Got hold of a friend who is staying at another friends house.   Burgers, salad and some catching up.   To bed.  Roosters.  Ahh shit.

Once again, the original, written on a bus. Kind of prefer the shorter version don’t you?

I gathered stock of my quarters. The walls were unchinked small timbers, the ceiling of cana blanca, a small bamboo. The hardwood floor was graced solely with two beds, adequately outfitted with comfortable mattresses and adequate linen. A cat in heat merawled incessantly provoking a large dog into continuous deep throated barking. A brief interval of rest was attained to be interrupted by hundreds of cocks. This was a far cry from my peaceful refuge. I abandoned efforts at dawn.

As I write a few girls of unknown origin prepare coffee. I guess I will breakfast, head down to David and pop up into the mountains of Chiriqui in the town of Boquete. Perhaps dinner with a friend in Calderra at his ranch. I had passed by a few friends on the way out here, Charles in El Valle, Rudy and Ralph on the Pacific Coast.

Perhaps I shall catch up with some German girls on their way to stay with me and escort them home.
It is going to be a busy weekend, I am expecting four or five visitors, all young women, all German, two that live in San Jose and three that are traveling Central America. I guess I shall have to rent a boat capable of delivering the six of us to various destinations in the remote portions of the archipelago that I call home.

What next? Take up residence in a large house on Dolphin Bay situated on 25 acres of landscaping, ride horses and solicit guests for the spacious, well appointed cabins? Head to Southeast Asia? Who will I encounter in my travels? I mentioned Boracay, a charming young couple, two women mentioned that they are moving there. I’ve always wanted to see Indonesia, a girl that stayed with me a few months ago replied that she would be there in November and would love to travel with me. Phuket, Thailand, Bangor Wat in Cambodia? Give me great weather, clear waters, jungle, charming companionship and I could stay anywhere. Not too picky, that’s a lot of world.

I run into people I know everywhere I go. When I first visited Panama it was not surprising to meet people time and again traveling the well trod routes from the beautiful tiny islands that compose the home of the Kuna Indians in Kuna Lana, to Panama City, again in Boquette and Bocas. But I have met people in off the beaten tracks and in distant countries. A man from Machu Pichu in the remotest jungles of the Amazon in Bolivia. Walking the streets of Caye Caulker in Belize with a high school buddy who lamented the paucity of women I encountered an English girl I had met years before on yet another remote island. In the trails of an Indian village in Veraguas I happened upon a farmer from the cocaine smuggling port of Colovobera. An Indian from Rio Luis, a town not frequented by white people called out my name as I was on the way to dinner with a group of people from Montana. At an airport in Lima, Peru another chance encounter.

A Canadian I met a year ago in the mountains of Veraguas Panama recognized me in David in February and gave me an update on Sante Fe a town of Indians with but fifteen gringos that claims a resident from my hometown,, one year my senior, a half square mile spot on the shores of Lake St. Clair, a 30 mile shallow pond through which water flows from Lake Huron to Lake Erie.

I got the lowdown on most of the inhabitants of Sante Fe. The builder from Austin who was to get construction going in a big way failed miserably. Residents parted with their money to be left with half constructed houses. He now sells hamburgers, too expensive for the Indians, shunned by the gringos in a town with but 10 beds for tourists.

Why am I telling you this? I don’t know. I am just killing time, drinking coffee from a traditional coffee machine made out of three pieces of wood, a wire hoop and a sock like basket.

Breakfasted with, who else? A guy from Harrison Township, Michigan a retired General Motors executive and his girlfriend, living in Maui. They asked for travel advice. Sure, I’ll show you around Bocas. See you next week.

One more cup of coffee and I am descending to David and popping up to Boquete to call on a couple I know maybe crash where they are staying, in a mutual friend’s house. Maybe meet up with the trio and escort them to Bocas, maybe go solo. I am a bit apprehensive about the dock construction. It should be done by now, but I have my doubts.

Yup, I had already written this, here you go the original

I had to go off to Panama City for a meeting with the U.S. Embassy to get a replacement passport.  First stop, Changuinola to get a police report on the missing/stolen passport then down across the country to the Pacific side to catch a bus from David to Panama City on the trans-American highway.  Timon, my gardener, showed. I gave him instructions.  Juan, my water taxi driver showed and we headed out to Bocas Town where I caught a water taxi to Almirante, the port city on the mainland.  As Taxi 25 is offering a special promotion price of $3 to drum up some business for their reopening after an extended shutdown due to political retribution the round trip fare is $5 for those in the know.

Less than half an hour later I was on the mainland, grabbed a $1 taxi fare to the bus terminal and got on a bus.   I don’t often sleep while commuting but exhausted fell asleep almost right away.  I woke at a roadside cafeteria.  Oops!  The David to Changuinola bus I caught was heading to David, not the other leg.   No travelling papers. Ahh, I can probably bullshit my way through the passport controls, I’ve done it often enough.  Two hours later I was able to verify my confidence. David to Panama.  How much is the fare to Luna’s Castle?  Five bucks?  Why?  “Cinco Dollares para uno!”  It’s a holiday and night time by now, what had this been, ten hours?  I caught another for $3.

Luna’s Castle wouldn’t allow me to stay without a passport and sent me to Hospedeje Casco Viejo.  They cared for little more than the eight bucks for a dorm room.   “Jim!  What are you doing here?”  What’s his name?   Oh, just here to go to the Embassy to apply for a passport replacement.   A little chatting, a long walk to find an open restaurant, surfing the web until two in the morning when the clerk wanted to sleep on the couch.  She suggested that I change rooms as there were a lot more women in another room.  Not sure of the benefit of a room full of sleeping women I opted out.   She told me the room was cooler.   It was a strangely comfortable day anyway.   Not worth the effort, I set up camp in the room she suggested and surprisingly, quickly found sleep.

Then…  I found my notes.

Out the door, down the stairs, onto the boat.  BoomBoomBoom.  “Where are we going?”  “To the marina.”  We went as fast as my boat could go.  I pulled up to a very large blue metal boat walked aboard and found no one there but a cat.   God Damn it!  Back to town.   Grab a taxi.    Necesito hospital urgencia”.  I was weighed.  My blood pressure was taken.  I was asked to describe my ailment.  “Andrea, how do you say ‘atrial fibrillation’?”  I am not a hypochondriac, quite the opposite, I defer medical treatment, “I’ll heal.”  I am not afraid of doctors, I’ve just been cut, cracked so many ribs, pinched nerves, my body has suffered many indignities which only time and healing could address.  Ok, I’ve spent my fair share of time in emergency rooms and intensive care.   But the last time I felt like this I nearly died, my blood pressure dropped unmeasurably low without detection by the emergency room staff despite being hooked up to an EKG and a blood pressure monitor.   Yup, I got paddled.  Feeling my whole body go cold as vision fades to black is not something I wanted to experience soon.  To hell with this hospital, it bites.  Could I make it to Changuinola?  Last time I was in fibrillation for three hours before my heart attack.  Off the the water taxi, over to Almirante a half hour ride.  By the time I got there I felt normal, bought breakfast and a pair of sandals.  Nothing to be done now.  I will make sure I see a cardiologist while I am in Panama City.


Back to Bocas.  “Jim are you going to the party on Red Frog Beach?”  “What party?”  “THE PARTY!”  A full moon event?  I haven’t been to one, but this is right across from my house an easy commute home.  Brandy asked if should could catch a ride. Sure.


Then the postings.   This was an internationally organized event, not a few locals on a beach without sanitary facilities in the middle of the sea turtle nesting season.  People posted in forums.  People called ANAM, the
Autoridad Nacional del Ambiente, sort of like the EPA, Parks and Wildlife and the Department of the Interior in one.   They have no permit, they are selling beer without a license, etc. etc.   In the end little was done, the event was not a big deal and the beach was not left in a disaster.  We shall see if they disband today.

I asked a guy I know if he would watch my house.   A licensed boat captain and fisherman who spends his whole time in town.  In four months he hasn’t ever left Isla Colon except for the $1 taxi fare away to Carenero, so close it could be readily swum were it not for some of the worst, most inconsiderate, inattentive boaters in the western hemisphere.  I told him I would show him the house.  A couple of cuties showed up.  I invited them along for the ride.  Turns out they were stuck on the dock and were waiting for the five o’clock boat to Palmar, right across from my house.   They came aboard, we introduced ourselves and headed off to my house then over to Bastimentos and I took them on the trail to the open Caribbean side.   We hung out for a bit and then headed out.  Nope, you have to go out here, now left, toward that house, now right for 200 meters then right again.   Lot’s of shallow water.   Doug decided he would need a month to learn the waters before he would take anybody else’s boat.   Hmmm, I guess I can leave the boat in really shallow water.  But what about the dogs?    Just leave them with 20 pounds of food and five gallons of water?

After a lazy awakening I took Andrea over to Isla Bastimentos.  We returned to Roots, a restaurant over the water and inquired about Jerry’s whereabouts.  Jerry was the teen we had met the previous day.  He had left for Almirante, so much for “I am always here”.  The owner of the restaurant called a kid over who was paddling in a plastic kayak We walked to the end of town, down the beach and down a trail arriving at an enormous metal gate.  The kid yelled out for Bruce, whose house was not visible.  We met no response.  I had heard of this place from a gorgeous blonde ethnobotanist and masseuse who was going to live at my house and help me with planting a garden and fruit trees.  She found an opportunity more to her liking in Costa Rica and I was left to figure it out on my own.  Nothing left to do but return on another day.

We walked to the other end of town on the main sidewalk (there are but three or four) that runs along the bay.   Restaurants, bars and hostels are one to two deep on the water side, houses and a couple of stores are likewise a coupe of lots deep up the hill away from the water.  Near the end of town we took a sidewalk that led over the island, a very short walk and hiked along the seashore.   I regretted having left my machete; there is a trail but it is a bit overgrown and needs some maintenance.

Everything I had enumerated to clean in the house had been cleaned but nothing else.   I paid Timon, he asked for four days wages but nothing for his wife.   I gave her $9 in coins and she was very grateful, as she should have been as she had received a full day’s wages for half a day’s work.

The trail went from an easy walk to muddy up the hillside and ended with clambering over giant basalt rocks.  We finally arrived at Wizard Beach, filthy and dehydrated.   The long stretch of white sand was populated but by a couple.  Being Italian it seemed perfectly normal to Andrea to shed his clothes and go for a dip.   Not being Italian I didn’t really feel like skinny dipping with a guy and kept my shorts on.    We walked back across the island, back to town and had lunch.   Our condition mandated a good shower and a change of clothes before we could be seen in public so we went back to my house and tended to those matters and returned to Bocas where a local woman had invited me and some friends over for dinner.   Huh, second cancellation in a row.

We lunched at the Pickled Parrot; Adrian concurred that Bocas Town’s appeal increases with distance.  Off to Isla Christobal to check on a dugout canoe for sale.  It needed work and I am not interested in additional projects at this time.  We walked next door to visit a friend of mine, sat on the deck and chatted.  A worker showed at the end of his shift and followed me to my house.  He claims that he can rebuild my dock at my house in three days.  We shall see.  I paid for the posts,which are to be cut on Saturday under the full moon.

A vine snake showed himself three times on my stairs.  I often find him in the same spot.  I am sure he lives in a little hole on the side of the hill.  I wonder if my freshly trimmed lawn has anything to do with his more frequent appearances of late.

Time for dinner, we dropped by to visit a friend.  I had dropped off some filets a couple of days earlier and we were to dine there.  He was mourning the loss of a friend who had drunk himself to death by doing the same.  We left him to stagger back and collapse on his bed at five in the evening and headed out to Roots, a Caribbeano over the water restaurant on Bastimentos.   My whole snapper was enormous and wonderful.  We were joined by a local kid who asked how my farm was coming along.  I mentioned that I was looking for fruit tree saplings.  He suggested that I drop by tomorrow and he would show me the wonderful finca just outside Bastimentos town where I could buy a wide variety of plants.   After killing some time on the dock on the point, listening to the surf we headed home.

Well, I can see Timon is half way here and another dugout approaches with a couple under power.  Hmm… they are going to the house next door.  I guess his wife won’t be cleaning my house today.

The parrots have returned, I have seen little of them for months.  On this tranquil morning I am blessed by a silent company of green parrots.  Three or four species of hummingbirds restlessly visit the red flowers that adorn the shrubs, flying up to the deck periodically to survey my activities. An Ngobe Indian paddles by silently, headed toward the watery cul-de-sac of Bahia Honda.  Were that I had my good camera, the view does not merit the insult of the result of my pocket camera.

Timon has been doing a wonderful job on the yard.  I can clearly see the dock and boat after eliminating some bushy trees that had been planted beside my long stairway.  The grass and weeds have been cut and the ornamentals trimmed.  A massive tree was felled yesterday for the sake of my house.  Towering from the ground down the hill and rising far higher than my house it presented a threat to life and property in its state.  Though with a full crown, lush and verdant, termites and ants dwelled and feasted upon the sickly giant.

A couple of water taxis cruise by, one silently and the the other with considerable announcement as Timon makes his way in his dugout canoe from his home on Isla Bastimentos, in view, across the bay.  Today logs are to be placed on the shore to provide a dry haven for my boat, to be left for an indefinite period while I explore southeast Asia.

On Sunday I hope to replace some pier pilings with salvaged cuttings.  Soon the wire, long stored in the storage building over the water, will be run to raise the voltage of the outlets there in order to allow the charging of boat batteries and run A.C. pumps on boats to be docked there.  


I am soon off to Panama City to apply for a replacement passport.  Gabrielle, a guest in April will be returning to Bocas in a couple of weeks with her mother.  I am expecting a trekker to make his way to Almirante today.  I haven’t heard from him in three days.  He is hacking his way through the jungles of the provinces of Chiriqui and Bocas del Toro to get here.

Once I have my passport in hand, hopefully without having to make another trip to Panama City I will choose a destination in Southeast Asia: Philippines, Thailand, Viet Nam, Cambodia?  I don’t know I have to start somewhere.

That’s the morning news from paradise.  Time for another pot of coffee.

I walked into my favorite venue and spotted a gorgeous blonde at a table receiving the attention of four regulars.   This girl, in her early twenties, was spectacular from her finely coiffed hair to her toe nails and assembled in some fantasy plant.  No one else was to be seen.  I moved on.

The next day, sitting at the table with the same four guys she had three or four drinks and announced, “I need a good hard fucking and then a good hard cock in my ass.”   A guy in his late forties immediately volunteered, he was dismissed, “You are too old.”  Another guy, who can run any woman out of any local was shut down before he could say anything.   The fourth guy took her in the shower for a couple of hours and then worked on her for three hours in the employee dorm room.  After the first hour his room-mate got up and left, grumbling that he was never going to get any sleep.