Jack's Adventures in Panama: Down With Ejo

Office bordem or English cabbie?

It was 2009 and I was getting tired of sitting in my office by the windows sealed for "environmental reasons." I had a four day weekend coming. Once or twice I considered going to the movies, or the Getty, but I wanted to do something outlandish, colorful, something to make a good story.

So it was after watching a Facebook video that I considered visiting my friend Pope. He was luxuriating on a hot day with friends, sleeping in the shade and lounging in the pool. I on the other hand was in LA making paperclip necklaces. Suddenly a coworker with pinkeye walked past my desk, and I knew I needed to leave town.

I found airfare for less than an evening in an L.A. nightclub, and headed to Panama.

The trip was largely uneventful. Flying Copa airlines (Continental's Latin Fringe counterpart) was almost like flying back in time to the '80s. The stewardesses had hair from the wet dreams of Aquanet, they wore dashing cravats and belts, and they asked me ever so politely, "Pollo o carne de res?" Any moment I expected a large balding man to turn to me, ash his cigarett into his armrest ashtray and tell me a joke comparing shoe leather to airline food.

We landed. Tocumen airport is not dissimilar to any small city airport. Think Long Beach, Newark, or Manchester, NH. It's a bright and shiny bus terminal for airplanes peppered with duty free liquor, t-shirts, candy and a Sony store. It was late January, but as I eagerly waded up the gangway, all I noticed was the intense wave of humidity. It turns out that Panama is hot and steamy.

Until this very moment, my only true knowledge of Panama centered around Manuel Noriega, the Van Halen song, and Teddy's fight for a canal ...  and then there was that night in Boston.

My buddy Pope and I met while working at the world's worst run Italian restaurant during one very cold Boston winter. We made no money, drank a lot, and the day Pope quit he spit on the ground as he exited the place.

I had no idea that Pope had spent any time in Panama until a year or so later when I met up with him and two of his high school friends at the Red Hat bar. We drank pitchers of Sam, ate wings, and contemplating seeing Jon Stewart perform later in the night.

At one point in the evening Pope turned to one of his friends and said something about one of their high school friends being shot during, "the invasion." I had just returned from the bathroom, the bar, or from having a smoke in the cold, regardless, until that point I had just assumed Pope was from Falmouth on the Cape.

I stalled the conversation stop, backed them up, and that's when I found out that Pope spent his formative years in the the American Zone of Panama. He was a Zonian. While I contemplated what that meant, I drank some more, and saw Jon Stewart. This odd fact slipped away, and I didn't grill him on particulars until much later.

Flash forward six years. Here I am in my first solo navigation of a foreign airport.

Immigration was a breeze. I imagine I was about as green a gringo as they'd ever seen. The woman who stamped my passport seemed peeved that even I bothered her. She looked at me skeptically when she asked my occupation, and I responded "escritor."

I only brought a carry on, so I sped through baggage claim, and that's when I pulled the precious scrap of paper that would take me to safety, out of my wallet.

My phone wouldn't work here. Nor would my remedial high school Spanish. Yet I did have step-by-step instructions spelled out by Pope's friend Berg, who often made the trip out to the small seaside town of Gorgona via public transit. I had printed out this e-mail, cut out the tiny paragraph of instructions, and slipped it in between a Subway coupon and some cash.

The message began ...

"Take a taxi from Tocumen airport to Albrook Bus Terminal. Should be around $15 to $30. There is a taxi station in the airport or you can try and grab a city cab outside..."

Marching through the blue shaded automatic doors the humidity doubled again, but it still wasn't as thick as the wave of cab drivers who yelled, "Taxi?!" at me.

In what I think of as an expert stalling tactic, I ignored them all and bee-lined it to the toilet. I need to excise the last of my North American fluids, and be prepared to walk to Albrook if necessary. After a moment of reflection in the mirror, I came out gunning for the taxi stand.

A man in a white short sleeved dress shirt stood behind the counter. He fidgeting around, pounding the counter with one hand, and holding a fistful of white paper slips in the other. I approached him, and said in a noncommittal voice, "I need to go to ... Albrook?"

"I get you there. $40."

"Um ..."

Panama City, old and new.

At that point a stream of rapid Spanish came in a volley from over and behind my head. I turned to see a middle aged man with silvering hair, thin rimmed glasses, and a blue blazer over his arm, gesticulating wildly. I have no idea what they said. It was agitated and clipped and ended in less a minute. As soon as it ended this taxi-slayer turned to me, and with a heavy accent he proclaimed, "He's trying to cheat us! I'm going to Albrook. He'll charge $30 for the both of us. Come."

Before I could even say thanks, the three of us hustled outside. Mystified at how the air had once again doubled its water content, I looked to this man scrambling with his tan briefcase and a rollaway bag.

He looked down at his watch and said, "American? My name's Ejo."

My reply to him was both curious and simple, "Um, gracias?"

To Be Continued ...