SketchTravel in Panama

Mamallena Hostel

What brought me to Panama was an invitation to visit friends who had moved there. They were in the mountain town of Boquete, city of flowers. It boasts a perfect year round climate of 75 degrees Fahrenheit, and has coffee growers all over the green mountains stretching up the valley. But to get there you fly to Panama City, then cross the country on buses to David (duh-veed), then take the cramped old school bus up to Boquete. Yes it is as romantic as it sounds.

I arrived at Mamallena Hostel just before dark, dropped my bags in a private room (with a broken lock), and went out to find a grocer. I took about 5 steps, telling my friend to be very careful of uneven sidewalks, when I tripped on an elevated piece of sidewalk sticking up for no reason at all… and plunged face down onto the concrete. If Panama has lots of anything, it’s concrete. From the fall I bloodied my foot and walked the rest of the trip with a limp. And this was in the developed part of the country. Fortunately the grocery store had the needed medicine – rum and coke. I brought along the Hunter Thompson book The Rum Diary, so it all tied together in some mystical way.

Panama city’s old town of Casco Viejo

I did visit the Panama Canal in a city tour, but found the old town of Casco Viejo more interesting. That evening after a fantastic dinner of grilled fish from a somewhat sketchy dark restaurant, the friend I was traveling with pulled me into a place where people were dancing. It turned out to be an Herbalife event. After making a quick retreat, I found a street vendor making awful arepas, and thoroughly enjoyed tasting one. Arepas are fried corn patties, simple and bland yet amazingly tasty when done right. They originate in Colombia, but since Panama used to be a part of Colombia before the US decided otherwise, I felt they must be the real thing here too.

Bus–topia

We could have flown to David, but my traveling companion said that she is a “bus girl”, AND she wanted to spend her birthday on the beach. So we took the bus heading west for David, jumping off at a beach resort somewhere along the way. It was a kind of run-down forgotten kind of place with a fantastic beach, so the birthday wish was fulfilled. I especially loved how when you turned the shower on in our room, it sent a blast of water right to the toilet paper, drenching the roll.

Next day we caught local buses that take you only so far until you find the next bus. Basically we hop-skipped along until we hit a wall in Santiago, where we were told the bus can’t go farther. We sat in the shade as other travelers straggled along and informed us that there was a conflict between the indigenous Indians and the army over mineral rights, and that the Indians were burning trees on the highway to block it. Eventually around eight of us rented a room with 9 beds at a Chinese motel across the street.

In the morning the road was open and we were back on a big tourist bus headed for David, until it developed mechanical problems. Standing along the side of the highway with all the other passengers, we negotiated a ride in a government air-conditioned van for $5 each, which meant we got there quicker than the bus and were easily passed through the government checkpoints all the way to David.

On to Boquete

In addition to visiting my friends, I had researched nonprofits in the area with the intention of volunteering to help one by using my skills – videography, graphics, etc. I had an agreement with one group to room for free in trade for doing a short video-documentary of their cause. It turned out that they really didn’t have much of a program, so we took off to Costa Rica for a long weekend at a sleepy beach community. It was not without the usual trouble with red tape at the border, and then again as we re-entered Panama. What? We need a special stamp? But the stamp office is closed and the bus is leaving. Oh, you can sell us a stamp? At the end we got on the bus without a stamp and life just went on as before.

I did quite a few sketches of things, mostly of houses and buildings as usual. I did stay a few nights with my friends who had a great house on the hill overlooking Boquete, the mountains, and the Caldera River, where they caught a bit of a gentle breeze. My last day there, we watched the unfolding of the Fukushima tsunami devastation. A tsunami warning was given to all countries on the Pacific, and it so happened that it was due to arrive in Panama City just when my flight was to depart. Fortunately it was a non-event there.

*Note to the reader: This trip actually happened in February–March of 2010, but has never been published before.

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