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

Ola from a peninsula without road access, a 20 minute boat trip from Boca Chica, Panama
28 Diciembre 2012
6:15 pm

Left the weird gated community of Valle Escondido (sort of a jungle version of a Scottsdale, AZ development with Panamanian architectural shmaltz, nestled in beautiful gardens) — right after breakfast, making it probably the shortest stay anyone’s had at that place. We set out to explore Bouquete — first the town and then the environs which butt up against both a national park and the base of a volcano. The town is really a mess. I think (although I don’t have any confirmation), that this area with its beautiful climate, its rugged but reachable terrain, its proximity to a small airport, probably encouraged developers to market to Americans (retirees and outdoors folks especially) and Europeans as both a destination for vacation and for year-long or temporary resort living. Thus, there are many condo developments hovering the low hills — all sort or protected with gates and security booths. There are also many youth hostels and tour groups who use Boquete as a base for hiking, rafting, kayaking, mountain climbing etc. So, my sense is that all sorts of businesses popped up to support these different populations… and it’s a bit of wild west.. every one for themselves… without any planning or concern about public spaces or public amenities.

Amid all of this is a true indigenous population living in very tiny bamboo houses (one small room) with thatched roof living outside the town in the lush jungle area.. which is clearly the original life of the area. The indigenous population appears to be small and shrinking. The women are noticeable, in towns, wearing very brightly colored (solids) loose cotton dresses with contrasting color trim in a zig zag style across the bodice.

Anyway, we “strolled” the town, if you can call it strolling with sidewalks about 18″ from the street and lots of uneven pavement, and many places without sidewalks.. cars parked every which way. Not much to see.. Lots of real estate offices, sports activity tour offices, local restaurants.. So we set out to do a loop road we found on the Internet (remember, no guide book, and no map)…. which remains challenging since the iPad shows street names but none of the streets are actually labeled in reality. We meandered up to Café Ruiz to purchase some coffee beans to bring back to California and then found the loop road which goes up into the mountains out of town. It was quite wonderful, filled with amazing flowers and great views of the valley and the town.. We also stopped at some place called Explorador –someone’s house (a local) that sits on about 10 acres of hillside jungle, which the owners planted many decades ago with a huge variety of plants, trees, flowers.. and the owner, a bit of a folk artist, then had fun decorating the trees and the grounds with hundreds of “messages” and found objects. Unfortunately it was a bit of overkill and nothing like the great outsider art found randomly around the world. …

Then we headed to Boca Chica where we needed to find a boat to take us to Cala Mia…
We drove from Boquete to David to Horoncitas (sp?) to Boca Chica.. the last part of the drive was delightful, going through tiny little settlements.. and then we followed the directions we were sent — through the little town square of Boca Chica (blink and you miss all of Boca Chica), past the old gas station and the church and then we went behind the church to park our car in the “secure” lot for $2.00 per day… “Secure” means that it is one of several cars parked between the church and this white house, where the whole family apparently watches the cars! OK.. our car is there.

From there we walked to the dock (wheeling our very urban suitcases and computer bags!).. to wait for Marvin who would pick us up in a small motor boat for the 20 minute ride through the lagoons and around to the peninsula where Cala Mia is located. We got to the edge of the boat ramp, but no Marvin.. After a few calls to Cala Mia (what would anyone do without cell phones), we were told to find Carlos who would take us. Turns out Carlos was just hanging out, and Marvin was detained taking someone else back to Boca Chica (very complicated planning). So off we went.. the city folk… to the tranquil Cala Mia.

The boat ride was fine.. a full 20 minutes; no life jackets.. both of us holding tight to the rim of the boat… (a fiberglass shell with a canvas canopy held up by PVC tubing usually used for water pipes. We were greeted at the Cala Mia dock by Eva (a recent arrival as an employee — from St. Tropez, France where she managed several restaurants.. and was seeking “tranquility”… and Rosa.. and another woman. They showed us to our little Shangri-La.. a sort of octagon shaped structure, made of masonry stuccoed over and “white washed” with earth colors.. and a thatched roof… There are 11 of these little cottages. Bedroom, bathroom, little sitting area.. and the room opens to a fantastic “patio which is stepped and cantilevers out overlooking the lagoon about 30 feet below… The patio is covered (thatched roof also).. and we have our own hammock and canvas swing chair… All you can hear is the sound of the lagoon that feeds to the Pacific… Pretty cool

The dining room serves breakfast and dinner.. and there’s a well-stocked bar with Ray attending… and making special drinks each day.. as well as the welcoming drink (a mixture of fresh tropical fruits with rum.. all blended together to create an adult smoothie.) The description of the meals sounded pretty great, but we shall see fairly soon. So far we just sat at the bar and had the welcome drink. There’s a spa (might get a massage tomorrow), an endless pool that just disappears into the lagoon..

Naturally, neither Mike nor I remembered to bring bathing suits… The trip was rather late in getting planned; it was extremely hectic the days just before our departure; and we were headed to NYC first and I think we were mostly focused on that part of the trip and figured that Panama would sort of work its way out.. I, at least, brought shorts.. Each night we’ve been checking on what we are doing and where we are headed for the next day or so.. and finally we realized we were going to this island-like place. During the drive today, Mike kept saying that if we got to Boca Chica early, he would buy a bathing suit… But Boca Chica has a population of about 100 (half of those are chickens) and there isn’t even a grocery store.. let alone a place to buy a bathing suit! Then Mike thought that the Cala Mia (where we are staying) might have a shop… but alas this is really a little haven away from everything, so there isn’t even a thought of a shop at this place.

My plans for tomorrow are to sit on this great patio outside the room.. and complete (or at least make headway on) the work I brought with me… I can’t think of a better setting to be doing it…

By the way, it is hot and humid; the little cottage is air-conditioned, which is probably a necessity for us gringos. Should be interesting to see who else is staying here.. when we have dinner.. in about 15 minutes.

Hasta Luego from Cala Mia..
Fern

December 27, 2012 . El Paseo Largo . The Long Drive

Ola-

Fairly short and sweet.
Spent most of the day in the car…

Left Chitre without problem, although even using two GPS systems we got a little lost –mostly at the end. The guidance issue is that I can get the iPhone GPS to mark our location (the little blue ball).. but if I switch out of the location – even to read the directions, I lose the map completely and have to start again, which is problematic since we have to drive through areas that don’t have any Internet reception (imagine!)… And for whatever reason the iPad which has the same application as the iPhone cannot seem to locate us.. so no blue ball. But on the iPad I can get the direction list step by step, although it does make a lot of mistakes. So, between the two devices we found our way.

Left Chitre around 10:30 (they are still working on the elevator at the Gran Azuelo Hotel, but overnight they seem to have done one coat of stucco on the wall and the guy who was standing on the upside down can to reach the top of the wall seemed to have survived.

Drove through town and onto the Pan-American Highway (one lane in each direction)… through some really nice countryside, hills, and eventually climbed in elevation as we approached Boquete. Stopped for lunch at a little roadside “café”… basically a few tables on the roadside with someone who is cooking one dish… sometimes there is a choice. It’s rather basic. My goal is stick to the chicken. Yesterday Mike opted for the pork dish and it was pigs feet — no meat, just bones.. so he had a lot of rice. I got chicken both days.. a far better choice. Anyway the dish is generally the meat (not much of it) and rice… sometimes also beans. Not very gourmet, but it’s fun to sit in these places and see daily life.. Today we both got chicken. The bill was $4.00, but that was because we each got bottled water. Obviously if you’ve been following these notes, for dinner we’ve been going a different route in restaurant choices.

Anyway, we drove to Boquete, and saw the town from the car window (we will walk around tomorrow)… It seems lively and must have a lot of ex-pats as there are way more restaurants and shopping than in a typical Panamanian town of this size. Boquete is the coffee growing capital of the country.. It also borders a very large international park that is half in Panama and half in Costa Rica, so the terrain is much like Costa Rica. Climate is clearly better than anywhere we’ve been — dry, cool. We wanted to stay in this area for a few days, but it was difficult to get any reservations. There’s a nice coffee plantation inn, but we couldn’t get reservations. Anyway, we got the only hotel room we could find online (we were a bit late with all of these plans)… and it is at a very strange place (fortunately one night only).. with a golf course and spa! There are 200 condos on the grounds and 35 hotel rooms… Seems the condos are owned primarily by Europeans and Americans… hence, I suppose the golf! Anyway, it’s just to sleep. We’re leaving in the morning to explore the area and then we head to Boca Chica.. a little island.. for two days… assuming we meet the boat on time!

….
Just back from dinner at The Rock… good, but they didn’t have half of what’s on the menu. Weather has changed drastically.. We nearly froze eating outside at The Rock… Up here in Boquete it’s drizzling and it’s about 65 degrees.. Actually very pleasant but we don’t have sweaters or jackets since we didn’t expect anything like this. But prediction for tomorrow in Boca Chia is 90 degrees, so we’ll be sweating tomorrow and happy we didn’t bring sweaters.

Buenas noche…
Hasta luego
Fern

Ola —

We awoke in the clouds at Cerro La Vieja… and after a fairly good breakfast, we walked the grounds which are truly spectacular. This would be a fantastic place if they could get the food act together. I think the problem is that the chef leaves at 6 pm which is why they needed to know what we wanted to eat by 6 pm… although we weren’t going to come to the restaurant until after 8. He must cook it and then it sits around until you come to eat .. at that point the young server re-heats the meal.. and voila.. it appears at your table like a piece of rubber… At least breakfast was simple and freshly prepared.

After a nice stroll, with the sun coming in and out, we headed to the next adventure. We thought we’d take a small road (they are all small, but this was more of a dirt road) to see if we could circle back to Penonome in the opposite direction… toward Tubare and La Pintada (towns on the map, about which we know nothing since we no longer have the guidebook — left in Panama City on that black shelf and the Internet brings up just about nothing)… so we headed out on the dirt road, but as the road got increasingly difficult we asked some people if it was the right road, and no one seemed to be able to give us much information… Two people said to go the other way — back to Penonome and then to head to these towns.. So we decided to take the more direct route.. to Chitre through Penonome. By the way, driving includes going over quite old bridges that have unsecured small metal plates that bounce up and get out of place when you drive over them.

Along the way we saw a few life-sized stuffed dummies which looked a little like Richard Nixon.. with a Pinocchio nose.. carrying a full size brief case with a dollar sign. Naturally, I stopped to photograph and the people in the house came out.. I asked who it was and found out it was Martinelli, President of Panama — From what I have read, Martinelli ran for President in 2004 as the candidate for the Democratic Change Party and lost badly. But in 2009 he ran again and made promises to decrease corruption and violent crime.. He also spent about $35 million on his campaign (obviously learned a lot about elections when he was in the US where he went to military school and college). So, he won by double digits — defeating the ruling Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD)-People’s Party coalition. Their candidate was accused of having some affiliation with Noriega and was also called a Chavista (supporter of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez). I gather his popularity has declined significantly.. and thus a little protest is unfolding — way up in the mountains! Nice to see political involvement… and I gather the people I chatted with are left-leaning.

Eventually, we made it to Penonome.. and on to Chitre.. Not much to report on the drive or about Chitre… But we did have an interesting experience as we attempted to locate a restaurant that people raved about on the Internet — Bistrot Paname — GPS is only working intermittently on both iPad and iPhone.. so there’s a lot of “mmmmm… maybe this road..” and “maybe that one..” Fortunately all of these places are really small so generally you can’t stray too far afield.

We are staying at the Gran Azuero Hotel, which is not quite as grand as the name. It’s on the main drag.. and basically it’s fine. Our room overlooks the hotel pool and we are on the second floor. It’s fairly new. The hotel has three floors, but somehow they are only now installing an elevator, making the lobby area a bit of a mess, and also making it difficult to get to our room with our bags… But otherwise all is well.

We asked at the desk when we arrived about the Bistrot Paname (Internet descriptions rave about the food and atmosphere).. but they never heard of it. I showed them the location on my iPad, but they were unsure.. then we tried to call, but even in my poor Spanish I understood the recording to say it was a wrong number. We asked the desk to call, but they have no way to get phone numbers so they dialed the same number and got the same response.

After we toured Chitre… getting stuck in traffic and a maze of commercial streets, we decided to try to find the restaurant ourselves, to see if it would be open tonight.. Naturally we got very very lost but got a good sense of different neighborhoods here in Chitre.  We thought we were following the blow up map of the city that Google Maps provided… but alas we got nowhere…

What makes things really difficult as I mentioned earlier is that there are NO street signs.. unless people make them themselves and hang them up, but that is pretty rare and also totally inconsistent, so it’s hard to know what a street sign would even look like (shape, color, size, font).. I think we’ve seen just two street signs all day  (both handmade).. We sort of gave up… but when we got back to the hotel at about 5 pm decided to ask again at the front desk… This time the woman said while she didn’t know the restaurant she could explain from the Google map how to get there.. so she drew her own map with little local landmarks — a mosque, a store owned by someone from China, a school, etc. — and we followed that little hand-drawn map to a T… and lo and behold there was the restaurant.. or at least the remains of a restaurant. ..on a little residential street. Talked with a neighbor and apparently they moved the restaurant to Las Tablas.. a town about 30 miles from here.

So we will head to dinner at a little local hangout close to the hotel called Memories! We shall see.

Tomorrow we have the longest driving day of the trip… from here to Boquete, in the coffee growing region. The drive should be pleasant and hopefully it will be cooler than it is here in Chitre.

It’s evening now.. so I’m going to do a bit of work before dinner.. and then we have a long day.

Just finished dinner at Memories which was actually good, but we never ate so much meat in one sitting. Portions were huge.

The elevator installation people are back at work, along with the guy applying stucco to the wall. It’s 10 pm, so I assume union rules don’t go over too well here. Also OSHA watch out — His “scaffolding” is an empty paint can on which he is standing… no protection.. But lots of onlooking “supervisors”…

More tomorrow from Boquete, if there is Wi-Fi.

Fern

December 25, 2012: Casco Viejo a Cerro La Vieja en las montanas (Sent on December 26.. due to absolutely NO connection at Cerro La vieja)
Ola y Feliz Navidad de un locacion remoto (lejano) en Panama —

First — apologies to all Spanish speakers… I’m doing my best.. and I cannot find tildas or accents in my email program.. so .. le ruego me disculpe (??)

Today got off to a difficult start. Had breakfast at our W-wannabe hotel… stuck my toe outside the door to find it was about the same temperature and humidity as yesterday.. and quickly pulled my toe back inside. Actually, we needed to get on the road because we knew that today’s drive might be a bit complicated.. But first things first. My iPad was not connecting to any signal, although it showed a clear and strong signal on the screen. Blackberry and iPhone and computer all worked fine, but I was relying on the iPad GPS to guide us seamlessly (??) to our destination in a remote area up in the mountains about 20- kilometers from Penonome (which is like being 20 kilometers from nowhere)…So, getting my iPad back in service (it didn’t connect when I arrived in Panama City, but then after more than an hour on the phone with AT&T –voila!); worked and tracked fine on Monday morning, but I didn’t really use it after that.. so now here we are on Tuesday and — nada! So I called AT&T again, and if you can believe it… I got the same service guy that I had the day before (!!) which made things a hairline better because he knew that it had been connected and he knew that I was on the data plan for all these devices (Don’t start asking me why I travel with all of these communication devices… I’d be a real basket case on these trips if I was not connected… but that’s another issue.)

To make things just a wee bit messier, Mike has not been able to connect at all since he got here.. He can use his phone and text, but no email on his Blackberry. He was pretty pissed, so he had already decided that he was calling AT&T about his problem. So there we both were, for at least 75 minutes on cell phones standing out on the little deck of our room in Panama City… talking to some guys in “who knows where” trying to get connection. About an hour later, I was reconnected on the iPad, but Mike was still in limbo. (and a bit more agitated than at the start of the morning, when he had high hopes of getting online)..

So, late start to begin with… including the unbelievably slow service for all meals in all restaurants. Panamanians have a lot of time… Except last night at dinner when they “speed-fed” us our 13 courses.. because we were the last customers at the restaurant on Christmas Eve.. As soon as we sat down they hung up the “cerrado” sign… So they let us in, but they were anxious to get out for the evening.. Can’t say I blame them.

OK.. finally, around noon — on the road! Or so we thought.
Turns out that Google seems to have completely changed the map formats.. and plugging in our coordinates proved way more difficult than it had been just two days earlier… Once I got that little blue dot to function on the map we were way off course… So, lots of u-turns and more u-turns… and remember – no street signs, so it’s impossible to follow any kind of directions or even a print map. Eventually we were cruising… over a bridge and through national parks as well as through Panama style strip malls.. And on a road with views of the Pacific.. Everywhere there is construction — some that appears to be really happening… and elsewhere where it seems as if it’s been stopped for some time. And while billboards are infrequent, when they appear they are mostly advertising new condominiums that are popping up anywhere with access to the water.

The drive was supposed to take about three hours… After about 90 minutes we decided to stop for lunch and thought taking a side road to the beach would be fun. First try did lead to a beach, sort of. A real “people’s beach”… with lots of garbage.. and no restaurant. So a few miles further west we tried again… in a little area called Santa Clara. Again a “people’s beach” but far less trash, many more people, little thatched-roofed beach sitting areas, and a little open air restaurant. We had lunch – not exactly four-star – but decent (I had calamari; Mike had corvina (bass)). Service was very slow, so this set us behind a bit more… And then we were off to Penomone where we needed to find a small road to get to Cerro la Vieja. We had a faxed, hand drawn map sent by the “hotel”… and we could see that same map more clearly on the iPad… and we had the iPad’s own map which located the hotel through GPS… in a totally different place than where the hotel was… After a while, still on the main road, looking for the clues on the hotel map… (we knew that the hotel was 30 km from Penonome, and we needed to find a small road at the location of some hotel on the main road)… we realized we had gone way too far on the main road… Pulled over, talked to truckers and used the very helpful “retorno”… Ok.. retrace the steps and now the iPad was helpful since we could plot the name of the “hotel” where we would turn left.. to go uphill to our hotel

Forgot to mention that somehow one of us .. both of us .. (not going to mention who asked whom if “everything” was packed).. left the Panama guidebook in the Casco Viejo hotel.. which also didn’t help in guiding us to the region.. Mike says it was the fault of the interior decorator of the hip hotel, because the shelves were all black and there was very poor lighting in the room, so he never saw the book (although the cover was yellow!).

Did it.. and then stopped several people because again we could see we had made a mistake. No one knew Cerro La Vieja.. but people knew other clues on the hotel map. Eventually, about seven people later, we were fairly certain (not positive) we were on the right small road.. (The hotel map could use some help.. no scale, the points noted are all evenly spaced on the road but in reality they are of vastly different distances.) About 40 minutes later (fortunately just before it was getting dark) we were there!

Cerro la Vieja is delightful, although for me about 24 hours will be quite enough (and in reality we will only be here about 18 hours).. It’s high in the mountains, beautiful views of dense forest .. There are 22 rooms in bunch of cottage like structures.. and a main building where the dining and ping pong take place. No phones, no TVs, no nuttin’… We have a little deck off our room with a hammock .. and it is totally pitch black at night… Actually it is incredibly pleasant and a nice respite from Panama City and from the drive. Mike says he’s in heaven and can consider this for his retirement location (but he says that every time we travel anywhere).

We are headed to dinner soon. We’re not expecting much; maybe we’ll be surprised.
We had to make our dinner choices as soon as we came.. Maybe they need to go to the market or defrost things… Pretty basic choices.. Dinner is about $8 and glass of wine is $3.. so can’t really complain.

If you get this note on Christmas night (December 25) you’ll know that the Wi-Fi in the open air “lobby” works, since I cannot connect in the room. If you get this on December 26 you’ll know that it didn’t work. We had a power outage about an hour after we checked in.. but all seems back again.

No CNN; no connection on computer or iPad. This could radically change me as a person.
Best…
Hasta luego –
Fern

Ola!

After our rather complicated first 4 hours in Panama, we slept at the Marriott Hotel, missed breakfast which ended at 10, ordered food to the room and decided to head to Casco Viejo (the old section of Panama City) to check into the room and hotel we never found the night before. We headed out around 1 (by the time we got organized, got the GPS to work, re-packed, etc.)… The route was much easier in daylight, although still a bit complicated — especially with all the closed off streets due to the construction of a metro, unbelievable amount of building construction, street repair, and one way streets… We laughed as we retraced many streets we had been to only hours before but now bustling with people and markets.. and cars.. So while it was easier to navigate, it was more complicated because there was so much congestion and traffic.

But alas, we made it to Tantalo Hotel (http://www.tantalohotel.com/) in the old section of Panama. It’s a rather hip little boutique hotel with a fantastic roof bar that looks out to downtown Panama City across the water. The room, too, is hip… concrete floors, black leather couch, sparse décor, orange wall, and minimalist furnishings… Obviously we got the last room since probably last night everyone else checked in before us. So we have big glass sliding doors that open to an interior walkway that overlooks the atrium lobby where the downstairs restaurant and bar are located.. All the other rooms face the streets with views to downtown. But it’s fine.. especially since now it is just for one night.

Once we settled into the room (about 5 minutes)… we headed out to stroll the town… starting out together and somehow losing one another within minutes.. and then catching up an hour or so later..

Panama City (like most Latin American cities) is a city of contrast — wealth and poverty; old and new; decrepit and shiny; crumbling structures and engineering feats — all within blocks of one another and often next door to one another. Casco Viejo stands as a testament to all of this. It’s the historic district and cultural gem of Panama City, and was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in the late 90s. It was founded in the 17th Century by Spanish colonialists and the Catholic Church. It fell into decades of neglect in the 20th Century, but the streets of this section of town are filled with buildings that served as homes, churches, and government buildings for centuries and is comprised of diverse architectural styles. In recent years, some buildings have been restored quite well and are home to museums, restaurants, and what appear to be upscale residences. Next to them are buildings in total disrepair or remain as homes of poor families situated adjacent or across from exclusive properties for sale or occupied by people of a total different class. It’s hard to imagine how such a “neighborhood” can even think about the future together. Clearly if you come to visit five years ago, this will be a very different place.

One of the really stark views is from some of the most seedy parts of Casco Viejo where you are standing amid garbage and looking across the water to sleek high-rises that look as if architects were competing with one another to design the most engineering challenged and architecturally (ugly and) slick buildings. As you stand at those points you can literally see the hollowed out buildings in the foreground and the skyscrapers in the background.

Still, it was quite interesting to walk the area.. we headed to the water, walked along their “malecon,” and suffered in the unbelievable heat and humidity. Frankly, for me it was unbearable.. I held up ok for about two hours and then I thought I would die. I was never very good in Phoenix climate and this made Phoenix seem cool and breezy in August! The real problem is the humidity… which must have been about 99%. Anyway, Mike and I met back up at the hotel at about 5 and had some quite good snacks (grilled octopus and some eggplant thing) at our hotel in the lobby bar.. And then I set out to work (need to finish up the details of my Spring course — “Creating the Urban Narrative”) and Mike took a nap.

We had planned to find a church that held midnight mass and go there after dinner. We’ve watched midnight mass in many developing nations and it’s always a great cultural experience But alas, it seemed as if the Cathedral was closed and several other churches were not going to hold Christmas Eve ceremonies.. in spite of the fact that Panama is 77% Catholic. But we found out that the Iglesia del Merced would have a mass at 8 pm, and figured we’d stop by… But then dinner plans were complicated since many restaurants were closed and those open seemed to finish dinner at 9… So we decided to head to Iglesia del Merced for the opening part of the mass and then duck out to head for dinner. The church was populated by lower income families (and a sprinkling of Catholic tourists).. The music was great and they “played” the bells which are now located in the sanctuary (?) at the back.. huge bells that used to sit atop the 16th Century church… bells were about 4 ft tall…

Dinner was at Rene… where they serve a fixed menu of about 13 courses… we could only eat about half… food was good, but we thought we were going to die from the quantity… The meal was $22 each… Probably would have been about $200 in San Fran. Yo pondiento gordo (spelling?).. or maybe it’s Me siento gordo ??? In any case, I was feeling fat… as a result of that meal.

We walked back to the hotel around 10 pm… The air was great… a nice breeze, much less humid, and temperatures of about 75! This I can handle.
Oh — in case any of you are interested, it appears that many developers are converting old houses here in the Casco Viejo.. and turning them into condos and pitching to Europeans and Americans. Get your deposits in fast!

I think that’s it for today; we head to Penonome tomorrow.. Our trip is short and lots of driving, but short stints each day. So not a lot of time anywhere.. more like a big look at the country.

Take care — Christmas in Penonome tomorrow.
Feliz Navidad.

Fern