Acclimating to the third world

We are getting aquainted with our mountain town of Boquete. The people are polite, the scenery is spectacular, and the temperature varies from the high 60's to the low 80's.

Taking a stroll is either uphill or down - nothing flat. Some sidewalks (where there are any) are stairs. Few roads have shoulders and many have deep drainage ditches so much of the time we must walk in the road. Since car traffic is light and foot traffic heavy this has not been too scary once we got use to it.

This is not a place that could be considered handicap accessible. Almost every corner has a storm drain at least 3 feet across. Some of the drains are covered with rebar grates, some are open, and one had a stair railing laying across it as protection for pedestrians.

We have a 24 hour supermarket just a block away. The produce section is tiny since fruit and vegetable stands are everywhere. The frozen food section is 2 standup coolers. The meat counter has a few steaks, I assume for gringoes, a few chickens and an enormous, 3 foot by 4 foot, pile of chicken necks. Bread and produce are cheap; however, everything else is just below or at US prices.

Considering the average monthly wage here is $250 for an office worker up to $1200 for a professional(lawyer, engineer, accountant,...) it is amazing how the common folks can exist. 50 poor people walk by then a Range Rover drives by. A few rich and a lot of poor.

With all this poverty there is no resentment showing. During many walks we have encountered only one panhandler requesting a dollar (we think) and that may have been only a language problem. People greet us in passing on the street and shop clerks are patient and helpful with our poor spanish.

Locals gather in the evening at the plaza outside our window and visit with each other. At 9:00 pm most have gone home.

Another local entertainment is parades. We have seen 2 during our first weekend. Since one lap of the town doesn't seem to do it they take 2 or 3 laps before disbanding the parade.

Arrival

We finally arrived in Panama about 2:00 am Saturday morning. A quick trip through Customs and we were whisked into a taxi for a trip to the Albrook Bus station. So far all appeared conventional 1st world setting. Then we ran into Policía Nacional. We weren't thinking anything about it but the taxi driver suddenly seemed agitated. He rolled down all the windows and shouted Americanos! Americanos! The Police waved us on.

At 3:00am in the half-mile long, open air bus terminal were a few locals, us and about a dozen armed police. A couple english speaking men gave us help in where and how to buy tickets and board busses. I don't know how they knew we were foreigners unless it was the 6'1" blonde next to me giving it away.

We had the front 2 seats on the bus which was good for the extra leg room, but gave us an unobstructed view of bus operation. This bus was the biggest thing on the road. Beside the driver there was an assistant to leap off and block traffic at critical moments, whistle out the door at pedistrians, and fling all trash off the bus and on to the road side. The assistant also assisted the driver with his many cellphones. While traveling at 60-90 kph on narrow roads the driver maintained constant contact with the outside world via phone and texting. No teenage girl in the world had any higher plugin skills than our driver.

Our driver was also versed in police checkpoints. A couple he breezed through without stopping; however, at one he parked the bus and he and the assistant got off. Several police came aboard and started checking papers. Forget your mental image of police. In Panama police wear green military uniforms, ballistic vests and body armor on the outside of thier uniforms. Some carried Uzis. All seem to take their job very seriously.

If you have ever wondered what happens to old American school buses I can assure you that they are all in Panama. They may be sporting new paint jobs and hubcaps, but for short-hauls in a country where few have cars the American school bus is rapid transit. After our big bus dropped us in David we caught a "red devil" (former American school bus) to Boquete.

Our hostel


From our hostel window

Complexities

Yesterday we began our trip. Houston to Atlanta – Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale – Fort Lauderdale to Panama. The plane was pushed away from the gate on time.

That was the last thing that happened on schedule.

The plane was towed back to the gate because of a thunderstorm in Atlanta, our first connection. We were unloaded and spent our quality terminal time scheduling a new Fort Lauderdale connection.

We finally arrived in Atlanta where we got our aerobic exercise running between terminals and out to the main terminal futilely seeking a better way to Fort Lauderdale. Then our existing connection was delayed. Game Over.

We arrived in Fort Lauderdale 2 hours after our Panama flight left. Luckily there are some problems money can solve. We have a Friday flight to Panama. In retrospect I should have booked the expensive, but direct Houston – Panama flight.

Now for the rant: How does a 30 minute thunderstorm delay a flight for 3 hours – especially one that doesn't take off until 7 hours after the storm is over? Proof of a system far too complex. I sometimes worry there are too many other complex systems in society just waiting for a storm.

Another 48 hours and we will be leaving many of those complexities behind, at least for a few weeks.

Heading for Panama

We have begun a new journey in our continuing retirement.

During the next 6 weeks we will tour Panama using Boquete as our southern base of operations, while continuing to use Houston as our "northen base". Our youngest son, Theron, has shared his home with us and has yet to show any tendency toward pushing us out of the nest -although, we have left him (sometimes for weeks at a time) to go on assorted junkets.

We were drawn to Boquete because of it's reputation as the best place to retire in the western hemisphere (Go ahead and Google the previous 8 words!). A small town in the mountain highlands of Panama, it is still just an hour's bus ride to the beach. In Miami last year we were 2 buses and a train ride from the beach so this seems easy. I'll report back on the ease after our first down-the-mountain bus ride.

For now we have plane tickets in hand and a 5 night reservation in a cheap room in the center of Boquete. Our hope is to find an apartment or small house for a month and after that maybe a beach cottage for the final week.

Should this first extended tour go well, we hope to repeat and lenghten the next with forays into neighboring countries. I already hear a whisper of the siren call from Ambergris Caye in Belize.