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.
