to be a dead end. A couple of domestic workers were leaving a home and I asked them where I could find a shop. They were friendly and pointed me in the right direction, but said it was far. I walked down this road for a couple of kilometers, eventually realizing that I had been in some kind of gated community and eventually arrived at the highway. On the other side, there was indeed a small grocery store. I bought a bag of rice and an ice cream.
Back at the beach, I shoved my iPod into the rice. Lise was hot and not feeling this beach at all. I was also completely overheated and in a foul mood. So we left.
Of course I would later learn that the whole putting something wet into a bag of rice is pointless. Someone really needs to let everyone know about that. Anyway, we decided to head to the beach on the other side of our hotel. It was far better. The sand was nicer and the water was much calmer. It was still hot as ever, so we spent most of our time just lounging in the surf. We decided to follow Lise’s smartphone google map thing to get back to the hotel, but the paths it showed us either didn’t exist or dead-ended and we got kind of lost and had to go back to the beach and start over, walking through a bunch of creeks and swampy areas. By the time we got back we were pretty muddy.
Fishermen getting ready to go out for some evening fishing...I think, maybe they were just coming back? Maybe just hanging out?
The second, superior beach.
All those shade things were to rent, so we huddled under a little tiny tree for free.
Back at the hotel, we met a Quebecois retiree named Daniel. We sat and chatted with him for a while. Well, actually, we sat and he talked at us for a while. He was splitting his retirement between Colombia and Panama. He preferred Colombia, as it was cooler, cheaper and the people were friendlier. He hadn’t secured a long-term visa in Colombia, though, so he had to periodically come to Panama. I’d finally gotten good enough at French to understand how funny the Quebec version of the language sounded, but still not good enough to actually understand it.
That night there were no open restaurants in town except the Chinese restaurant (surprise!). We had some chow fun and some chow mein. All the chows…except chowder.
Not even La Tanqueburger was open!
Day 24
In the morning we went to town to get some breakfast from a pastry shop. It was disappointing and the girl serving us was remarkably unfriendly. We went back to the beach. We had figured out it was easiest just to stick to the road that led right to the beach. Man, the Italian guy or the girl working at the guesthouse could have totally just said that from the beginning and we would have avoided so many problems. It was another scorcher of a day and we tried to get some shade under some of the rickety little cabanas. Of course, someone came and told us that these were for rent. We were the only people at the beach and none of the two or three little food stalls were open. But of course someone was there to collect on the little cabanas. We moved back into the sun. I normally don’t need shade at the beach. I mean, what’s the beach for if it’s not getting blasted by un unhealthy amount of rays? But we kind of needed some shade. Anyway, the water wasn’t all that great. Super strong rip tides and a lot of debris made it a little less than paradise. There were also a lot of buzzards around as this was also a fisherman’s beach.
We headed to town for lunch, since there was nothing open at the beach. We went to a pretty run down looking fonda. The had the typical array of murky stews, grilled meats and starches sitting in vats behind glass. We both got the albondigas with rice. I hadn’t had high hopes for it, but it turned out super good. They also served us pitchers of ice water which was such a relief.
The rest of the day we mostly chilled out at the hotel. It was so hot. That evening we came across the Daniele, the Quebecois guy again. He kind of spilled the beans on Boris Pardo, the manager (owner?) of the hotel. He had given me bad, sleazy vibes the whole time. He seemed kind of oblivious of the fact that the hotel had guests and just kinda seemed to treat the place as his little hang out pad. He and some dudes were also often doing loud construction or repair projects in the common areas of the hotel or right outside our door. Daniele really didn’t like Boris and said he was always bringing prostitutes around the hotel.
That night I walked to town, hoping to get some dinner from the Chinese restaurant to bring back. Unfortunately it was already closed, along with all the other restaurants in town. There was still one shop, though that was getting ready to close up. I ran in and quickly bought a few things for sandwiches. Industrial baloney, bread, mayo, a tomato. It would have to do. Back at the hotel we ate our sad sandwiches on the patio while Boris and his crew grilled up a huge variety different meats and sausages.
Day 25
In the morning, we decided to get up and just head right to the beach before it got too hot and so we could have one visit to the beach before heading back to the city. To our surprise, though, when we tried to leave the hotel, we found out that we had been locked in. The gate leading from the large covered patio to the grounds of the hotel was all chained up. It wasn’t even that early, maybe 8:30. Like, had Boris and his people even realized there were paying hotel customers? Was this his way of saving money on an overnight security guard? I was so angry. I mean, what if there had been a fire? I was sure I was going to confront Boris later, about this and several problems about his management of the hotel. I forget exactly how we got out, but I think one of the staff, who had been sleeping in their room either woke up or were woken up by us shaking the chains on the gate.
The beach was much more agreeable at this hour than it had been the previous midday. We got our last bit of swimming and sun in, then headed back to pack up our bags. Of course, I chickened out on confronting Boris. We hopped on a bus headed back to Panama City. A young man got on the bus, with a cardboard box of something he was selling. I didn’t understand what he was saying, though. He spoke so fast it just sounded like “rrrrrrrrrrrr! un dollar! rrrrrrrrr! Un dollar!” Lise and I looked at each other, like what’s this? “I don’t know, but it’s a dollar!”. The vendor stopped, looked at us and said sheepishly “son de carne.” They’re meat. We didn’t end up getting them, but they were probably some kind of empanada thing.
Back in Panama City we had to start packing in the last minute things. Like some last minute souvenir and gift-buying, plus ceviche. We went to the touristy craft market under a freeway overpass, where we searched and searched for a mola that Lise and I both liked. That was difficult. We left without picking anything. We then went across the street to the fish market and ceviche food court. The ceviche food court was a love/hate thing for us. The ceviche was pretty cheap, was outdoors, had great atmosphere, but choosing among the dozen or so nearly identical restaurant stalls was so annoying because servers would accost you, shoving menus at you and trying so hard to get you to come and sit down. It seemed that on top of this they servers would sneak tips for themselves onto the bill. This was confusing as tipping didn’t seem much of a thing here. Of course, we were never eating out at nice restaurants, so maybe we were in the wrong. Also, the first time we had come to the same place for ceviche, they did not include a tip in the bill, so it felt opportunistic. Anyway, after having some basic ceviche at the place we had gone to our first time, we wanted to try the lobster ceviche. This would be our last little splurge. We don’t eat lobster, but figured we could afford a little $5 or $6 cup of it. It was advertised on many of the menus, but nobody seemed to have it. Finally one person pointed us toward one of the places on the far end, saying they would have it. Indeed, they did have a prominently displayed lobster tank. The server was one of the rudest I’d ever encountered in my life, but she did manage to a get the little cup of lobster ceviche to us. It was pretty good. Can’t complain. Then the server not only wrote in a tip for herself on the bill, but gave us the wrong change, which I had to have her correct. She probably would have gotten away with it and maybe gotten a better tip if she’d been at least kinda friendly. Then again, probably not.
We spent some time wandering around the seaside park, where young couples and families were going on evening walks, buying treats from street vendors or toys for their kids. It was a nice atmosphere and we took in the atmosphere and the sunset.
It was our last night to go out in Panama, so we hoped to make something of it. Panama has a good reputation for night life, but outside of the capital, it always seemed basically non-existent. We followed the sound of some lively, maybe even live, music, to a building near our hotel. We asked the bouncer at the door what was going on. He told us there was indeed live music on the roof top and the cover charge was $10. We were tempted, but it is so unlike us to go and pay a cover charge for a bar/club, even if there is live music. We also knew that we would end up paying the cover and then drinks would be outrageously priced. We watched as well-dressed people got out of a taxi and headed inside. We probably would feel out of place anyway. We wandered the neighborhood and found the next spot blasting music. It was an open air bar that seemed to have just been thrown up in an empty lot. We sat at plastic tables and chairs in the middle of this dirt lot as we sipped beers and tried to chat over the eardrum-exploding reggaeton. This was definitely more our style, but it was also kinda empty. At some point a group of guys came and had a beer at the bar’s other table, but they didn’t stick around.
At the outdoor bar in the Casco Viejo
We headed back to the bar at our hotel, which had usually been a pretty good, though calm, place to hang out. This night, however, they were throwing some kind of event. There were more people, the music was louder and there was a tattoo artist. The bartender, a Colombian girl who was also the hotel worker who usually took care of us, told us about the tattoo cocktail deal. A tattoo and two cocktails for $30. At first I thought you had to buy two cocktails and then you could get a $30 tattoo. When it turned out that no, two cocktails AND a tattoo for that price, I was down. My feelings about tattoos was always that I wasn’t against getting one, but I just wasn’t sure if I wanted anything bad enough to spend THAT much money on. Of course, I had ideas of things I COULD get tattooed, but I just could never justify the cost. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to dip my toe in the shallow end of the inkwell. The artist showed me a binder of the small tattoos he was offering. Nothing struck me, so I asked if I could get text, and he said yes. It was on. The cocktails, something fruity with rum, were pretty sweet, so Lise gave me hers. I figured it would be better if I was kinda drunk for the tattoo anyway. It hurt about as much as I expected it too. Like yeah, it hurt, but you get used to it really fast. It’s a pinch.
Baby's first tattoo!
Day 26
For our last day we decided we wanted to go to see the locks on the Panama Canal. There’s a few places you can see them, but some areas are part of a museum (kind of expensive) or far from the city. I did a bit of research and there was one spot that we could reach by a bus or two and was supposedly free to just go and see. I just wanted to see a boat full of shipping containers passing through.
We got to the bus station and got pointed in different directions by different people. The attendants seemed to think that we wanted to go to the Miraflores locks, where the museum is. That’s a fair assumption because that is probably where most tourists go. But we weren’t going to spend $15 each to see the locks and a museum about it. I’m sure it would be interesting, but you have to make choices with money and sometimes you choose to get a tattoo and two cocktails. Eventually some people directed us to the right bus to go to the San Miguel locks, but we would need to get a card, and load the card with credits. Someone had an extra card and gave it to us, which was very kind of them to do. There was a group of young men who were friendly and asked us where we were going. They said they were going to a market a little past where we were getting off just to go eat. It was like a little Sunday morning adventure for them or something. I was feeling kinda hungover and was a bit tempted to join them for some market breakfast. But we ended up getting off where we were supposed to.
The bus drops us off by the locks.
Beautiful infrastructure.
We were just on the side of the highway. We walked toward a fenced in area next to the canal. There was a sign stating that it was indeed the Panama Canal locks. We walked through the main gate, towards a parking lot. The place seemed fairly empty and it wasn’t clear where exactly we should go, so we just kept walking forward. Eventually I heard someone calling out to me. A security guard was summoning us from the door of a nearby building. Half of me wanted to just pretend I hadn’t heard him. We walked over to him and he said that we couldn’t enter. I said I wanted to see the locks and he just said, no, it’s dangerous. I was seriously confused, but he seemed pretty serious. Were we in the right place? We left and walked along the road next to the canal, hoping maybe we would see a boat go by. There were very few boats passing through at this moment because the water level of the canal was too low due to drought. To get through, boats had to lighten their loads by transferring some of their cargo to a train to cross the isthmus. So this wasn’t the best time for seeing one of the world’s greatest infrastructure projects. We walked for a while before catching a bus back to the city.
Back in Panama City
The Historic Chinatown.
We came across a depiction of the "Naza", the Black Nazarene, on what seems to be a dentist's office.
Nature reclaiming an abandoned building in central Panama.
A wanted poster. I think this guy was pretending to be a lawyer.
We went to the market for a bit of last minute shopping and lunch. I bought some Aji Chombos (peppers), hoping to get them home and save the seeds. We got some fresh juices and a big lunch of coconut rice, shrimp and sausage. Then we got more juice. Then we passed by the craft market a final time to get some souvenir Mola pouches for colleagues and a hammock and a regular mola.
Fruits and fruit juices for sale on the street in Panama City
"Donde Bryan? Bryan Esta En La Cocina" (A reference that only the French will understand)
Then we went back to the old town to check out the mola museum. This was actually one of the highlights of the trip. The museum was very new and very impressive. It talked about the history and symbolism of the molas and had a lot of diverse examples through time.
Then we went back to the ceviche place one last time. It was our third time there, and this time (Sunday night) was definitely the busiest and had the most atmosphere. We got a whole fried fish, which was kind a fun thing to splurge on for our last night. And that was about it.
Day 27
So we had to catch a relatively early flight, meaning we had to get up at 5AM. By the time we left the hotel thirty minutes later, there were already people out on the street. When we got to the metro a bit before 6AM it was already crowded. I had an embarrassing realization about Panama in the last hours of spending nearly a month there. It’s’ a country of early to bed, early to rise. That’s why we could never find dinner after like 6PM. I mean, we had quickly learned that everything tended to close a little earlier than I was used to, but I had no idea that this meant that everyone was getting up before dawn to do…who knows what.
When we got to the airport, I went to check out the duty free shop. I was highly interested in taking back some of the fantastic Panamanian rum, Abuelo. The workers there seemed to keep extremely close eyes on me as I perused. Eventually the guy asked me if I needed any help. It felt less like an offer of help than a way to tell me that I’m being watched and should maybe move along. I bought my rum, but by the time I got back to where Lise was sitting, the whole seating area had been cleared and Lise was trying to carry all of our bags. While I had been shopping, they opened a new security perimeter and made everyone go through security again. I didn’t understand this at all. What’s worse, they wouldn’t let you take liquids through, again, but there was no bathroom or water source on the inside of the perimeter. Nobody could understand what the point of this was. It was the worst.
Arriving at the Newark airport’s international terminal, we had to wait in line for nearly two hours to go through immigration. It was so infuriating because for some reason the USA insists that even if you are just transiting THROUGH the country, you still have to be able to enter the country legally. This is highly unusual. I’ve transited through many countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Turkey, Taiwan, and more) and never had to go through immigration if I was just transferring to another flight out of the country. What’s worse is that meant that I technically couldn’t bring my sandwiches or peppers into the airport, even though it would be fine to take them into France. When I finally got to the immigration officer, he asked if I brought any food. I used my little airport trick of partial honesty. I was ok to lose the sandwiches if it meant I could keep the peppers. So I copped to the sandwiches. In the end though, the officer was kinda nice, asking what my final destination was. He said he would let me keep my sandwiches, but sternly warned me not to throw them away in the airport or anything. Then we had to go through security again to re-enter the airport. This took over an hour. It took extra long because, remember, I bought a bottle of rum at the duty free. A bottle of rum contains liquid and is much more than 3 oz. So I had to wait in line behind other people who had made this serious error while they checked our bottles for, I don’t know, bombs with some kind of high tech scanning machine that might have just been like a black light or something.
Everything about this day at the airport revealed America, the country, if not just the air travel sector, to really be going through a moment. I think it was the peak of the post-pandemic chaos of workers not wanting to work anymore and those that were working were overburdened and had really just stopped caring. As we waited for our flight, I overheard a group of flight attendants loudly gossiping and telling stories right next to all the passengers. One of the women was recounting how she was on “that flight” to Dubai that had suddenly dropped like 12,000feet or something. She was guffawing about all the injuries and red wine that had spilled everywhere. When I went to the bathroom, I caught the custodian repeatedly pushing the button asking if the bathroom experience was satisfactory. As I walked in, he quickly went back to mopping. Lise had bought a gift for someone at the Duty Free store, but when it came time to collect it at the gate, she couldn’t find her receipt, but the guy just gave it to her anyway. Everyone seemed to be giving up under the stress. It seemed in a fun way though. Even going through the security line there were pieces of paper taped up that just said something like, “firearms forbidden”. Like, what?!
Reading the last 100 pages of Shantaram. I had been ripping out the pages to save weight. I also gave the first third of the book to that American guy in Portobelo who needed something to read.
