Things were starting to look up in Panama City when we met up with Rafael, the taxi driver. When we slid into his cab, a small pickup, and introduced ourselves, there was no hint of what a treasure we had inadvertently uncovered.
After short introductions, we told Rafael we needed to go to a store to buy local cell phones and service. He drove us to a mall, helped us get a number in line and explained the different services available with a few helpful suggestions tossed in. When we tried to cut him loose so he could earn other fares, he turned us down flat, saying he would stick around to help us — just in case we ran into trouble with language. I think he instinctively knew we were a couple of rudderless ships in this new storm of life in a city with almost 3 million souls, and not all of them nice.
After getting the cell phones and a rest, Rafael returned at the appointed hour and asked if we were hungry. I pointed to my overblown belly and he just laughed. He took us to a locals’ place where we were the only gringos. We were introduced to the woman cook and said we’d have whatever she recommended. It was to die for. A special dish of various seafood, special spices and a savory sauce. The side order of coconut rice would have sufficed but I was taught never to waste food and I seemed to have learned that particular lesson only too well. Rafael dropped us off at the airport hotel and we made plans to meet up the next day at 10 a.m.
Greg and I were both starting to develop a taste for the local beer, Balboa, a buck in most places but double that at the airport bar. The next morning, I noticed after breakfast that the maids had taken all of our towels and not replaced them as they did the morning before. When Rafael arrived, I explained my fear and he talked to the counter people and sure enough, our time was up. So I had to pay for another night, but at the Friday price of $115. I knew we had to get out of there as soon as possible or my meager savings would disappear faster than a politician’s promise. Rafael took us to the bus station and we purchased tickets to Bocas del Toro. It was a 12-hour bus and water ride for $23 and left at 8 a.m. the next morning. We spent the day buying snorkel gear, swim trunks, etc for the trip. I knew we had to call it an early night in order to get up at 5:30 a.m. or so to get to the bus terminal in time. However, after a while Rafael came up with a better plan. Why not leave on the 8 p.m. bus instead? That way we could spend the day with Rafael, who wanted to introduce us to his family. We would then tour the Panama Canal, downtown and other nearby places, then arrive tired enough to sleep on the bus. That turned out to be good news and bad. After another great local lunch at a downtown hotel, we rode around a bit getting the feel of PC from a long-time local’s perspective. Later on Friday, Jan. 19 we met up with Rafael’s first son, Rafael III, whom Greg quickly nicknamed Trip, short for Triple. We spent a couple of hours shooting pool and drinking cervezas and eyeing the beautiful girls and women that seem to proliferate in PC. That of course was the good news.
The bad news was because we didn’t need to get up at milking time, Greg and I headed for the airport hotel’s bar and spent too much money and time there. A band played and a beautiful Panamanian woman was singing. After the band stopped for the night, we met up with a Brit TV cameraman for Fox News, who was in PC to follow up on a story of a Brit who had pretended to be lost at sea, but had hid out in PC for almost a year before his “widow” joined him. After a while, I jogged over the line and questioned why TV especially needed the “If it bleeds, it leads” mentality of news coverage. Why not do some investigative work and find out the truth of Halliburton’s skimming of cash from the Iraqi War? After a few verbal skirmishes, the cameraman tired of this and told me to cool it, he was just doing his job. I need to learn to keep my big mouth shut.
Anyway, the next day Rafael picked us up at the hotel and took us to his house, where his wife was preparing barbecued pork chops for lunch. We had just eaten a late breakfast and explained we weren’t very hungry but knew better than to insult our hosts by refusing the meal. It was delicious and I had as much as I could. After a couple of hours, we took off for the Panama Canal tour, then downtown, both the old and new sections of PC. Rafael showed us the tidal mud flats where airborne troops had landed during the invasion to get Noriega. He said the U.S. troops were mired down by the mud and the weight of their fighting equipment and many were mowed down there. I don’t remember reading about that in the U.S. media. We stopped at the fish market and had some fresh ceviche. We also noticed no gringos were there but the food was fantastico. We noticed some heavy-looking Army-types and were told they were part of the PC mayor’s security. At 6 p.m. we headed off to the bus terminal to exchange our tickets and then wait for the next adventure. It was not long in showing up.