Miss Heidi at The Pub
Day Five, Wednesday May 26th 2016
Enter Hurricane Heidi.
Our busy days begin. Heidi, one of Dawn’s best friends from Florida, just happened to be in the Caribbean. She was on a two month break from Abu Dhabi where she lives with her husband, Tom. He is an ex-fighter pilot who now contracts his services to the government there. During Ramadan, Heidi says, the whole country just about shuts down. Most of the ex-pats there send their wives away for two months since there is nothing for them to do.
I think they just want a two month break from the little woman.
Heidi doesn’t fit the description of the little woman. She is Dutch born with a Dutch father and an Indonesian mother. She spent her early years in Indonesia, then her family moved to Germany where she completed her education.
She is blonde haired and blue eyed, stands about 5’ 10,” and has the figure of a Playboy model. She could be a starter on the Swedish Bikini Team (if any of you are old enough to remember those commercials). She speaks at least five languages and can debate you in any subject of conversation. Oh, yes, she is an expert in martial arts and a master of yoga. She posts pictures of herself in painfully contorted poses, lifting her body off the mat with one had. I wouldn’t mess with this broad.
Originally we planned for Dawn to come to Panama with me, then Heidi would show up five days later. As you know, that didn’t work. Heidi came on Wednesday and Dawn flew in the next day.
We (Wes, Joyce and I) arrived in town plenty early to pick Heidi up. We needed to do a little grocery shopping, but I wanted to wait until after Heidi arrived. Heidi is a herbivore and I felt that she needed a chance to stock up on whatever it is that veggies eat. After our stop at the “super-market,” we headed to the airport.
(I use the term “super-market” loosely. I don’t want you to think we were shopping in a Safeway. In Panama a super-market is what we would call a mom and pop grocery store. Then there are super-minis which are more like a 7-11.)
Enter Hurricane Heidi.
Our busy days begin. Heidi, one of Dawn’s best friends from Florida, just happened to be in the Caribbean. She was on a two month break from Abu Dhabi where she lives with her husband, Tom. He is an ex-fighter pilot who now contracts his services to the government there. During Ramadan, Heidi says, the whole country just about shuts down. Most of the ex-pats there send their wives away for two months since there is nothing for them to do.
I think they just want a two month break from the little woman.
Heidi doesn’t fit the description of the little woman. She is Dutch born with a Dutch father and an Indonesian mother. She spent her early years in Indonesia, then her family moved to Germany where she completed her education.
She is blonde haired and blue eyed, stands about 5’ 10,” and has the figure of a Playboy model. She could be a starter on the Swedish Bikini Team (if any of you are old enough to remember those commercials). She speaks at least five languages and can debate you in any subject of conversation. Oh, yes, she is an expert in martial arts and a master of yoga. She posts pictures of herself in painfully contorted poses, lifting her body off the mat with one had. I wouldn’t mess with this broad.
Originally we planned for Dawn to come to Panama with me, then Heidi would show up five days later. As you know, that didn’t work. Heidi came on Wednesday and Dawn flew in the next day.
We (Wes, Joyce and I) arrived in town plenty early to pick Heidi up. We needed to do a little grocery shopping, but I wanted to wait until after Heidi arrived. Heidi is a herbivore and I felt that she needed a chance to stock up on whatever it is that veggies eat. After our stop at the “super-market,” we headed to the airport.
(I use the term “super-market” loosely. I don’t want you to think we were shopping in a Safeway. In Panama a super-market is what we would call a mom and pop grocery store. Then there are super-minis which are more like a 7-11.)
Heidi and Penn bend an elbow at The Pub
Wes and Joyce knew Heidi from their visits to Dawn in Florida. We watched the plane land and the people deplane.
There is only the slightest hint of security at the Bocas airport. The passengers climb down the staircase from the plane and walk across the tarmac to the little terminal. They walk into a small room where they wait for their baggage. There is only one “boarding gate” at the airport. No reason for two planes to be here at the same time.
I stood at the door and watched for Heidi to enter the room. There was no problem spotting her. This tall, blonde, Nordic goddess was surrounded by little brown people. The average Panamanian man must be about 5’ 4”, the women less than 5’. Heidi towered over everybody in the room. Her long blonde hair was put up in a bun, but there was no mistaking who she was.
She tore a muscle in her calf in Indiana. (I’m telling you, exercise is bad for your health!) It was mostly healed by now, but she still wore her immobilization boot. She couldn’t fit it in her suitcase.
We met with the requisite hugs, grabbed her luggage (No luggage carousels in Panama. They just slide the bags in through a small hole in the wall.) and climbed into Wes’s truck. Joyce took us to the Super Gourmet Market. There Heidi put in her supplies and I spent a surprisingly large amount of money ($60) on stuff that I wanted.
The Gourmet Market roasts chickens, so we picked one up for dinner. Unlike Costco, these are normal sized chickens. They come with half a chicken and roasted potatoes in one bag. We got two. That and a salad made an easy dinner.
Heidi let her moral high ground slip just a little and had some chicken with us.
Afterwards, we read a little, then headed for bed.
That’s when the hurricane struck. I was staying in the closet-sized guest room and Heidi got the loft with a queen-sized bed.
She turned in and climbed the ladder to the loft. All hell broke loose.
It seems that Miss Heidi is terrified of cockroaches and spiders. She, who has climbed the mountains in the Himalayas and sailed the fierce North Sea, was scared out of her mind at a tiny bug.
She immediately jumped back down the stairs and armed herself with bug spray and Off! You must understand that Heidi is a friend of the Earth. She won’t eat foods that have been genetically modified, been raised with chemical pesticides or throw away plastic bottles. Yet here she was, violating her dearest principles with unrestricted chemical anti-bug warfare.
She sprayed down her bedroom with so many chemicals that I could smell it in my room, with the door closed, on the first floor in an adjoining building.
There is only the slightest hint of security at the Bocas airport. The passengers climb down the staircase from the plane and walk across the tarmac to the little terminal. They walk into a small room where they wait for their baggage. There is only one “boarding gate” at the airport. No reason for two planes to be here at the same time.
I stood at the door and watched for Heidi to enter the room. There was no problem spotting her. This tall, blonde, Nordic goddess was surrounded by little brown people. The average Panamanian man must be about 5’ 4”, the women less than 5’. Heidi towered over everybody in the room. Her long blonde hair was put up in a bun, but there was no mistaking who she was.
She tore a muscle in her calf in Indiana. (I’m telling you, exercise is bad for your health!) It was mostly healed by now, but she still wore her immobilization boot. She couldn’t fit it in her suitcase.
We met with the requisite hugs, grabbed her luggage (No luggage carousels in Panama. They just slide the bags in through a small hole in the wall.) and climbed into Wes’s truck. Joyce took us to the Super Gourmet Market. There Heidi put in her supplies and I spent a surprisingly large amount of money ($60) on stuff that I wanted.
The Gourmet Market roasts chickens, so we picked one up for dinner. Unlike Costco, these are normal sized chickens. They come with half a chicken and roasted potatoes in one bag. We got two. That and a salad made an easy dinner.
Heidi let her moral high ground slip just a little and had some chicken with us.
Afterwards, we read a little, then headed for bed.
That’s when the hurricane struck. I was staying in the closet-sized guest room and Heidi got the loft with a queen-sized bed.
She turned in and climbed the ladder to the loft. All hell broke loose.
It seems that Miss Heidi is terrified of cockroaches and spiders. She, who has climbed the mountains in the Himalayas and sailed the fierce North Sea, was scared out of her mind at a tiny bug.
She immediately jumped back down the stairs and armed herself with bug spray and Off! You must understand that Heidi is a friend of the Earth. She won’t eat foods that have been genetically modified, been raised with chemical pesticides or throw away plastic bottles. Yet here she was, violating her dearest principles with unrestricted chemical anti-bug warfare.
She sprayed down her bedroom with so many chemicals that I could smell it in my room, with the door closed, on the first floor in an adjoining building.
My Kathleen Turner Arrives
Dawn was one tired puppy Day Six, Thursday May 27th 2016
First thing this morning, I asked Heidi if she slept well. Big mistake. She spent the night keeping the world safe from insects.
It seems that she spent the night sitting on her bed with a flashlight in one hand and the bug spray in the other. Every few minutes, she’d turn on the light to check for bugs, then she’d bomb them. She didn’t sleep a wink.
Did I mention that we’re living in a tropical rainforest? What do you find in a tropical rainforest besides palm trees and monkeys? That’s right, class, you find bugs, Millions and millions of them. They are everywhere. Joyce is an anti-bug fanatic and goes around with a can of Dos Tigres bug-spray, shooting at anything that moves, yet still they come. It’s like the Mongol hordes descending on China. There is no way to stem the tide.
My Kathleen Turner finally arrived today. Dawn was one tired puppy.
We drove to the airport to pick her up at 7:30 am. She flew from Seattle to San Diego on Tuesday. On Wednesday morning she boarded her plane at 7:30 for the flight to Panama. After almost twenty hours traveling, she waited four hours in the Panama City airport (until Allbrook field opened at 4 am) then took a taxi across town.
She got on the 6:30 Air Panama flight and arrived in Boca at 7:30. She traveled around twenty-four hours to get here.
This is after spending a week in Seattle tending to her cousin’s memorial. When she arrived there Shelly’s dad, Bill, told her “Are we glad to see you. You take care of all the arrangements.” They then left Dawn and her brother, Duane, to handle everything. She was exhausted when she boarded the plane in Seattle.
We took her home, dragged her bags upstairs and got her settled. She was so wired that she couldn’t take a nap and (I hesitate to admit in public) more than a little grouchy.
Joyce cooked us a steak dinner. I found a piece of dorado in the freezer for Heidi. We chatted for a while, then all melted off to bed. I read for a little, then turned in. Dawn was dead in the bed.
This is where I say that we all had a peaceful night and woke to a bright sunny morning, or not.
First thing this morning, I asked Heidi if she slept well. Big mistake. She spent the night keeping the world safe from insects.
It seems that she spent the night sitting on her bed with a flashlight in one hand and the bug spray in the other. Every few minutes, she’d turn on the light to check for bugs, then she’d bomb them. She didn’t sleep a wink.
Did I mention that we’re living in a tropical rainforest? What do you find in a tropical rainforest besides palm trees and monkeys? That’s right, class, you find bugs, Millions and millions of them. They are everywhere. Joyce is an anti-bug fanatic and goes around with a can of Dos Tigres bug-spray, shooting at anything that moves, yet still they come. It’s like the Mongol hordes descending on China. There is no way to stem the tide.
My Kathleen Turner finally arrived today. Dawn was one tired puppy.
We drove to the airport to pick her up at 7:30 am. She flew from Seattle to San Diego on Tuesday. On Wednesday morning she boarded her plane at 7:30 for the flight to Panama. After almost twenty hours traveling, she waited four hours in the Panama City airport (until Allbrook field opened at 4 am) then took a taxi across town.
She got on the 6:30 Air Panama flight and arrived in Boca at 7:30. She traveled around twenty-four hours to get here.
This is after spending a week in Seattle tending to her cousin’s memorial. When she arrived there Shelly’s dad, Bill, told her “Are we glad to see you. You take care of all the arrangements.” They then left Dawn and her brother, Duane, to handle everything. She was exhausted when she boarded the plane in Seattle.
We took her home, dragged her bags upstairs and got her settled. She was so wired that she couldn’t take a nap and (I hesitate to admit in public) more than a little grouchy.
Joyce cooked us a steak dinner. I found a piece of dorado in the freezer for Heidi. We chatted for a while, then all melted off to bed. I read for a little, then turned in. Dawn was dead in the bed.
This is where I say that we all had a peaceful night and woke to a bright sunny morning, or not.
Our HARD concrete house
Okay, back to the story. We settled into bed for a good night’s rest.
I haven’t slept well since a couple of years before Connie died. I was up with her at least every hour helping her to the bathroom, administering medication, cleaning her up or making a peanut butter sandwich for her. After she died, I never got back to my normal sleeping pattern.
So I awoke at about 2 am. I tossed and turned for an hour or so, then decided to read. What do you need when you’re reading in the middle of the night? Cookies of course.
Our room is in a small building off the main house. The deck that surrounds the house provides a walkway from our room to the main house.
When Dawn dropped dead in our bed, she had the flashlight in her hands. I didn’t want to wake her by wrestling it away from her, so I went on my mission in the dark. I mean, Indiana Jones wouldn’t need a flashlight, would he?
I crept down the walkway, into the house and found my cookies. On the way back to bed, I stepped out the door and felt for the wall to my room. It was right in front of me.
Or was it? I stepped into space and let out a blood curdling scream. (Dawn says I screamed like a little girl, but we all know I’m much too macho for that.) Then I plunged down the flight of concrete stairs.
I felt my wrist buckle underneath me as I bounced down the stairs. At the bottom, I did “face meets concrete 2.0.”
The household awoke. From out of somewhere Dawn was asking “Do you need help?”
“Get a light,” I screamed. I needed to look at my body and see what kind of damage I’d done.
It was raining and I lay there on the cold, wet landing, unable to get up. I saw a light. You know that they tell you to walk towards the light when you die. I was a goner.
Dawn examined my body with the flashlight as she knelt next to me. “Are you all right?”
“Don’t know.”
She helped me to my feet and into our room. I flopped down onto the bed. Everything hurt.
Did I dare go to sleep? You’re not supposed to let a concussion patient go to sleep. But it was the middle of the night and Dawn hadn’t slept in something like forty-eight hours. I couldn’t keep her up. I eventually drifted off to sleep.
So you see, I’m not accident prone, just the victim of circumstances.
Dawn just told Cesar (the gardener) that I’m accident prone. I object to that characterization. I’m more what you would call a victim of circumstances.
Take for instance, the boatyard. If you’ve been reading along, you know we had two months of hell cleaning, prepping and painting the Victory before we left.
As we were cleaning up on our last day, I was victimized. I was picking up tools while Dawn put the last splash of paint on the transom. The boat was completely cloaked in tarps because the boat yard workers had sanded and painted the bottom and the good state of California doesn’t want any of the noxious chemicals to get into the water.
I gathered up a paint tray, roller and a couple of paint brushes. I walked under the Victory’s hull picking up masking tape. As I stepped out from under the tarp, I was very careful not to get my feet caught in the draping tarps.
As I cleared the tarp and began to walk away, the mischievous tarp reached out and grabbed my ankle. I stumbled forward a few paces, then did a face plant on the concrete pad in the boatyard. I put my hands out to break my fall, but all I managed to break was my dignity.
I fell forward, smashing my left cheek into the concrete. I saw stars. I know I screamed because somewhere in the distance I heard someone yell, “Are you all right?”
I couldn’t answer. Pain exploded through my head, my left wrist felt broken. I couldn’t breathe much less get up.
This would be an appropriate time to tell you how dirty boat yards are. There must have been a half inch of dust, old bottom paint and just general goop on the deck. My face came up covered in blue paint that someone had sanded off their hull in about 1935. I was covered from head to foot in yuck.
But that wasn’t my biggest worry at that moment. People came running, forming a little circle around me. They were all talking and asking questions. I couldn’t answer them. Then, like Alita in the old country western song El Paso, Dawn was there, kneeling at my side.
“Are you OK?” she asked. “What happened?”
I managed to gasp “No.”
Someone showed up and put something under my head.
“Do I need to call 9-1-1?” Dawn asked.
“Yes. No. Take me to emergency.” I don’t know where those words came from. I certainly wasn’t thinking at the time.
I lay on the ground for a few minutes, then Dawn was back. She and a couple of guys helped me to my feet and into the truck.
The bottom line is that I had a concussion and a badly sprained wrist. They gave me a removable cast and I was ordered to a few days of bed rest. As you know I got the rest by taking the boat back to Chula Vista, spending a couple days working on it, then driving Dawn to the airport.
All of this was to show you that I was only the victim of circumstances. It was really not my fault.
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The view from the front deck
Day Three, Monday, May 24th 2016
There is not much to do at Casa Tallman except relax. There is no phone service (cell signal) and no Internet. We are down on the beach with hills around us blocking the signals.
Wes and Joyce read a lot. I got up and discovered that there was no decaf in the house. Luckily, I brought my bag of Starbucks from San Diego. I had “toast” for breakfast. They eat what they call “Johnny cakes” with peanut butter and jam every morning.
The Johnny cake (that’s what the Panamanians call them too) are like a cross between a bagel and pita bread. They are about six inches in diameter and an inch thick. Wes and Joyce slice them into three pieces and toast them on a grill on their propane stove.
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t like a camping stove. It’s a six-burner range with an oven. The fuel source is a propane tank in the cabinet in the island.
There is not much to do at Casa Tallman except relax. There is no phone service (cell signal) and no Internet. We are down on the beach with hills around us blocking the signals.
Wes and Joyce read a lot. I got up and discovered that there was no decaf in the house. Luckily, I brought my bag of Starbucks from San Diego. I had “toast” for breakfast. They eat what they call “Johnny cakes” with peanut butter and jam every morning.
The Johnny cake (that’s what the Panamanians call them too) are like a cross between a bagel and pita bread. They are about six inches in diameter and an inch thick. Wes and Joyce slice them into three pieces and toast them on a grill on their propane stove.
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t like a camping stove. It’s a six-burner range with an oven. The fuel source is a propane tank in the cabinet in the island.
The kitchen
Their kitchen stretches the entire width of the house. A long cabinet with a marble countertop goes from wall to wall. Under the countertop are numerous drawers, but there are no overhead cabinets.
Why? You ask. Because the louvered windows on the back side of the house open up to allow the breeze to flow freely through. This is about the ultimate “open concept” house you can find. The dining room is in front of and to the right of the kitchen. A steep ladder leads to a loft with a queen-sized bed and armoire.
Beneath the loft is the sitting area with a couch (tropical style, of course), a love seat, a chair and a coffee table. This is also where the old analog TV lives. Or sits I should say. It died some time ago and hasn’t been replaced. There is no television signal out here, so the only thing you can watch are DVDs.
The concrete pad takes up about 5000 square feet. The closed in portion only uses about half of that. The rest of the house is outside. Big white pillars hold up the roof and the terracotta tiled floor surrounds the house, fills the causeway and surrounds the bedroom.
The deck has tropical lounge furniture. It’s great for watching a tropical storm rumble over us or just watching the ocean.
Why? You ask. Because the louvered windows on the back side of the house open up to allow the breeze to flow freely through. This is about the ultimate “open concept” house you can find. The dining room is in front of and to the right of the kitchen. A steep ladder leads to a loft with a queen-sized bed and armoire.
Beneath the loft is the sitting area with a couch (tropical style, of course), a love seat, a chair and a coffee table. This is also where the old analog TV lives. Or sits I should say. It died some time ago and hasn’t been replaced. There is no television signal out here, so the only thing you can watch are DVDs.
The concrete pad takes up about 5000 square feet. The closed in portion only uses about half of that. The rest of the house is outside. Big white pillars hold up the roof and the terracotta tiled floor surrounds the house, fills the causeway and surrounds the bedroom.
The deck has tropical lounge furniture. It’s great for watching a tropical storm rumble over us or just watching the ocean.
I just had to go back to the islands I’m reminded of a Jimmy Buffet song.
“Watch the tide roll in,
And the sun go down.
I just hope you understand I just had to go back to the islands.”
Did I mention that we’re only about fifty feet from the beach? Cesar is the groundskeeper and he maintains a nice open yard dotted with palm and deciduous trees. A brief walk from the front of the house and you’re standing in the sand.
At last, I am in the Caribbean Sea. I have dreamed about this since I was a teenager. I read all of the Horatio Hornblower books, all the Bolitho Books and the complete Patrick O’Brien series. Many of my heroes’ adventures take place in the Caribbean Sea, the Spanish Main of yore.
I’ve wanted to sail these storied waters and see the places my favorite characters lived. Unfortunately, I came by plane and the Victory stayed home. Hmmm . . . now we’re considering whether or not we should sail her through the canal and down here.
I was exhausted. After two months solid of working on the boat and moving, I had nothing left in the tank. My first day in Bocas was mostly napping. I took two long naps and sat around and read for most of the day.
“Watch the tide roll in,
And the sun go down.
I just hope you understand I just had to go back to the islands.”
Did I mention that we’re only about fifty feet from the beach? Cesar is the groundskeeper and he maintains a nice open yard dotted with palm and deciduous trees. A brief walk from the front of the house and you’re standing in the sand.
At last, I am in the Caribbean Sea. I have dreamed about this since I was a teenager. I read all of the Horatio Hornblower books, all the Bolitho Books and the complete Patrick O’Brien series. Many of my heroes’ adventures take place in the Caribbean Sea, the Spanish Main of yore.
I’ve wanted to sail these storied waters and see the places my favorite characters lived. Unfortunately, I came by plane and the Victory stayed home. Hmmm . . . now we’re considering whether or not we should sail her through the canal and down here.
I was exhausted. After two months solid of working on the boat and moving, I had nothing left in the tank. My first day in Bocas was mostly napping. I took two long naps and sat around and read for most of the day.
The dining room Day Four, Tuesday May 25th 2016
I spent most of the day learning how things work, then we went into town.
When I say we live off the grid in the middle of a tropical rain forest, I’m not kidding. There is no electricity, no water here. We have to be self-sufficient.
This morning Wes went over the water and electrical systems with me.
There are two large cisterns under the eaves of the house. When it rains, the water runs off the roof into a gutter where it is channeled to the cisterns. I’m guessing that the cisterns hold about a thousand gallons of water. We are at the beginning of the rainy season, so the cisterns were down to about half of their capacity.
In the “basement” under the house is the mechanical room. There is a water pump that pulls the water from the cisterns and fills a holding tank. When you turn on a faucet in the house, the water in the tank is pressurized and flows. The pump senses the drop in pressure and comes on to keep the pressure in the lines. No pump, no water.
How is the pump driven? Oh yes, by electricity. There is an array of solar panels on the roof that produce about one thousand watts. A bank of batteries and a bunch of boxes and switches direct the flow into the house.
The batteries store twenty-four volt electricity. There is an inverter that converts the twenty-four volt juice to one hundred and ten volt, just like you have in your house.
On the wall in the kitchen there is an electrical system monitor. It tells you how much juice you have in the batteries, how much is coming in from the solar array and how much you are using at the present time.
For the first ten or twelve years they lived here, Wes and Joyce had propane refrigerators. They were cranky, broke down often, then died early deaths (the fridges, not Wes and Joyce). Wes finally got fed up with them, joined the Twenty-First Century and bought an electric refrigerator.
It works just fine, but it’s an electricity hog. Now the solar array just barely powers the house. Wes bought a gasoline generator that we have to run every couple of days to top off the system. He’s contemplating buying another thousand volts of solar panels to provide the extra electricity the fridge takes.
I spent most of the day learning how things work, then we went into town.
When I say we live off the grid in the middle of a tropical rain forest, I’m not kidding. There is no electricity, no water here. We have to be self-sufficient.
This morning Wes went over the water and electrical systems with me.
There are two large cisterns under the eaves of the house. When it rains, the water runs off the roof into a gutter where it is channeled to the cisterns. I’m guessing that the cisterns hold about a thousand gallons of water. We are at the beginning of the rainy season, so the cisterns were down to about half of their capacity.
In the “basement” under the house is the mechanical room. There is a water pump that pulls the water from the cisterns and fills a holding tank. When you turn on a faucet in the house, the water in the tank is pressurized and flows. The pump senses the drop in pressure and comes on to keep the pressure in the lines. No pump, no water.
How is the pump driven? Oh yes, by electricity. There is an array of solar panels on the roof that produce about one thousand watts. A bank of batteries and a bunch of boxes and switches direct the flow into the house.
The batteries store twenty-four volt electricity. There is an inverter that converts the twenty-four volt juice to one hundred and ten volt, just like you have in your house.
On the wall in the kitchen there is an electrical system monitor. It tells you how much juice you have in the batteries, how much is coming in from the solar array and how much you are using at the present time.
For the first ten or twelve years they lived here, Wes and Joyce had propane refrigerators. They were cranky, broke down often, then died early deaths (the fridges, not Wes and Joyce). Wes finally got fed up with them, joined the Twenty-First Century and bought an electric refrigerator.
It works just fine, but it’s an electricity hog. Now the solar array just barely powers the house. Wes bought a gasoline generator that we have to run every couple of days to top off the system. He’s contemplating buying another thousand volts of solar panels to provide the extra electricity the fridge takes.
The front deck
After learning about the various systems, we drove into town. Remember the pot-hole filled road I described before, the one that has Chuck holes that could swallow a Kia? That’s the road into town. It should be a half-hour drive (We’re twenty some miles out in the jungle) but with the poorly maintained road, it takes from forty-five minutes to an hour, depending upon your appetite for a rough ride. If you drive fast, you’ll tear the suspension out of your car (I mean truck).
After the washout, the road improves. There are still some pot holes, but you can usually swerve around them. Traffic is so light, it’s no problem driving in the other lane.
At the end of our road, we turn right onto the main road and drive along the beach for several miles into town.
Entering Bocas del Toro Town (Or Bocas Town, as the locals call it), you first see some rundown looking shacks. Then there are a couple of large restaurant/bars along the beach that look like they’re long past their best days. Then you come to a bunch of empty vendors stands.
This is the fair grounds. While the fair is in session they close the road (the only road going out of town to the north end or the Bluff Beach area) and have a party. Cars wanting to go into town have to drive on the beach.
After the fairgrounds, there is a plywood arch over the road welcoming you to Bocas. Wes said he thought there were about seven or eight thousand people in Bocas Town, but my guide books says it’s more like twenty-thousand. This is the biggest (and only) town in the islands.
Wes gave me the tour, showing me how to get to the airport, the bank, where the grocery stores are and the best restaurants.
The only problem was, that I was so jet lagged and turned around, I had no idea where I was. We stopped at the Gourmet Market, a little shop at the extreme end of town, across from the ferry dock. It was surprisingly stocked with all sorts of American brands. I saw that they had decaf there and grabbed a bag.
Let me tell you about Panamanian coffee. The people I talked to are all excited about their coffee. The best in the world they say. My favorite coffees are the Pacific Island coffees. They are robust (some say too strong) and full of the earthy flavors of the volcanic soil. The Panamanian coffee is kind of like warm, brown water.
After the confusing tour of town and a Margarita at the Pub, we headed home. The temperatures are in the low 80’s, but the humidity is 100%. My clothes stuck to my body and sweat covered me head to foot.
Wes had a doctor’s appointment in David (pronounced Dah-veed) the second largest city in Panama, just across the isthmus from Bocas, tomorrow. We took him to the airport so he could make his morning appointment, then headed back to the house for a quiet evening.
Our (private) beach
When we got home, the only solution to the sweat problem was to go swimming. I headed down to the beach and walked west until I was past the area with rocks to a nice sandy bottom. I was a bit cautious at first. I hadn’t swum in the ocean in years.
The waves were about two feet high and broke just before the shoreline. I waded out a few feet, up to my ankles, then a wave lifted me and pushed me back ashore. The next time I waded out and dove into the wave.
It was unbelievably refreshing. The water was the same temperature as the air, but it felt cool and invigorating. The beach drops off incredibly fast. A few steps into the water and I couldn’t touch bottom. I swam out about a quarter mile to get out of the breakers close to shore.
It was heaven. I lay in the water, contemplating the meaning of life. I did my water aerobics exercises. I swam like a kid on summer break.
The waves were about two feet high and broke just before the shoreline. I waded out a few feet, up to my ankles, then a wave lifted me and pushed me back ashore. The next time I waded out and dove into the wave.
It was unbelievably refreshing. The water was the same temperature as the air, but it felt cool and invigorating. The beach drops off incredibly fast. A few steps into the water and I couldn’t touch bottom. I swam out about a quarter mile to get out of the breakers close to shore.
It was heaven. I lay in the water, contemplating the meaning of life. I did my water aerobics exercises. I swam like a kid on summer break.
My first view of Casa Tallman
Day Two, Sunday, May 23rd 2016
I awoke around 11 am. My stay included a free breakfast, so I got dressed and headed down to the restaurant to see if they were still serving.
It was late for breakfast and I was the only one in the restaurant. I gave the server my breakfast coupon and she disappeared.
Sometime later, she showed up again (remember, we’re now on Panama time. No one is rushed.) with a plate holding scrambled eggs and two slices of ham luncheon meat. The eggs were hardly edible and the ham was worse. Oh, well, it filled the hole.
This is where I mention that no one serves decaf in Latin America. Because of my Minuere’s Disease, I can’t drink caffeine. If I don’t brew it here, I don’t drink it.
After a leisurely breakfast (who’s rushed with this kind of food?), I headed back upstairs to pack. It didn’t take long, all I’d used was my toothbrush and a pair of jammies.
The hotel has a free shuttle to the airport. My flight into Panama was to their main airport. The puddle jumper I took to Bocas flew out of a little airport on the other side of town. I asked the shuttle to take me to Albrook Field and they told me they didn’t go there, only to the main airport.
I made my first Panamanian error. I had them call me a cab and I didn’t ask the driver how much it would cost. When we got to the airport, he wanted $48. Wes tells me it should never cost more than $35. These are US prices.
One of the nice things about Panama is that they use US currency, so there’s no math involved in figuring out how much something costs.
I awoke around 11 am. My stay included a free breakfast, so I got dressed and headed down to the restaurant to see if they were still serving.
It was late for breakfast and I was the only one in the restaurant. I gave the server my breakfast coupon and she disappeared.
Sometime later, she showed up again (remember, we’re now on Panama time. No one is rushed.) with a plate holding scrambled eggs and two slices of ham luncheon meat. The eggs were hardly edible and the ham was worse. Oh, well, it filled the hole.
This is where I mention that no one serves decaf in Latin America. Because of my Minuere’s Disease, I can’t drink caffeine. If I don’t brew it here, I don’t drink it.
After a leisurely breakfast (who’s rushed with this kind of food?), I headed back upstairs to pack. It didn’t take long, all I’d used was my toothbrush and a pair of jammies.
The hotel has a free shuttle to the airport. My flight into Panama was to their main airport. The puddle jumper I took to Bocas flew out of a little airport on the other side of town. I asked the shuttle to take me to Albrook Field and they told me they didn’t go there, only to the main airport.
I made my first Panamanian error. I had them call me a cab and I didn’t ask the driver how much it would cost. When we got to the airport, he wanted $48. Wes tells me it should never cost more than $35. These are US prices.
One of the nice things about Panama is that they use US currency, so there’s no math involved in figuring out how much something costs.
Air Panama Flight 457
I sat in the waiting area and took out my Kindle. Before I could get started reading, an Air Panama worker came over and told me the plane was boarding. I hustled to catch up with the other passengers.
There were only eight of us on the plane. Since we were all seated and ready to go, the pilot took off half an hour early.
The flight to Bocas was on a twin engine, high-winged turbo-prop plane. The seats were infinitely more comfortable than the Airbus and you actually got the sensation of flying. I wanted to see if I could slip the pilot twenty bucks to let me fly the plane.
We took off and soon were out of the city. Below me, jungle spread out as far as the eye could see. We hugged the coastline all the way to Bocas. It was a pleasant one-hour flight. I enjoyed watching the scenery go by. We only flew at about five thousand feet, so the visibility was great.
As we got over the islands of the Bocas del Toro Archipelago I took particular notice. The area around the islands is littered with sandbars and reefs. Being a deep draft boat, we would have to be especially careful if we ever brought the Victory here.
By the time we landed, I was desperate to find a bathroom. There were two ladies at a table checking people in. I walked past them to find the facilities, expecting to come back and check in after my stop.
When I got back, Wes and Joyce were there waiting for me.
“I’ll be just a minute” I said, “I have to pick up my bag.”
An Air Panama employee heard me and said “Over here.” He had my bag waiting outside the check in area.
I tell you this because they charged every visitor that got off the plane $3 for a garbage fee. Wes suspects that the proceeds go directly to the mayor’s slush fund, because he’s never seen any money spent on improving the dump. I did not contribute to the graft.
There were only eight of us on the plane. Since we were all seated and ready to go, the pilot took off half an hour early.
The flight to Bocas was on a twin engine, high-winged turbo-prop plane. The seats were infinitely more comfortable than the Airbus and you actually got the sensation of flying. I wanted to see if I could slip the pilot twenty bucks to let me fly the plane.
We took off and soon were out of the city. Below me, jungle spread out as far as the eye could see. We hugged the coastline all the way to Bocas. It was a pleasant one-hour flight. I enjoyed watching the scenery go by. We only flew at about five thousand feet, so the visibility was great.
As we got over the islands of the Bocas del Toro Archipelago I took particular notice. The area around the islands is littered with sandbars and reefs. Being a deep draft boat, we would have to be especially careful if we ever brought the Victory here.
By the time we landed, I was desperate to find a bathroom. There were two ladies at a table checking people in. I walked past them to find the facilities, expecting to come back and check in after my stop.
When I got back, Wes and Joyce were there waiting for me.
“I’ll be just a minute” I said, “I have to pick up my bag.”
An Air Panama employee heard me and said “Over here.” He had my bag waiting outside the check in area.
I tell you this because they charged every visitor that got off the plane $3 for a garbage fee. Wes suspects that the proceeds go directly to the mayor’s slush fund, because he’s never seen any money spent on improving the dump. I did not contribute to the graft.
Penn and Dawn on the road to Bocas
We piled into Wes’s Toyota pickup and headed to the house. At first the road was good enough. There are two roads on the island, one goes to the north side of the island where Wes and Joyce live and the other follows the coast around the to Bluff Beach.
My first impression of Bocas del Toro was of a rundown Mexican town. Most of the buildings are wooden with tired siding. They were all built in the last century. All of them need at least a fresh coat of paint; many looked like they were on the verge of falling down. There are several buildings under construction. It looks like the job was started about fifty years ago and they just gave up on it.
We passed the one gas station in the islands on the way out of town. There aren’t many cars here. Tourist and ex-pats drive cars. The locals with vehicles drive trucks because they only have one if they use it for work. Everybody else either walks or rides bicycles.
The first thing I noticed was that all the taxis were four-wheel drive, double cabs pickups. I soon learned why.
We turned off the main road and headed into the hills. The road got progressively worse. At first there were only a few pot holes that Wes easily avoided. Then the road deteriorated.
We came to a spot where the road was washed out. It had been filled with gravel, so we could get through. After that, there were more pot holes than there was road. No one pays any attention to the lanes and Wes spent as much time driving in the on-coming lane as he did in our lane.
Then the jungle began to encroach on the road. The two-lane road became a one-and-a-half-lane road. The jungle had eaten up most of the other lane. At places the jungle moved in from both sides and it was a one-lane road.
My first impression of Bocas del Toro was of a rundown Mexican town. Most of the buildings are wooden with tired siding. They were all built in the last century. All of them need at least a fresh coat of paint; many looked like they were on the verge of falling down. There are several buildings under construction. It looks like the job was started about fifty years ago and they just gave up on it.
We passed the one gas station in the islands on the way out of town. There aren’t many cars here. Tourist and ex-pats drive cars. The locals with vehicles drive trucks because they only have one if they use it for work. Everybody else either walks or rides bicycles.
The first thing I noticed was that all the taxis were four-wheel drive, double cabs pickups. I soon learned why.
We turned off the main road and headed into the hills. The road got progressively worse. At first there were only a few pot holes that Wes easily avoided. Then the road deteriorated.
We came to a spot where the road was washed out. It had been filled with gravel, so we could get through. After that, there were more pot holes than there was road. No one pays any attention to the lanes and Wes spent as much time driving in the on-coming lane as he did in our lane.
Then the jungle began to encroach on the road. The two-lane road became a one-and-a-half-lane road. The jungle had eaten up most of the other lane. At places the jungle moved in from both sides and it was a one-lane road.
I felt like Michael Douglas in "Romancing the Stone." That's when it hit me. I felt like Michael Douglas in Romancing the Stone. I kept a sharp eye out for Kathleen Turner stranded on the side of the road. She wouldn’t show up for a couple of days when her cousin’s funeral was over.
After about twenty miles on the pot-hole express, the road turned to dirt. It was much easier to drive on.
Wes says they live in a gated community. There is a heavy, rusted iron gate on the road. I had to get out and unlock it.
Now comes the fun part. We turned down a long driveway to the house. My first view was of the back wall. It looked like a two-story mansion.
We got out and lugged my baggage up a steep staircase. When we reached the top floor (the living area) I noticed that most of the house was outside.
The house is built on concrete pillars to keep it dry when a storm forces the waves ashore. It’s about fifty feet from the beach. The property is thirteen acres with about four hundred and fifty feet of beach-front.
At the top of the stairs there is an open-air hallway leading to Wes and Joyce’s room. It’s a separate building from the main house, connected by the causeway.
Going in the other direction took me into the kitchen. The main building has a large kitchen, a dining area, a sitting area and a bathroom with a loft above the sitting area.
Both in the bedroom and the main house, louvered teak doors open the front of the house to the sea. A pleasant breeze made the hot, sticky day comfortable.
On the other side of the main building, a small building houses the second bedroom. It’s tiny. It barely has room for two single beds.
I got myself settled in and took a little nap. I had very little sleep in the last twenty-four hours.
Reading is the main activity at Casa Tallman, so I grabbed my Kindle and joined it. Wes and Joyce go to bed around nine o’clock, so I took my book into my room and read for a couple of hours before drifting off.
After about twenty miles on the pot-hole express, the road turned to dirt. It was much easier to drive on.
Wes says they live in a gated community. There is a heavy, rusted iron gate on the road. I had to get out and unlock it.
Now comes the fun part. We turned down a long driveway to the house. My first view was of the back wall. It looked like a two-story mansion.
We got out and lugged my baggage up a steep staircase. When we reached the top floor (the living area) I noticed that most of the house was outside.
The house is built on concrete pillars to keep it dry when a storm forces the waves ashore. It’s about fifty feet from the beach. The property is thirteen acres with about four hundred and fifty feet of beach-front.
At the top of the stairs there is an open-air hallway leading to Wes and Joyce’s room. It’s a separate building from the main house, connected by the causeway.
Going in the other direction took me into the kitchen. The main building has a large kitchen, a dining area, a sitting area and a bathroom with a loft above the sitting area.
Both in the bedroom and the main house, louvered teak doors open the front of the house to the sea. A pleasant breeze made the hot, sticky day comfortable.
On the other side of the main building, a small building houses the second bedroom. It’s tiny. It barely has room for two single beds.
I got myself settled in and took a little nap. I had very little sleep in the last twenty-four hours.
Reading is the main activity at Casa Tallman, so I grabbed my Kindle and joined it. Wes and Joyce go to bed around nine o’clock, so I took my book into my room and read for a couple of hours before drifting off.
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