¡Regresamos!

We woke up early to get one last view from our wonderful hotel room at dawn. We were supposed to be picked up and taken to the airport in David at eight, according to our itinerary, but this made little sense because our flight was at three in the afternoon. But we packed up just in case.

We went down to breakfast. The service staff at Bocas del Mar wants to please, but their inexperience shows. One of the nicest - and least competent - was Jose, one one of the waiters. He insists on pronouncing his name as “Josie,” maybe being unaware that in the United States this is a woman’s name. Or maybe knows. Jose does not exactly fit with the usual Latin ideas of machismo. 

He seemed very intrigued by John and me. He wanted to know, as several people have, if we are brothers. Now as far as I know, only George Forman gave his children the same first names, so this seemed a little strange to me. Finally, John told Jose that I was his “esposo.” This really seemed to make him happy. So at breakfast he put his down his pitcher of orange juice on a chair and said, “I tell you secret.” At this moment, he spilled the whole pitcher of juice on the floor, and he had to wait to spill his secret until the rest of the staff, who seemed to roll their eyes at him, cleaned up the mess. Finally, he said, “This my last day here.” I figured it was just as well he was going to quit because at the rate he was going they were probably planning on firing him. He went on to tell us that he was recording a song “in English,” and he was sure it was going to be “big success.” He told us how much he likes Michael Jackson. I hope for the best for this young man, but is he the next Ricky Martin? I am not so sure. 

By ten, we asked Joost to call Amazing Panama Travel to see what was up with our transportation. They said something about not having their usual driver, but there would be somebody by noon. So we kept hanging out by the pool. 

We met two couples, one from Salt Lake City and another from Minneapolis. All four were doctors and had done their residencies at the University of California-San Francisco. John had a particularly good conversation with one of them, a neurologist who had moved to the United States from Ukraine when she was sixteen. They were also taking the same flight from David to Pananá.

Our ride did not arrive at noon. Joost called again and was assured he would be there at twelve thirty. Just before one o’clock he finally arrived. It turned out he had been waiting for us by the boat dock in the center of the village. I guess the agency was not too specific in their directions. Despite all this drama, we had an uneventful trip to the airport. David, pronounced “Dah VEED,” is Panama’s second largest city. But it is nothing really in comparison to the capital. It would be like coming Buffalo to New York City. But it may have actually had a better airport. Even though we only had forty five minutes before the plane took off, there was no line and they handled security quickly and politely.

The flight to Panamá was interesting. Looking out the window I could see the different areas of forest and agriculture in the city. As we were landing at the former Albrook Air Force Base in the old Canal Zone, we had great views of the canal entrance and the Miramonte Locks. A driver met us right away, and took us to our hotel, the Wyndham Garden in the Bella Vista district of downtown Panama City. This was where the travel agency had originally selected for us to stay for our first four days until John was insistent that he wanted us to stay in Casco Viejo. I am SO glad he made that decision. The Wyndham is clearly a business hotel, and even at that it is not for the most successful of business people. It is basically clean and the rooms have nice beds, but the hallways and lobby have a sort of grim institutional feel that could only seem hospitable in the old Soviet Union. There was a rooftop pool, but frankly the water did not look that appealing. So I just worked on the blog a bit. 

We did not want to spend the entire night in the hotel room watching television, so we decided to explore the Bella Vista area. You can tell at one time this was one of Panama City’s fanciest neighborhoods with houses that look sort of like the ones you see in Hancock Park or Saint Francis Woods. But commercial development has largely replace the housing and second and third floors of most of the buildings consist of rather nasty-looking apartments, even by Panamanian standards. There is a lot of subway construction in this area, and that made the whole neighborhood seem even grungier. But who knows? When the subway opens in March maybe this area will become fancy again. We were taken by this sign asking “Did you forget something?"

John wanted to go to some tourist attraction which had a Panamanian dance show. I was quite willing to go along, but it was unfortunately full. So we checked reviews for the best restaurants in Panama City, figuring we would have one last fling, and the one that seemed closest to us was La Posta, a vaguely Italian place. It also appealed to us because it was in near Calle Uruguay. We had read that Calle Uruguay was the traditionally considered the happening spot for nightlife in Panamá, sort of like North Beach in San Francisco. We walked through there, dodging some enormous pothole and puddles, and finally we were thoroughly disappointed. Clearly you could tell there had once been a number of nightclubs there, but many were closed. We were accosted by a young man who wanted to know, “Do you guys think you’d have to ask your wives if you wanted to make a really great investment?” Even without community property concerns, we were not interested in a Panama City time share.

The restaurant was also a bit of a disappointment. It was in an old house, and it looked like it had been decorated after a sale at Tommy Bahama. The menu, mostly northern Italian, seemed dated as well. John had tiger prawns wrapped in bacon. It was pretty good, but the rest of the meal was ho-hum and kind of expensive for what it was. 

Tomorrow to we’re going back to Los Angeles, and Monday it is back to work. Thank you all for sharing our adventure with us. 

Exploring

In an email, Steve McLean wrote that he wished he had a better idea where the different places we have been visiting are on a map. “What a great idea,” I thought and with the help of Skitch I put this little map of our voyages in Panama together.

Panama is a little disorienting at first because the Atlantic is north and the Pacific is south. The western part of the country, bordering Costa Rica, is mountainous. It also has some of the country’s most famous tourist areas. Moving eastward to Panama City, the land becomes flat. Originally thick jungle, this area has been cleared and it now agricultural. The center of the country contains the Canal and Panama City. The majority of the country’s people live in this area. East of Panama City, on the Caribbean, is the land of the Guna Yala, a fiercely independent people who have fought with the Panamanians for independence in the past. South of that is The Darien, perhaps the most untouched rainforest on the planet. It is not only difficult to travel there as the facilities are few and undeveloped, but it is sometimes dangerous as Columbian rebels have used it for their training bases. 

Although our hotel is beautiful and really a wonderful vacation could be spent there just by the pool, John and I are inveterate explorers so we signed up for the hotel’s “Discover Tour.” Boca Chica right next to a cluster of islands, some large, some small. Most of the islands have no human inhabitants while others have small settlements on them.

Our tour took us mostly to the small islands just south of Boca Chica. We had a boatman and a guide and a French couple. The French couple spoke absolutely no English, and frankly my brain seems to only be able to handle one foreign language at a time. So even though I studied French for many years, mostly all that would come out of my mouth was Spanish. So I never learned much about them. But they seemed nice enough.

Once again, the first thing we saw on our boat trip was dolphins. But how different this was! There was only one boat, and I suspect we were observing a pod of males. 

Our guides kept a respectful distance and cut the engine. The dolphins decided to come and check us out.

They seemed to enjoy swimming with the boat and showing off for us. 

Our next stop was a cluster of rocks used by pelicans. The French couple were particularly delighted to see the pelicans. I suppose they are not that common in Europe.

We stopped to snorkel a bit after this. Once again, the coral reef was not that good, though it was in better shape than the one in Bocas. This time I remembered to put some sun block on my back, so I did not end up with the painful sunburn I had the last time I went snorkeling. We went from there to a small beach. When we arrived we were the only ones there.

This little island was thickly forested and John could only make it a few feet into the surrounding jungle.

But the beach itself was not only a beautifully clean stretch of white sand, but it had life of its own. It was covered with hermit crabs.

And there were still bromeliads everywhere.

We swam for a while and ate the sandwiches the hotel had packed for us. The French couple went snorkeling a little more. This area is quite well-known for starfish. Our guide caught a couple for us.

But he also made sure they stayed wet and when we had finished photographing them, he gently tossed them back into the sea. 

He also found some conch. I think this went home for supper.

After this we went to another small island with a beach. This one was clearly popular with Panamanians enjoying their summer holidays. I suppose at the equator you still have to pick some months of the year as summer, and since December to March is generally drier, they call this summer. They were having a party on the beach with boom boxes and barbecues. A boat pulled up to sell them live langosta.

Snob that I am, I found all this intrusion on natural beauty vaguely offensive, so I went off to find a more secluded place. I walked down the beach until the rocks turned into small boulders. These became quite slick, and I also became aware than John had wisely decided not to follow me. By the time I figured out that I had been really foolish coming this way, it seemed more dangerous to go back than to keep on trying to go forward. Meanwhile, the rain, which we had seen looming in the distance before, arrived.

Right about this time, I saw an area where the bluffs above the rocks had a break in it, and I figured that I could walk back through the jungle to where our boat was located. This was probably a better idea than walking further on the shore, but as soon as I was in the jungle I became completely disoriented and had no idea which way to go. I remembered Arnold in Silico Creek had described being bit by a copperhead when he was young and I wondered if there were any on this island. Being an English major, I consoled myself by recalling the opening verses of the Divine Comedy.

Midway upon the road of our life I found myself within a dark wood, for the right way had been missed.

Ah! how hard a thing it is to tell what this wild and rough and dense wood was, which in thought renews the fear!

Fortunately, I had the good sense to move beyond poetry to some survival skills, and I heard the pounding beat of the Panamanian music in the distance. I figured if I kept moving towards the music I would soon find the beach and our boat. And it worked! I was saved by a boom box! Unfortunately, when I arrived, the boatman told me that John had become worried and he and the guide had gone off looking for me. Fortunately, they had not gone that far and I saw and called to them. When he reached me, John tried to strangle me! Honestly, I could hardly blame him. 

After this, we headed back to the hotel. After being lost in the jungle, I can scarcely tell you how nice it was to see the room!

John wanted to keep on exploring and to get a water taxi to take him to Isla Boca Brava, the island directly across from the hotel. I had frankly explored enough for the day, and I just wanted to nap by the infinity pool. So he set out for Boca Brava by himself on a water taxi.

There is one hotel on Boca Brava, but it the kind of place young German backpackers like. It did have a nice view from its restaurant.

John had come to Boca Brava looking for sloths and monkeys. He did not find any sloths, but he did see a few monkeys.

At the boat dock, while he was waiting for the water taxi, a young kid came and practiced his English with John.

Meanwhile, back at the hotel, I was admiring the sunset.

We had dinner. The service was unbelievably slow, but I brought along the MacBook and edited pictures while I drank some vinegar that was supposed to be Argentine Malbec. But when the scenery is this perfect, really, who cares?          

Just Possibly Paradise

Our final morning in Boquete was clear

but still quite cool!

There was some problem - we never quite figured out what it was - with our transit to the Pacific Coast. The driver did arrive, but over an hour late. We liked him. His name was Alexander and he spoke pretty good English. He took us through the back route to Boca Chica and along the way explained a little of what we were seeing. I wish I had taken pictures here of some of the different landscapes. It was definitely far drier than on the Caribbean coast, and much of it reminded me of the scrub Mesquite forests in parts of north Texas. We went by several hydroelectric projects, and he told us about how much the indigenous people fought the construction of these dams. It took us about two hours to make it from Boquete to Boca Chica. We had told Suzie, our fabulous travel agent, that we wanted to end the trip with a bit of a splurge, and a place where all we would want or need to do would be to sit on the beach or by the pool! She hit a home run by picking the Hotel Bocas del Mar!

The hotel is owned by a Belgian family, and we were warmly greeted by Joost, who spoke impeccable English with a hint of a Flemish accent. Our room was not yet ready as it was only about noon, so we had lunch. 

When we were shown to our room, it had an utterly fabulous view. And there was a bucket of champagne there because I think they had been told that this was sort of our honeymoon!

I could spend the rest of my life on the deck here. 

Except the view from the bathroom is pretty stunning, too!

Just below our room, number 15, there is an infinity pool.

I found it almost impossible to not spend the whole afternoon in it!

In the evening, John was taken with the beautiful clouds.

The sunset was gorgeous.

We had a fine dinner. The service was slow, but the wifi was fast, so I was more than content. 

Tomorrow will be our last real day of vacation as Friday will be most about getting transported back to Panama City for our flight Saturday morning. A couple of you have asked about Edie. She has been in great hands with Jason and Heather while we have been gone. In fact, she seldom get trips to Runyon Canyon with us!

Onward and - Gasp - Upward

When we woke up, not only had it rained fairly hard during the night, but it was quite cold in our room. And I suppose because we are somewhere between the Tropic of Cancer and the equator, they decided we did not need a heater in the room. Of course, even if there had been one, the electricity did not really turn on until close to seven o’clock. So we hurried tossed on some warm clothes and went over to have breakfast. As we did, we took another look at our hotel. It is built in a vaguely mid-century alpine style. 

In addition to the main lodge section, which looks sort of like a motel, there are a few “cabañas.” John had thought about asking for one of these, but they did not really have any better views than our room did. 

The main attraction for Tree Tree is its zipline, one of the longest in Central America. We watched tourists get suited up and listen to the safety instructions. 

Breakfast was not that exciting. The hotel room came with the “continental” breakfast, basically a couple pieces of toast, some fruit, orange juice, and coffee. John decided to order some pancakes, too. 

We caught the shuttle from the hotel down to town. It was just the two of us and several large plastic trash bags filled with used linens. They dropped us off right by the stall where we had figured out the day before we could rent the bike. There were a few other stalls here including this place selling fruit. There was also another stall with a man selling a “jungle remedy” that was supposed to cure everything. I wish I had taken a picture of that instead. 

The bike rental was run by a transplanted Southern Californian named Mike. We talked to him about doing the Baja Mono route. He smiled, told us it was “great,” but did mention that it was “all uphill.” I did not have any idea just how true that would be. 

We adjusted our seats and started riding out of town. We had read in a guidebook about a great garden called, not that creatively, “Mi Jardin es Su Jardin.” We had been told, however, the owner had died and that it was now seldom open to the public. Indeed, when we came there, we discovered that it was “cerrado."

Our next stop was Cafe Ruiz, one of the major producers of high-quality coffee in Panama. I had read in the Moon guide that they had a great tour, but when we arrived we learned that the tours were at nine and at one. Since it was ten thirty at this point, we were too late for the first and far too early for the second. We bought a cup of coffee and a pound of beans and pushed onward. 

It had been so cold when we left the hotel that both of us brought along jackets. By this time, we stuffed them in the backpack. We also had a couple guidebooks, bottles of water, and the coffee in the backpack. It was heavy, though I didn’t mind it so much when the road was flat. 

But as the road started its relentless incline, I not only felt the weight of 25 pounds or so on my back but I became keenly aware that we are at about 4000 feet above sea level here. I ride a bike nearly every day at home. I walk the dog three or four miles a day. I figure I am in generally pretty good shape. But I could barely make it 250 feet without stopping to gasp for breath. I felt like I had emphysema. 

Sometimes we stopped because there was something interesting. The coffee harvesting season is starting right now, and there were coffee plants growing on the fields by the side of the road. I suspected that most of the labor to harvest the crop was probably provided by the indigenous people. This man, probably from the Ngäbe-Buglé people, kindly allowed us to take his picture.

One of the main attractions along the Baja Mono route is this “cascada” or “waterfall.” It really was not all that impressive, but we were both so winded that we would have stopped for just about any reason. 

The other attraction along the route is the “haunted castle” of Boquete. No two accounts of this place are precisely the same, but the story is usually something like this. A wealthy American married a Dutch woman and wanted her to live with him in Boquete. She was not happy about the housing choices here, so she moved back to the Netherlands while he built her a more proper house. He built a huge house in the countryside north of Boquete. But when the house was nearly finished, he died of a heart attack. Neither he nor his wife ever lived there. There were a couple tenants, but they all declared that the house was haunted and moved out. It has been abandoned now for over forty years. 

I have no idea how much of this is really true. But we did decide that somebody had already cut a hole in the cyclone fence, we would explore the place. Most of the windows have been smashed, and the inside is creepy enough even if there are no ghosts. 

Vandals with spray paint have also been visitors here. 

We did not finish the whole loop. Another cyclist had told us that the road really started to climb after the castle, and we decided that we had traveled enough of the route. Of course, the return was much easier. We saw some unusual sights along the way including this tree trunk carved to look like a serpent

and this scarecrow. 

We had a well-deserved cup of ice cream and caught the shuttle back to the hotel. Tree Trek is only seven kilometers from the center of Boquete, but what a difference that short distance makes. It had been warm and sunny in Boquete. At the hotel it was cold and raining! We sat on the little patio outside our room and watched the people on the zip line go through the air in the rain. I was glad I was somewhere dry. 

We decided to walk to town for dinner rather than sit in a somewhat chilly hotel room watching television. As we left the hotel grounds, we discovered a small botanical garden. 

Despite the drizzle the walk to town was just magical - at least the first three or four kilometers. The most striking thing about this area is the incredible profusion of bromeliads. Just about any tree has a few on them, and some trees are completely covered in a dozen different varieties. 

We also saw “fincas” or small plantations of coffee and bananas on either side of the road along with the occasional pasture. As we turned from the Tree Trek road onto the main highway, the rain stopped. As it approached sunset, the light on the damp landscape was beautiful.

It was dark by the time we arrived in town. Just on the far side of the river, the final preparations for this weekend’s Flower and Coffee Festival continued. The music stages and some of the exhibit spaces were still not finished. 

The gardens, however, are definitely finished.

John and I split some fried rice for dinner. It was not particularly easy, but we managed to finally convince a taxi to take us back to the hotel.