Around Panama

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Lawyers Guns and Money

Chester the investor came into town last night. He owns the company for which Walter works. Having made a considerable amount of money in Destin Florida, speculating in Real Estate and running a large restaurant he invested heavily in Bocas del Toro. He bought 130 acres of prime real estate on Isla de Bostimentos, disparagingly referred to as "Jurassic Park" by the residents of Bocas Town. The island has no infrastructure; there are no roads, no electricity, and no fresh water. It does however have pristine jungle teeming with wildlife and spectacular white sandy beaches on crystal clear water.

A young lawyer from Panama City and three of his friends came into town last night and rented a home that Chester has outside of Bocas Town over the water. They rounded up a full complement of women from the Peace Corp at a local bar and invited them to go with us on a boat tour the next day. We drove the shore of Isla de Cristobol.

Start with dickhead and the boat story.

The lots I saw on Cristobol were small and water front, ending in mud and mangrove. The land was flat and every lot I saw but one had at least an inch of water over 80% or more of the lot. You could bring in fill dirt, but your neighbors land was still a swamp. John (last name withheld), a retired pilot out of Destin, FL was an investor in this land. There were two houses, John's a very nice $400K structure built from ??? wood, with granite counter tops in the kitchen and built in dressers in each of the bedrooms. Cristobel is supposed swarming with ??? fleas.

We drove to Salt Creek Where Chester has a ???? in the water in front of a two acre lot. At the back of the lot is a cabina inhabited by the caretaker and his wife, the chef. Chester rents the place out for $150 a night. For this you get delivered to the house via boat from Bocas Town. The food has been purchased in advanced and delivered in a cooler and ??? comes out and cooks for you. What is there to do? Not a lot, other than enjoy the scenery from the back deck. If you bring a cell phone that works out there you could catch a water taxi to one of the surrounding islands. The beach is clean sand. The water is warm and clear, a warm breeze keeps everything near perfect.

We headed back to town showered and headed back to the house the lawyers were renting. Chester cooked a dinner of curried rice, lobster and jack fish and just hung out until midnight.

Saturday, November 7, 2009
I made a bunch of phone calls and emails regarding the sale and rental to my house. I thought I'd head out to Salt Creek for some nature photography, something I have not done much of in Bocas. One guy wanted to charge me $60 to go out there as it was just me. I would rather go with a tour, not only because it is cheaper but you get to meet new people. One guy in town told me he had a tour going in 15 minutes and he would take me out there and back for $10. The he sai8 he had a tour to red frog beach, coral cay and hospital point that I could go on for $5 more. The crew for this ride had no women. Two guys, late 30's or early 40's and 2 guys from California. They reeked of money, from their shoes to their shades. One had an Aston Martin hat I asked him if he owned one, he said he had a 2008 ????. We went to a marina to look at the sailboats; these guys were big on sail boats and new most of the makes and models just by looking at them. The guy that had the Aston Martin had a 57' sailboat in Houston.

I told him I was planning on going to Boquete he replied that I must visit Volcan, the new Boquete, but much prettier. This was his third trip to Panama. He told his friends that last time he was here he almost picked up a coffee plantation in Boquete for $1.7 Million that was netting $600k a year but some Swiss investors got it first.
Sunday, November 8, 2009

I am now on a mini bus with 21 passengers on the way to David. I took a water taxi from Bocas Town to Almirentes . We are heading to David, the capital of Chiriqui, heading south over the mountains from the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific Coast. From there we catch a cab back north into the mountains and into Boquete, which was named by ???? as the best place to retire in the world.
There is very little development along the road side. Some clearing for grazing land, but mostly jungle. The roads are in excellent condition, much better than the average Michigan Road. There are guard rails on the outside of turns where there are drop-offs. The occasional house on the side of the house is a wood sided on stilts with a thatched roof.

We got to Chester's "shack" a two bedroom house in a Panamanian neighborhood. On one trip to Boquete Chester met the owner an American drug dealer, in jail. I have the feeling that the owner was incarcerated and that Chester was not. The next time Chester came into town, the man was in jail again and needed bail money. Chester bought the house from the man's wife for $20,000 in a couple of days. Chester has a man living in the house, really fixing it up, replacing the stairs, the wood trim, the windows, the floors, refinishing the walls. The man is doing a wonderful job. Chester cooked up some pork chops and chicken marinated in sour orange, sour lime, chili powder, and mayonnaise. He then enhanced the remaining marinade further and made salad dressing. As a side dish we had boiled potatoes with onions. The meet was grilled outside on the Webber using real charcoal, not briquettes.

Juan showed up. He is a Panamanian who moved to the states at age 10 and then joined the U.S. Navy. He has lived in Austin and Harlingen Texas as well as around California, in the vicinity of his naval base. Chester spoke glowing of Juan’s marketing and interpersonal skills. As I had indicated that I had no interest in sleeping on the tile floor Chester had arranged with Juan to book me at the hostel. Juan works on commission of `10%. The room was going to cost $ 15. I was thinking this was going to be a bit sleazy but I was going to head right to bed and he assured me the place was clean and safe. Mike drove Juan and me over to the hostel. Juan's keys did not work. I asked him "You just want to be on the other side of this door?" Within 30 seconds I had the door off the hinges, the lock unlocked and was putting the door back on. I did a little damage to my pocket knife. I told Juan I was from Detroit and any self respecting Detroiter could get into a house in less than 60 seconds. In the process of prying the door out, I broke the tip off my knife, but with some work on my Diamond stone I should be able to get some semblance of a tip. Had I used my chain mail piercing CRKT I would have barely chipped the edge of the blade. Juan called the husband of the owner who grudgingly got out of bed took my $15 and gave me the key to the room. The room was spacious, the sheets were clean, the mattress was very comfortable and within minutes I was asleep.



Tuesday, November 10, 2009

I awakened and went down the hall to the bathroom. Following my morning constitution I was disappointed to discover there was no toilet paper. My shower was a different than usual. I had not received a towel or any soap, but I had my shampoo and I carry a big microfiber towel in my backpack. Although it is large in area it is small in volume, it is a large backpacker's microfiber towel from REI.
Juan and I headed out for breakfast and then came back to the hostel. I indicated that I wanted to see outside the city. A part time hostel employee, part time taxi driver, Coco, indicated that he would show me around for $10. We left at 9:30 and first went to the gas station where he needed the first $10 so he could buy gasoline. Juan convinced the attendant to sell him 6 beers, which was illegal as in Boquete, the large gringo presence has insisted on alcohol rules not in place anywhere else in the country; no sales between 11 pm and 10 am. We then drove around the north of town further up the mountains. Coffee plantations were predominant but there were tomatoes, carrots, onions, and organic tomato farms. Coco knew a great deal about all of these activities. He grew up on a farm and started picking coffee when he was eight. As Coco only spoke Spanish, Juan functioned as a translator. It appears that you get 1 ?????? (bucket) of coffee per bush, 1000 bushes per hectare and a bucket sells for $2.50. His family has an 8 hectare farm and he produced 35 * 80 pounds of beans. Interesting way of expressing it. I'm guessing that that was 80 35 pound bags.


The beans are ready to pick when they are red which starts in early November. The coffee bean is the seed of a fleshy fruit. I picked one and at the fleshy portion and it wasn't bad.
Juan gives coffee plantation tours and explained the beans are first floatation sorted, the heavier beans being the more desirable. Then they are treated with some chemical that removes the flesh and the beans are then size sorted, the larger beans being more desirable. Coco indicated that some of the bushes we were looking were probably between 60 and 100 years old as could be determined by the thickness of the trunks and the appearance of the bark.

We had coco drop us off at the end of the Quetzal Trail at 11:15 Juan explained that there was a hill called "Lament Hill" by the climbers due to the length and pitch of that section of the trail. We hiked along. There was barbed wire on either side of the trail. Sometimes crops were being grown, at other times there were cows or sheep grazing on the native foliage or cleared pastures.

After about an hour of hiking we turned around and headed back into town. He had received a call that there were three pretty girls he was to meet at the bus station to take care of. We got back to town around 2:00 catching a bus for the last half the ride. Women boarded with two bouquets of flowers. I removed my camera strap and placed the camera over the seat and then put the camera in my lap behind my backpack. Bad call. We soon arrived at our destination. I put my backpack on the floor beside the door and stood up crouching to get out the door. My camera fell and landed lens first from a height of about four feet onto the asphalt. I'm sure the passengers heard some English expletives that they had not heard before as did people on the far side of town. I tried to take some pictures, it wouldn't auto focus and displayed "Err" When I tried to take a picture. I tried the other lens and it didn't complain.

We went to the bus station and soon a yellow bus stopped by the town center. I was off looking for a charger for my cell phone. Every other store in town cells the phones and the recharges (coded additional prepaid minutes) but nobody had accessories. All I needed was a mini-USB charger or cable. It was looking hopeless. Finally I found a store that had a charger but it only worked if you held the cord just so.

I went back to town square and found a grinning Juan with three Norwegian cuties. We walked back to the hostel. All three girls occupied one room for $38. I was thinking of extending an offer for the extra space in my bed, but figured I'd wait until later.

Later still Juan got another call, there were three artists coming in. He went off to the bus terminal to get them and them came back to borrow some money from me that he would repay in the morning from proceeds from his tour. It turns out they decided to go "couch surfing", sleeping on Ellen's couch in exchange for some labor or art or some such.

Chester, Walter, Mike and I went to a locals bar. The people at the bar were all laborers. I bought a round for the 6 guys at the bar. The waitress served them all without any indication as to why they were receiving an unsolicited beer. She skipped the guy sitting next to me. I pointed him out and she gave him a beer. He expressed his gratitude then told me that when we park at the house that we were doing so on his driveway. I called Chester over and introduced him to his next door neighbor.


Dinner at a very nice hamburger place and we all leched at our cute waitress while flirting with her. This was the longest hamburger dinner in history. Chester talked about his 13 year court battle with Fuddruckers, a San Antonio top end hamburger chain and Fudpuckers, his restaurants in Fort Walton and Destin Florida. If you are interested just Google "Fudpuckers Fuddruckers Lawsuit". We finished at the Boquete Inn, a boutique luxury hotel. At this time I discovered that my camera body was also toast as it produced no image.

While I had been out hiking the other three hired a retired park ranger and local Indian to show Chester 14 hectare he had bought sight unseen.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

I hitched a ride with Chester, Walter, Michael and Mundo from Boquete to David. This is both the road to Volcan and an opportunity to get my camera fixed. Maki, who runs the hostel I've been staying at for the last 3 days told me I could get my camera fixed at the store next to the Romero Supermercado in David. I was dropped off in front of AudioFoto, which had at best 2 cameras in the store. They told me the nearest place I could get my camera fixed was in San Jose, 250 miles east of here. I inquired as to the location of Romero, despite every pronunciation I could spin on that one word I was greeted only by puzzled expressions until I wrote it down.

It was across the town square. I rapidly located the Romero and entered the electronics store next door. I explained my problem as well as I could and the man looked at the camera in a very puzzled fashion and told me I could have it fixed by Sabo (Saturday). I was not feeling very assured about this but he then walked me 2 doors down to the place that actually did the repairs. I paid $15.75 which I presume is there diagnostics check out price and was told I could pick up the camera on Saturday. I am going to try to email my questions, such as getting an estimate for repair. No point in paying half the price of the body and then having no warranty.

I then walked around town trying to find a snapshot camera. One store had a good variety of cameras. I inquired as to any waterproof models. The girl had no idea what I was talking about so I wrote down "agua" with a circle and a slash. She called over a woman who immediately said that I wanted a Lumix DS1, that they didn't have any in stock but could get me one in half an hour. It took the clerk half an hour to pull up a description of the camera and a review. For $429 I was disappointed in the image quality of the sample images. This camera could be used at 2 meters for 60 seconds and sustain a 10 1.5 meter drops onto plywood. They didn't say anything about dropping it onto asphalt.

I figured I would go with a cheaper camera with better image quality. I had a delightful Lumix FS7 that broke when used out in the rain by a son. A 12 power optical zoom image stabilized 12 megapixels Lumix was $379, which I dickered down to $300 but that still didn't feel right as I was sure a similar camera at Costco is $179.

In the end I ended up buying nothing, went to a cafeteria and had spaghetti, squid stew and Greek salad for $3.50. I then caught a taxi to the bus terminal. Within 2 minutes I was on a mini bus headed for Volcan surrounded by hot little Panamanian women. I really have to learn Spanish.

I'm still on the bus with an hour to go. It's drizzling. I think I'll take a nap.