The Lost Paradise of Panamá

…Panama was once my home,

From that place I had to roam,

Lovin’ women and drinkin’ rum,

But never too far from my gun…

That’s part of a song I’d heard many years ago. Between the lines I think it conveys two sides of Panama. One is a laid-back, easy going, slow-paced lifestyle, where eventually things get done.

The other is more dangerous. 

So why the contrast? That’s a question I have no answer to. Some theories maybe, but no answer so far…    

The first thing that struck me about Panama was its vibrancy and zest for life. From everything that grew around me, to the language, to the music and dance—to the very people and how they lived their daily lives.

On the one hand, there are caring, religious families, where every acquaintance is treated like a cousin and babies have a very special place. Always touched and adored at every bus stop, taxi stand, and on the street.

But on the other hand, there’s the crazy traffic where buses, taxis and everyone else drives fatalistically, as if they have no say in what they do. They might have a fender-bender. Or they might have their melon crushed by a diablo rojo, a city bus, racing down the street. If that happens, you can count on having your morbid picture, in color, on the front page of the morning newspapers. Add to that some corrupt government officials who’ve clawed their way up, grabbing whatever they can before being exiled—or jailed. All of which adversely affects families. The very things that people who care about each other don’t do. But yet, it happens.

Caring, honest people… but bars on windows? Even around whole patios?…

It was hard for me to understand this. How can a nation of people who care so much, and are so friendly, also be so scared about being robbed?

The short answer might be that most work extremely hard for what they have and they’ll do anything to protect it. No matter what. There are, unfortunately, opportunists that look for an easy mark, and not just tourists.

At night when I’d walked the maze of streets and alleys of Panama City, I’d see the very poor—the shirtless ones. They have no protective bars. Their beds are dirty pieces of cardboard. Their unwanted visitors are things that thrive in dark places, such as cockroaches. Some have been tempted to sell drugs, but they haven’t given in, even if their kids cry from hunger. They’ve passed a very difficult test. Many others have not been as strong.

I was dating my wife-to-be when her mother died in Purio. Herminia was only forty-nine. She was buried that day on a small hill with no marker. Afterwards, there were nine days of mourning, and the wearing of black for a year. There’s  an unwritten rule since the beginning of Time that the living take care of the dead since they obviously cannot do so themselves. No roofless, unforgotten graves. If you’re ever near a Panamanian as they approach a cemetery, you’ll see them make the sign of the cross. The deceased are not forgotten. I’d never seen that before, that daily reverence for those who’ve died.

Not long ago while on a visit, my wife’s uncle Joaquin passed away. He was eighty-five. My wife grew up around him as a teen, and played on the long sidewalks that separate the neighborhoods in the hilly San Miguelito district. It was a difficult funeral and I was not prepared in any way for what happened.

There are places in Panama where they handle funeral services in one complete, turnkey operation. In the chapel, they rolled Joaquin out in his casket. A small wooden lid was open, revealing his face beneath a pane of glass. Immediately, the family members crowded around and cried for almost an hour until the priest emerged. He performed the funeral rites, and closed the lid over Joaquin’s face for the last time.

His casket was slowly transported down a short roadway to the graveyard, and lowered into a waiting vault. Hovering around the open grave on the mounds of dirt were a couple of kids, maybe ten or twelve years old from the looks of them. As soon as Joaquin’s casket was completely lowered, these two kids pushed three chunks of concrete over the vault’s edges, one against the other. With tiny buckets of pre-mixed concrete and trowels, they began filling in any gaps connecting the pieces. Suddenly, Joaquin’s daughter collapsed. It took a couple of ammonia capsules to revive her.

And finally, thankfully, it was over. I have a difficult time in these situations and do not handle them well. I can with so many other things. But at the moment of saying goodbye to someone’s life, and everything they were, and all the stories they had inside that are lost forever…that is a difficult thing.

As it was with my mother’s passing earlier this year. 

We went back to the van, turned on the much-needed air, and pulled into that crazy PC traffic where it’s literally life and death every day. You’d think, and hope, that Time would stop for a moment—and give you a break. But of course, it doesn’t. As I glanced out the window, I noticed several of the extended family members who had come from as far away as Colon. Some weren’t healthy. At least one had diabetes. They were all walking or limping to the closest bus stop and preparing for a trip back to the Atlantic side.

As we drove to Chapala, all the homes with barred windows seemed to stick out. Was it necessary? Was it cultural? Was it so ingrained that it would never go away? I didn’t know. But one thing was certain. Those bars didn’t prevent the Grim Reaper from getting in.

Maria, my wife’s cousin, asked us to remove our funeral clothes and she immediately washed them outside. That evening, I caught a glimpse of my black pants and guayabera shirt blowing gently in the tropical breeze. It seems I still had a few things to learn about Panamanian culture.

We had visited Death at the cemetery that day. But by cleansing our clothes, Death would not be paying us a visit that night.      

There is a small, undated plaque in a miniature park on Taboga Island, just a few kilometers south of Panamá City on the Pacific side. Translated, this plaque reads:

The Island of Taboga (indigenous name) was discovered by Vasco Nuñez de Balboa in the year 1513, The population was founded by Father Hernando de Luque on the 29^th of June 1524 and baptized with the name of San Pedro (Saint Peter). Also, it’s called San Pedro of Taboga or Island of the Flowers.

I had never heard of Taboga prior to traveling to Panamá. I’d heard of something similar, the islands of Trinidad and Tobago off the coast of Venezuela.

But Ta-bo-ga?

No.

The first time I visited the island was at night. I was part of a group that hired the Fantasia del Mar, an open double-decked tour boat. At that time, tour boats of this kind were in the canal itself, at pier 18. The same place where I picked up my Mustang when I had it shipped over. I talked the captain of the Fantasia into letting me steer for awhile, until we got close to the Thatcher Ferry Bridge, also known as the Bridge of the Americas. I don’t remember a lot about that night, except that it was a smooth water ride, about forty-five minutes. I remember the covered pier once we arrived at Taboga, and walking along a moonlit beach. But it was dark, so I couldn’t see a lot. But I did see enough to be intrigued and to come back. And come back I did.

Over and over and over.

It’s no accident that when I started this blog, I started with Taboga. I thought it was a good beginning. And although I had spent several years as a computer consultant for Gateway, Word Press was new to me. My daughter Gissell, born in Santo Tomás Hospital, was instrumental in helping me through the process.

Taboga was one of the first places we visited as a family. An earlier Hotel Taboga was made of wood. And of course, there was the Hotel Chu near the village of San Pedro. At that time there were no entrance fees, or orange-colored bracelets, or paying to use the John, restroom, or water closet.

I came here numerous times. Mainly for the healing. Both physically, and mentally. Every time I came back from a mission I was marked up with cuts, scratches and sores from living weeks on end in the jungle. Taboga was always on my mind. The laid- back, worry-free island lifestyle; the soothing salt water of the Pacific, and the hot sun. All of this helped to heal my wounds in more ways than one.

I began to truly love this place. It had sidewalks—but no roads. A village with a school, church, stores, and homes. But no cars. You could see the skyscrapers of Panamá City in the distance—but yet, you were away from the craziness of PC life. Even the maritime climate was different.

My ranger buddy, Randy Shughart, was severally wounded on a training mission on the Atlantic side near Fort Sherman. An airburst training grenade from a M203 grenade launcher was accidentally discharged one evening during a night movement. It blew a chunk of meat out of Randy’s thigh. We weren’t able to medevac him until dawn the next day. I always wanted to take Randy to Taboga. I considered Taboga a healing island. An actual physical place you could go to and it would take your pain away—to a certain extent.

Randy did come back to Panamá, but we never made it to Taboga. And then on October 3, 1993, he was shot and killed near another ocean, the Indian, in the capital of Mogadishu, Somalia, along with several other operators and rangers. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. Now, more than ever, I wished I had taken Randy to Taboga, and even though I had lived in Panamá twice before as a soldier and a civilian, I longed to go back. I needed to go back.

The embarkation point has changed, and the mode of transportation over the years. Now it’s out of the canal and onto the Causeway, at Naos Island, and back to a double-decked tour boat–not a water taxi, called the Calypso Queen.

I can’t begin to express how much Taboga has meant to me over the years. To see it change, ever so little, was especially nice. It became something I could count on, and I knew the island like the back of my hand.

But of course, things eventually change. And that was the case with Taboga. While on yet another visit with my wife, daughters, and son-in-law, we settled into our rooms at Cerritos, on the opposite side of San Pedro from where Hotel Taboga was.

There were definitely changes, even from a year before. The pathways were wider. Small trucks trolled up and down the main thoroughfare. Hotel Chu was gone—turned into a disco. The overall atmosphere of the island felt different. It looked the same, but it wasn’t–from the village of San Pedro to the sandbar connected island of Isla Morro.

I really needed to see the beach and grounds that had become a second home to me. Feeling like a little kid, all of us walked over to where the entrance to the former hotel should have been. We cut in-between some buildings and entered on to the beach. Something wasn’t right. I approached a set of concrete stairs, stairs that had withstood dozens of years of Pacific sun and rain. Stairs I had walked up and down over the years many times. I stood on these very steps, and what I saw shocked me. In my wildest nightmares, I wasn’t prepared.

Before my feet in a pile of demolished rubble was Hotel Taboga. And not just the hotel, but everything that was associated with it. The covered shelters. The dance area. The pool (which I always thought was silly with an ocean in your backyard). The three-prop propeller/sign outside of the hotel. Even the peacocks. All gone.

I stood there, holding back tears, not knowing what to do or what to think. I couldn’t even talk.

What I saw in my mind at that point in time was an unspeakable atrocity. I’d made the mistake of thinking that this was my own little place to go to. Something like the lean-to I’d made in the South Dakota woods when I was a young boy. And over time, when the world seemed to have forgotten about this piece of real estate, I began to think of it as my own.

Big mistake. The world eventually remembers.

As I stood there, my body trembling, I heard a bird call, and it sounded like a peacock. I instinctively lifted my eyes, hoping against hope to see one of these regal birds making its way through the debris. Maybe even a bird I had befriended before. But no bird came into view.

Someone, I can’t remember who, said something to the effect of, “It’s okay, this is progress. A new resort will help the island out.”

THAT was the last thing I wanted to hear. Maybe it would. But if a new Decameron-style resort and marina was coming this way, it would totally destroy the lifestyle on the island.

I tried, at that moment, to see the good in this. But I didn’t find it. My eyes searched the debris field looking for a familiar object, still trying to adjust to what was in effect, a sucker punch to the gut. If I could just see the old hotel sign painted on a ship’s propeller.

In a matter of minutes, the reality of what I was looking at began to hit home. As my mind raced, I bent down and picked up a blue and white tile, probably from the demolished pool. I was thinking of taking a souvenir. Something from a time that would never be again.

And as I held that piece of tile and rolled it between my fingers, I began shaking my head. A few seconds later, the tile fell from my numb hand. I knew I couldn’t take it, or want it, or have anything to do with it. Someway, somehow, as I had told myself before, I needed to be thankful for the good times I did spend on Taboga.

That night while the kids checked out the island, my wife Elia and I hired a former chef from Hotel Taboga to cook corvina for us. He gave us some insight as to what the future plans of Taboga were. Afterwards, I roamed the island alone until my feet ached. One daughter said that maybe I needed to find another island. Maybe so. But I don’t know if I can. And maybe the resort will be better for the full-time residents.

I don’t know.

But my goodness, it’s hard to let go of a place that was, and is, so close to my heart.

The next day I was on the beach as the first ship of weekend visitors arrived. I was camped out near the steps that I had mentioned previously. A male Panamanian/Colombian set-up his umbrella and chair, and then did what I did the evening before. He climbed the old, familiar crumbling stairs to see good ol’ Hotel Taboga.

I watched him closely. He stopped. He turned left and right. Finally, he laid eyes on one of the umbrella vendors and he asked what was going on. I couldn’t hear everything, and there were a few colorful words that I won’t repeat, but the guy shoved his sunglasses onto his face, shook his head, swore, and walked back to his umbrella.

That afternoon I rode the Calypso back to Naos, one of the islands that make up the Causeway. As I disembarked and headed toward a large, thatched-roof restaurant for a well-needed serving of ceviche—that Taboga no longer offered, I saw it.

There it was, on a small parcel of grass, crisscrossed by sidewalks. Dug up from the old Hotel Taboga where one of the propellers had been buried since forever.

Here was the very propeller and sign that had announced to thousands of visitors– for decades– that you were entering a magical place. This was Taboga Territory. And here my old friend lay like a pile of rubbish.

It wasn’t right. Once again, I felt sucker-punched to the gut. How could this be? How could the sign be laying here, and not where it should be, out on the island where it belonged?

Although Taboga was “founded” and named by Balboa and a priest between 1513 – 1524, the indigenous have lived in the area long before. Here are a few other notable facts associated with this amazing island. I didn’t know these when I fell in love with Taboga.

Vasco Nuñez Balboa. Although already known by the local indigenous people, Balboa was the first Spaniard to see/discover the Pacific Ocean, and Isla Taboga. Panama’s currency is named after this early explorer. (One USD is also known as one Balboa).

The church in the village of San Pedro is recognized as one of the oldest, probably the second oldest, in the western hemisphere, still in use to this day. Natá, on the Panamanian mainland, is considered the oldest. Any claim to the oldest and still in use is difficult to document.

The Spaniard Francisco Pizarro built his ships on Taboga before sailing away on his conquest of the Inca Empire in South America. The ruins of Pizarro’s home still exists to this day.

The first saint in the western hemisphere, Santa Rosa de Lima, was born on Taboga. Her family later moved to what is now known as the country of Peru.

Attacked by pirates. Taboga was attacked several times. It’s close to the mainland, and the portal to Las Perlas, the Pearl Islands, where gold and pearls were and may still be hidden.

French Painter Paul Gauguin worked on the canal, and visited Isla Taboga. Supposedly, his abuela was Peruvian.

If you do go, I’m sure you’ll have a great time. But as for me, I’ll always remember Taboga the way is was.