Monthly Archives: April 2011

We’re just starting the rainy season here. A little rain each day after weeks of none at all. And yesterday we had our first real drenching downpour in a long time.

Wednesday morning started wet and dreary. Rain and then fog. I usually meet with a group of gringos who get together on Wednesday mornings to practice speaking Spanish with each other, but with the fog cutting visibility down to about a hundred yards at 8:30 I wasn’t about to risk the bus ride down the mountain. Bummed me out because I would be missing my third session in a row. However things cleared up around 10 and I went down to David to do some grocery shopping.

When I got back to the house around 3:30 it was raining pretty heavily and there was no power at the house. This isn’t too unusual around here when it’s raining so I gave it little thought. But as afternoon turned to dusk and still no lights I began to worry and then when I saw lights in the houses below and above me I was a little peeved. Fortunately I have a couple of lanterns and the stove uses gas so I was able to eat. Of course there was no internet connection and I get testy when I can’t get online at will. I like to read and there are some books here at the house I’ve never read so I wasn’t at a complete loss for something to do and I ripped through The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz. It’s about seven prisoners who escaped from a Siberian camp in the Soviet Gulag just at the beginning of the Second World War. They walked from the camp near the Arctic Circle to India. They walked  across the Gobi Desert. Eventually four of them made it to India.

In the morning I went to the home of Feli and Alba, my nearest neighbors and asked if they’d had lights the night before. Alba said they had and then went into the house and returned with my light bill in her hand and an attitude of “oh, here.” The bill was 30 days past due and the power had been shut off. Now here in Panama the bill is hand delivered since there is no mail delivery. There are no real addresses, either. My electric bill in Boqueron had an address of “the two-story house near the health clinic.” (You’ve got to love that.) Here in Potrerillos the bill is given to Feli who then passes it on to me, but right now he’s working off in the mountains planting tomatoes and Alba…well, who knows.

Anyway, I hightailed it down to Dolega where I paid the $48.36 due and a reconnection fee of $10.99. The woman at the Union Fenosa branch office said the electricity should be on by the time I returned home. Well, it wasn’t. I called the company around 1:30 in the afternoon and they said it should be turned on by 3:30. It wasn’t. I called again at 4:00 and was assured I’d have power soon. Then came our downpour for the next couple of hours. I called again at a quarter to six and was told the man who reconnects the power doesn’t work after six.

So, another night without lights. I listened to Bryce Courtney’s Brother Fish on my iPod until the battery died and then ripped through The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby before turning in for the night.

Now, I’m getting a little worried because everything in the freezer is starting to thaw out. Not a good situation because there’s a lot of food there and I sure can’t eat it all before it goes bad.

This morning, at 9:30 the power got turned on again. Whew. Most of the stuff in the freezer is a bit soft but we’ll just see how things develop.

Well, today, just before noon I completed the Panamanian Driver’s License saga.

I arrived at the license bureau in David at about a quarter to 10 to stand at the end of a long line. On a previous visit I’d asked the guard at the door if there was a day or time that was better than others. He said there wasn’t. You just had to take your chances.

The line actually moved quite rapidly, my papers were all in order and accepted and then I simply had to wait to be called. That took about an hour and a half. Quick photo followed by an eye test and immediately afterwards a hearing test. Go pay $40 and wait again for about 20 minutes and there it was. In living color with an absolutely horrid photo but done and done. I’m now eligible to take part in the demolition derby known as Panamanian traffic.

To be honest, the Florida DMV could take lessons from the office here in David. They were courteous and efficient and a lot easier to deal with.

I finished my trip to Panamá shortly after six p.m. last night when I unlocked the door to the house on the side of the mountain. I accomplished everything I wanted to do in a whirlwind of activity.

Sunday took the bus to the city and checked in to La Jungla House Hostel at the edge of the El Cangrejo (The Crab)  neighborhood which is where I have always stayed when in The City. It’s full of good restaurants and it’s probably one of the safest areas there, too. I can’t find a home page for the hostel but just Googling it will bring up dozens of hostel booking sites where you can check it out for yourself.

Hostels aren’t hotels and you have to accept that by hotel standards hostels are generally dumps. However hostels have some advantages over hotels which is why I prefer to stay in them. They are generally less expensive than hotels, especially if you’re willing to take a bed in one of the dorm-type rooms which I’m not. Dorm room = $10 Private Room $28. But I had A/C and a ceiling fan. The bed was comfortable and being at the back of the facility it was quiet.

Downside: shared bathroom. It was very clean but only cold water shower and sometimes when you REALLY gotta GO, someone else is using the place so you search for one of the other bathrooms which might be empty.

La Jungla is on the sixth floor (5th by their reckoning) and on Monday afternoon and evening the elevator was out of order. HUGE bummer!

They have a big kitchen and a lot of the really budget guests cooked their meals there. They have a GREAT, FREE, pancake breakfast. A local girl comes in and cooks them for everyone between 7:30 and 8:30. There is also a cooler where you can purchase a variety of cold drinks, sodas, Gatorade, beer, at reasonable prices or you can go to one of the “super minis” nearby and keep your stuff in the refrigerator.

What I like most about hostels is meeting the other guests. In a hotel you get your room, and unless there’s a bar/lounge in the hotel you never get to meet anyone else, and I’m not a bar/lounge habitue anyway. At La Jungla there were people from all over the world, but only one other old fart like myself. Here’s the lineup of guests I met there. They came from Brazil, Argentina, Israel, Australia, England, Wales, Sweden, Holland, Canada and a couple of other gringos who were in PC studying Spanish. The Canadian had ridden a bicycle from the US/Mexico border all the way to PC. He had 25 flat tires on his journey.

I got the the bus terminal Wednesday morning a little before 8 a.m. to find the line to the ticket counter for David stretching, no exaggeration, more than a city block long. It took an hour and twenty five minutes to get up to the counter to buy my ticket. I was absolutely positive that with all the people in line I wouldn’t get on a bus that would be leaving before the middle of the afternoon but was pleasantly pleased to be leaving on a bus only an hour later. One thing to remember on these nice, shiny new buses is that they are air conditioned and they love to crank it up full blast. Knowing this from previous trips I always carry a small travel blanket and it saved me yesterday.

We pulled into David at ten to five. The bus for Potrerillos Arriba leaves the terminal on the hour and there’s only one each hour. Fortunately my bag was one of the first unloaded and I was able to scramble up to my local bus gate and get on board about three minutes before it took off and I arrived back home at just after six o’clock, tired but satisfied with my little trip.

And that’s not pirate talk.

This morning, as every morning, I got up and fumbled around in the kitchen. Ground my Finca de Ruiz Tuesta Italiano beans to brew my morning eye-opener. Add water to the bottom part of the mocha pot, grounds in the funnel and set on the burner. The stove is gas and has an automatic lighting function. Click, click, clickclickclickclickclick. Nothing. Zero! Zip! Nada! Rien!

Minor irritation because I’m not caffeinated yet, and there are two 100 pound tanks out in the shed (it’s called a “deposito” here. I like that word. A place where you “deposit” the detritus of your life.)

So, I go out, switch from one tank to the other. Back at the stove…Click, click, clickclickclickclickclick. Nothing. Zero! Zip! Nada! Rien! Again!

Now THAT’S an Arrrrrgh moment.

It’s only 6:20 a.m. so it’s too early to call the gas people, but thank goodness there’s a microwave and a French Press and at least the electricity is working so I was able to get that first cup of coffee.

An hour later I called Tropigas and made arrangements to get the tanks changed. While I enjoy talking to the locals in Spanish I HATE talking on the phone. You don’t get the body language signs that you do when talking to someone face-to-face and waving your hands around in the air has absolutely NO IMPACT when you’re talking on the  phone.

Anyway, we got things worked out and supposedly Señor Kenny will be here around 2:30 this afternoon. I didn’t ask if that was ACTUAL time or PANAMANIAN time. Those are two entirely different things. We’ll see.