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 29th 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.
Comments(0) 
A couple of years ago while visiting Taboga with most of my family, I was saddened to see the demolition of the old Hotel Taboga which had been there for many years. From what the locals said, which was only reinforced with an Internet search, a new resort, or condos, were going to be built. And on Isla Morro, a new marina. I knew that if this really happened to the extent I was told it was, it would completely change this quiet island. I recently had the opportunity to return to Taboga, and to see any changes firsthand. There were some, but not in the way I had thought. The launch to the island is still on the Causeway, to the right of Mi Ranchito Restaurante. You know you’re in the right area once you see the propeller with TABOGA written on it. This is the old Hotel Taboga propeller sign that stood outside of the former hotel for years. Now it has been repainted.
The ticket office has been moved from its own separate office. It was around the corner from the snack / drink area, but now it’s all under one roof. As I waited to board the ferry, I glanced around the bay to see which boat would be taking us. I saw the Calypso Queen, and the Fantasia del Mar. But the launch we went on was new to me; the Calypso King. It was pretty much the same as the other boats with two decks for sitting and viewing. The ride was typical, as was the landing at the pier on Taboga.
