30 diciembre – to Panama City. December 30. 2012

  Ola

En el lado del último día del año– y  En el lado del último día en Panama —

Dinner last night was quite good — salmon tartare, fish filet with vegetables cooked in a wok for me and braised pork in wine for Mike, mango pudding. Tonight’s special drink was called coco volcano… very tasty.. although a bit too milk shakey for me.. Ray (the bartender — a local who comes from David, Panama – where we head tomorrow) likes to design different drinks each night..

And we chatted with one of the young couples — who turn out to be from NY… She is living in Brooklyn Heights; he in Manhattan; Yalies.. she is working for AOL – marketing Patch… Didn’t get a chance to tell her what I think of Patch; perhaps tomorrow!

This morning — packed after breakfast.. and headed to the “dock” to get the boat to Boca Chica — We wound up sharing with a family we had not met.. who turned out to be from “NY”.. although after a very brief conversation found out they were from Long Island.. not exactly NY by our standards (but we didn’t say that). Anyway, then we had a little mishap, in that we had gone to the “office” to say good bye and see if we needed to sign anything, but no one was there so we just walked to the dock and got on the boat.. Then just as the boat was leaving Roger came to say that we hadn’t really settled our bill (even though they had our credit card number and they took a hefty deposit before we came on that credit card).. so Mike went up the boat ramp to the “office” and I waited on the boat with the family (who were clearly annoyed and had already shown themselves to be very aloof and unfriendly earlier)… Well we all waited and waited and Mike didn’t come back… The boat guy decided to take us on a bit of a cruise as we waited and then I offered to get off the boat with our luggage to wait for Mike as the other couple became more and more irritated. I also tried to phone Mike but his cell was not picking up… After about 20 minutes Mike appeared. Turned out that the office was missing our lunch tab from yesterday… and they needed to send someone all the way to the other end of the island to get it… and then they had to check all the charges, which is all done by hand..

The system is funny, but then when it doesn’t work, it’s a bit annoying.  All of the staff have these very small notebooks that are sort of stacks of paper tied together.. For every meal or activity they mark the cost on their stack of papers with your room number (remember only 11 rooms)… Then after each meal they show you this handwritten paper in the “book” and you sign… Invariably there is at least one mistake.. Some order from another room is on your page.. and then they have to get it fixed… Lunch is at a totally different part of the property from where dinner is.. and I guess the two don’t always communicate well… According to Mike they were having trouble finding someone to go to the lunch place to get the bill because everyone was busy.. There is only one person who does the final billing and check out.. Diana (from St Tropez).. Roger’s wife.. And while Mike was trying to get this done, people were coming off one of the boats to begin their stay and Diana was preoccupied getting them settled. I think any little thing gets everyone a bit flustered.. remember this is island life.. and slow island life at that.

Eventually Mike appeared at the boat.. by then the family (especially the man) was noticeably pissed. I would have been irritated as well.. but frankly they were catching the same flight as we were.. and in the end we were all in David to get the plane, hours before it ever boarded.

OK.. so arrived in Boca Chica.. walked up the ramp and into “town” and to the car… Car in fine shape.. And headed to David where we hoped to get some lunch.. and then head to the Airport. The route is fairly simple.. but again, no signs.. not even when the road from Boca Chica hits the Pan-American Highway… unbelievable..  Didn’t really get lost; tried to locate a restaurant called Cuatro (4).. which we did, but it was closed… so we meandered abit around town and stumbled on a little fish shack… Had amazingly fresh corvina (bass)… fried, of course… with rice… Rest of the people seemed pleasantly surprised to see foreigners in this little place… They laughed as we attempted to translate the menu — at one time using the iPad…

Ate, and off we went to return the rental car… took about 20 minutes for them to “inspect” the car… then walked about 20 feet into the airport.. a fairly modern, small “international” airport (planes go to Costa Rica)… and after about 90 minutes we were on board (after chatting a bit more with the Yalie who works at AOL.. giving me an opportunity to tell her my opinion about the problems created by Patch!)… Our friends — the family on the boat — were as cool and detached at the airport as on the boat… Flight was extremely short.. supposed to be 60 minutes but was probably about 30 minutes.. so even though we left late, we arrived on time.

Given that we are accustomed to carry-on luggage, having to check (and not “gate check”) was an experience in and of itself.. but here it was truly different. When we landed, everyone on the plane gathered in a big group to wait for luggage. No conveyor belts or area where one gets their bags… The staff bring the bags out one at a time and read out the luggage tag number.. and then you yell that it’s yours and show your number and you get your bag!!  Once we had our bags we headed to the taxi line, if you can call it that.. and since taxis don’t have meters.. we “bargained”… The driver said $30; we said $10; he said $15; we agreed to $12.. probably could have gotten it for about $6, but way too tired to deal with that..

Sweaty, tired, looking like hell.. in shorts and tees… we arrived at the rather elegant Bristol Hotel… Huge room, view of the city.. bathroom bigger than our entire hotel room at Kimpton in NYC! Changed and headed to La Posta, which is supposed to be a really good restaurant.. but alas it was closed tonight, so we opted for the hotel restaurant Sal Si Puedes… food was quite good, so not disappointed.. and now I’m headed to bed.. It’s close to midnight.

Tomorrow we head to a bunch of markets in the morning.. and then the obligatory trip to the Canal.. For a while, we thought we might be the only foreigners who don’t get to the canal… but that won’t happen.. Canal in the afternoon.. and then big New Year’s Birthday Dinner. Will try to send a short note before dinner tomorrow, if not, on New Year’s Day when we head to Florida late in the afternoon.

Prospero Ano Nuevo.

Fern