Panama, First Impressions

Buenas tardes mis amigos! Hola de Panamá!

I made it to Panama in one piece this afternoon after a fairly uneventful series of flights from Seattle to Houston to Panama City. See, for some reason I tend to attract seatmates who are either morbidly obese, people with small crying squirty babies, clueless Type-A over-talkers, folks with no sense of personal hygiene who smell like small barnyard animals, fervent proselytizing religious types, "angry at the world" people and the like. That's my lot in life.

Occasionally I get someone who can form whole sentences without foaming at the mouth and today was one of those days. A pleasant travel day. Did you know that it only takes 8 hours of flying from Seattle to get down here? Not bad actually. I now understand why so many US citizens view Panama as an ideal close location for a second home. English isn't widely spoken here but the cost of living is less than the US and the infrastructure is very good given that the US military built a lot of it. It's very green too.

Panama City is very modern looking from afar, but up close it shows the cracks in it's facade with some decay from lack of investment and half-finished buildings abound with cranes hanging off the sides like peeling bark. Though here and there you see glimpses of the narco-military Noriega era; polished Porsche Cayennes, late model Mercedes, sleek Audis, very well dressed folks shopping at boutiques, upper-class restaurants, very large estate homes on hill tops with walls and gates.

Perhaps the glory days will come back here...the numerous tall condo towers that dominate the skyline remind me of what you see along South Beach and Miami Beach and there are billboards offering all sorts of new developments. More so than I had imagined even from pictures. Pretty cool actually, though not to my liking as this is dense urban tropical living. Yet, it seems very appropriate for some reason.

My first interesting experience involved lots of rain. November is the tail-end of rainy season and boy did I get my fair dose tonight. I'm staying at a nice little B&B called La Estancia in Cerro Ancon, which is part of the verdantly forested hill in the middle of Panama City and within the large area America owned up until 1999 (a blog posting from someone I found using Google shows some pics). The high point of the hill is one of the best vantage points in the city for seeing the city skyline, the Pacific Ocean, the Miraflores locks, the surrounding jungle, bird life, etc. This particular area closely reminds me of where I studied when I lived in the mid-80s in Baguio City, Philippines as a Rotary Intl exchange student. In fact, just being up there gave me some wonderful flash back memories of that time in my life. Even the smells are quite similar. Ahhh....

Anyway, after I unpacked, I went out for dinner. I took a 25 minute walk down the hill through the lush neighborhoods of huge plantation homes and manicured lawns to a small area of restaurants located on a main road, but because it's a National holiday today nothing was open except this cruddy little pizza place that shouldn't have earned my business. Seriously, I shouldn't have gone there but it was literally my only option. Imagine a $5 medium sized pepperoni pizza. Cheap. I bet that I'll be paying the price at about 4am with Panamanian revenge of some type - gurgle, gurgle. Given that I had only eaten a small tasteless/forgettable breakfast in Houston at 6am this morning that by the time 5pm rolled around I was, to put it mildly, ravenous. I grabbed a banana off a stalk outside the B&B but that lasted me all of 15 minutes. I would've eaten my own shoe if it wasn't so darned dirty. I wandered about the area and took some pictures before darkness settled in. Then I went in to the morgue, er, uh, I mean pizza joint.

Of course, the daily rains which occur usually in either the morning or evening (it is the tail end of rainy season) decided to match my departure from said 'pizza restaurant' (generous description by the way given the glue-like consistency and chalky taste of the 'pizza'). The rain managed to steadily increase in intensity and volume during my entire serpentine uphill route back to the B&B through the old US base. Within 5 minutes I was very wet and within probably 7 minutes I was soaked. I began running with soggy leftover pizza in one hand, trying to stop below overhangs for meager protection. Within 10 minutes I was doused and soon thereafter I was drenched beyond belief and decided to make a run for it. Thankfully my little travel camera is waterproof!

If there is a description for a state of wetness beyond drenched then I would've fit the description. It got so bad that I wasn't able to even see more than 5 feet in front of myself and even had to take off my t-shirt and run shirtless up the deserted streets in the dark trying to beat the rain and stay warm (the rain was warm but the air wasn't). It did me no good at all; I couldn't outrun that rain. My wallet, my money, my passport, my journal, my clothes were all soaked through the fibers. At one point, I was running hard in about 6-8 inches of flowing water as I climbed up the steep concrete side walks, dodging falling branches. All sorts of things were floating by me, perhaps even some living critters. Who knows. By the time I arrived back at the B&B I had to wring out everything I was wearing, including my underwear. Even my pen had water in it! Can you imagine? That is what's referred to as a tropical rain storm. I've experienced this type of weather before in the Philippines and Singapore, though not as sudden nor perhaps as intense.

Whoa, big thunder and lightening just happened! It's coming in choppy waves now. Very loud and bright! The deep pattering sound of raindrops on the metal roofs and thick plants is very comforting for some reason. Almost melodic in a way. Like the voice of the jungle asking to be cleaned and purified for tomorrow. In amidst the rain noises I can hear the honking horn of a mule train moving containers on to and off of massive ships passing through the locks. The rain is somehow channeling those industrial sounds up here on to the hill side because I couldn't hear them before. Mixed into all of those sounds are a cacophony of cricket songs and other insects voicing their feelings or locations in high-pitched whines and chirps. It's nearly a wall of indiscernible white noise at a crescendo, yet it's all distinct at the same time. Somehow it is. Difficult to describe in words. Like tone-deaf members of an out of sync orchestra all vying for lead position. Really loud.

OK, there you have a little taste of my first day in Panama. For tomorrow I've scheduled a bilingual driver/guide to take me on a personal tour of the old city and the Canal locks for only $50 (the currency in Panama is still USD). There is a lot of history here and so much animal life that it's a challenge to take it all in without feeling slightly overwhelmed. My goal is to try to stay dry, if possible, and go for a run along the famous Amador Causeway, built as a link from the mainland to a few small islands using the large amount of tailings unearthed during the construction of the Canal.

I'm attempting to keep a daily journal (hoping it'll dry out enough so that I can write in it tonight) so that I can post again whenever I can get online. That is if the humidity doesn't ruin the circuit board in my laptop first ;-(

First impressions: wet, lush, loud, verdant, alive