Night In Casco Viejo

Panama City is confusing in the way it names itself. As always in a Latin American country when the capital has the same name as the country itself, when referring to “Mexico” or “Guatemala” or “Panama” in that country you are speaking of the capital city. 

When we arrived at our apartment before we loaded GANNET2 into the container we took a look around our neighborhood in what is called Casco Viejo which means “Old Town.” I snagged a couple of pictures with my phone whose quality will explain why I prefer using my dedicated Lumix cameras. 

Casco Viejo refers to a promontory overlooking the Pacific dedicated to preserving the intricate colonial architecture of old town. It’s a tourist magnet and full of police whose job is to make you feel safe. 

You can buy Panama hats if unlike me you enjoy headgear (I find hat bands constricting). Panama hats are made in Ecuador but got their name from their use among workers building the American canal here in Panama. Americans saw hats being worn in Panama therefore Panama hats they were, country of origin notwithstanding. 

Casco Viejo is another work in progress in a country weighed down by large projects not making money as intended. One wonders how they will build a tourist economy with inadequate capital investment. 

Don’t confuse “Old Town” (Casco Viejo) with Old Panama (city) which is all part of the many similar names used in this city. Panama Viejo is a neighborhood and also refers to the ruins of the five hundred year old Spanish administrative center which may be in ruins now but once was busy with the export of silver to Spain and control of the Pacific Ocean sea for the Spanish monarchy. 

There was a road from the silver mines of Peru and Bolivia to the city of Portobello (beautiful harbor in Italian) on the Caribbean coast. It’s still there like an old Roman road where vast fortunes were carried to waiting ships for transport to Havana and from there to Cadiz. Panama has been a trading crossroads forever. Too bad our van repairs ate into our tourism time. 

We are paying $44 a night for a one bedroom with air conditioning and decent WiFi (note the number of pictures uploaded!) and a washing machine.  There is a Mr Precio supermarket nearby and the fire house is a block away. On Sunday evening we three fly to Colombia with Rusty in the cabin on Copa Airlines. 

I’m not sure what to think of this neighborhood that is trying to become gentrified. I can’t help but feel that we are displacing a potential local family that have lived in our apartment but at the same time the building wouldn’t be renovated if we weren’t paying for it. Does renovation matter? We’ve seen in Key West what gentrification has done for locals. 

Rusty started clicking around with his loud nails tapping on the tile floor at 5am so I knew my duty and got up and tried to stop ruminating about the meaning of travel. 

I know it’s dangerous to go out after dark but before you start having a fit consider this: I wasn’t drunk and looking for trouble, I had a large dog with me, and cops are everywhere. 

I met a group of cops standing around on night shift but as bored as they were they exhibited none of the curiousity or good humor or even malicious sense of humor I’ve seen around the world. Panamanians reek of insecurity and unhappiness and it’s a shame. I’ve had other travelers say the same to me and the unhappiness here is making us look forward to Colombia a country everyone seems to love. Below the sign reads “life is what happens while you are making plans.”  I enjoy the irony of these aphorisms when people tell me to be scared of Mexico or expect to die in Central America, but my plan is to live life to the fullest, to not waste a minute , to be true to myself on the dangerous road. Clearly if you are still here you know by now it’s not true in any blanket form, this road through Latin America is not inherently dangerous. 

No one expects a tourist out here at five am so one shouldn’t expect groups of bandits lying in wait for victims who will never appear. I saw a few early workers walking heads down to jobs that probably don’t thrill them. I got a few Panamanian smiles, those blank eyes and occasional sullen stares from the few that even acknowledged the gringo and dog ambling aimlessly. 

It’s funny because the people I have met here who are happy to be here are immigrants. I’ve met Venezuelans grateful for a new start from their messed up communist homeland, Costa Ricans happy to work here in more affordable Panama, and even Nicaraguans eager to escape the oppressive Sandinista political blanket of oppression but of Panamanians not very many cheerful ones have we met. 

After a lifetime of struggling to make a life I’m glad I followed my own desires which led me here to this road. But I’m also glad I earned the pension that freed me in Key West. I used to like the sidewalk greetings between strangers, the briefest of acknowledgements that we were there and perhaps glad to be there at that moment in the Keys. We said “hi!” to each other, strangers passing on a sidewalk acknowledging the good fortune that is being alive and in Key West. The more I travel the more grateful I am to have spent my twenty years in the Keys at a time in a place where I could earn a living. 

One of the young Frenchmen at the container loading expressed astonishment that we were traveling in retirement. He said he wished his parents would do that. (Note to self I am old enough to be his father). What do they do? I asked. Nothing he said looking sad. I think that comes down to an absence of curiosity because that’s the quality that keeps us young. 

Some travelers who are already in Colombia, and loving it, said they invited family to visit in Medellin but they got no takers. Apparently the city enjoys a fearsome reputation still and yet every time we have talked to who has been there loves the place. 

We walked for half an hour or so without incident and when we got back to the apartment I engaged the deadbolt and eventually got to sleep some more. 

Just four more days in Panama. Excellent. 

“Don’t Urinate” but the smell said people were ignoring the request at this fine spot. Gentrification please! 

Loading A Promaster Into A Container

It feels like an ending. Really I should look at it as a beginning. Now that GANNET2 is gone I feel like one more wanderer hauling his crap around foreign countries on his back. From being a heroic driver crossing continents I am become a nuisance on the sidewalks, an obstruction, a mere pedestrian. It sucks. 

Sitting aboard my home staring downhill past the steering wheel was no fun at all. “Put your brakes on hard,” they told me. “All of them as hard as you can.” I had no idea what was happening or how precariously we were balanced nor how they had winched my 9400 pound van backward onto the flatbed.

There were four vehicles being loaded into two containers by the Overland Embassy, our shipping agents, on Wednesday and GANNET2 was by far the biggest.

Two forty foot high cube containers were awaiting us on a muddy patch of land near the container port of Colón on the Caribbean Coast of Panama. 

Dogs aren’t allowed in the loading area with reason as it is just an area of work and there is no waiting room or toilet or facility. So Layne and Rusty stayed in an apartment we have rented in Old Town (“Casco Viejo”) Panama City.

I stayed for dinner (chicken and ramen) then I wished the family good night and drive myself back to the Overland Embassy’s yard to prepare to convoy across country to Colón Wednesday before dawn. We will be walking Rusty around old Panama I hope between now and Sunday when we fly to Colombia. 

I had a hot sleepless night laying next to our rooftop air conditioner now sitting on our bed to make GANNET2 low enough to fit in the container. The other drivers, a Brazilian and two Frenchmen also admitted they spent part of the night wondering what they had forgotten. 

We gathered at the Puma gas station a little before six am. The SUVs occupants slept in tents, two on the ground and the Cherokee has a rooftop tent. I felt quite luxurious by comparison with time to take a shower and then all I had to do was close the doors and drive off while they folded tents and poles. We got in line and my orders to stay at the back as my vehicle was the largest and most visible. The road to Colón:

It’s 35 miles, an hour and the city of Colón is nowhere a tourist would want to visit. I didn’t feel much like being there myself. 

Our ominous container awaited, mouth open wide. We had to await the flatbed which would act as an elevator to raise our vehicles to container height. I was dry mouthed.  

Fortunately being French they thought coffee was of the essence and they were right. I had shut down GANNET2’s electrical systems and dried out the fridge and locked the door slightly ajar. Our Berkey water filter system is empty and we will be putting in new filters in Colombia. These young guys had a tailgate kitchen on which to brew. Lovely! Ça va!

The four musketeers:

The business of loading your vehicle in a container brings into sharp focus your helplessness and total loss of control. A large part of the pleasure of this journey is the absence of any deadlines outside influences or decision making not coming from you. Within the legal parameters of each country’s permitted length of stay, usually 90 days and sometimes 180, you are completely free to come and go as you please. This is where all that freedom stops dead. 

Yes I sat in the driver’s seat but all I did was idle the engine in neutral and turn the wheel as the loader instructed me. 

I had no idea how precariously we were perched on the end of the flatbed. He winched us onto the bed of the truck and I found myself on a sort of victory lap high in the air, engine idling and all brakes applied, as he maneuvered to line us up with the container. I can’t help but think a flat cement pad would have made this easier. I gave my camera to the French dude who very kindly took most of the pictures you see here of the loading process. The ones from the driver’s seat I obviously got with my phone. 

Porfirio, father of three, impatient as hell with my nerves, a native of Colón whose parents also live in the city got me into the container in one piece. 

The next problem was the MaxxFan that sticks up a few inches on the roof. To solve that we had planned to deflate the tires to about 15psi ( normally 65 front and 80 rear) to get inside the 8’6” high door. 

That was me lurching forward off the flat bed into the container as Porfirio interpreted the whistles and yells as everyone watched the corners to make sure we fit. It was a ballet perfectly executed. 

I unfolded the mirrors to watch the air coming out of the tires but to fit inside the mirrors had to come in. 

The Vermont registered Jeep Cherokee driven by the Brazilian family. They said it was embarrassing meeting people from the tiny state of Vermont on their travels as Green Mountain State people tried to connect with them asking which school they went to…no, no they said to the disappointed Vermonters, we are from Brazil.  Vermont is one of the few states to allow foreigners to register and insure cars which makes it popular for foreign overlanders.  

I crawled out the back. Porfirio slid dune the side somehow! I stepped off onto the flatbed. 

To amuse themselves they had me take a tour to the next vehicle for loading. 

Then we got a piece of paper authorizing us to leave the country without our vehicle and the loader put the official numbered seal on our numbered container. The seal can only be broken when we meet the container in the port at Cartagena after customs releases our vehicles. That’s a process that can apparently take several days. As usual. 

Allain checked to make sure all was well. I tried to stop worrying that I had left anything undone in the van. The fridge was dry and I had hung up a bunch of damned bags to keep humidity down over the next two weeks. I didn’t even take the keys with me- what’s the point? 

Goodbye GANNET2! Happy trails!

We climbed into the mini bus chartered by Overland Embassy and I was a passenger on the drive back to Panama City. Lovely for a change. 

It was a smooth operation in the end but the unknowns of this operation made me nervous. Having the biggest possible vehicle you can load into a container didn’t help. We are organizing Sergio our electrician to fly to Cartagena around the 24th to reinstall the a/c at which point we will drive for the Andes. 

It was after eleven am and I was tired and dozing off. Until we stopped for a break. 

Some people eat cold oatmeal for breakfast and Layne has started a variation of the classic Webb Chiles breakfast called overnight oats which is apparently fashionable. I fell back on a variation of a sausage and egg breakfast burrito at the Va y Ven (“come and go”) truck stop. That woke me up! 

Traffic in the capital city was ghastly but we got back in one piece to the Overland Embassy where I met an American in his fifties maybe, riding a BMW motorcycle to Argentina. I envied him his one day flight for the bike but the rest of the ride he can keep. I like it air conditioned van. 

I can’t wait to get it back.