Day 15—A Trip to Panama City

Again no sunshine.  Sigh.  So we had a sluggishly slow start to the morning because, while it is not sunny, it is still hot and muggy.  (I may have mentioned this a time or two). We decided to do some laundry so we could go to the city with clean clothes, but…the propane ran out on the dryer.   Great!  We decided to haul two loads of our wet (but clean) laundry to the city to dry.  By this time (about 1:30 p.m.) we were all hungry and cranky, so even though we needed to stop by the store to get a few basic groceries, we decided to stop at KFC to eat.  Emma decided to be thoroughly disagreeable and threw a tantrum, because even I cannot eat at McDonalds again, and if she can’t have her pink slime and partially hydrogenated French fries, she doesn’t want ANYTHING! (It's KFC for goodness sake, it's not like we are asking her to eat a salad!)

What Emma would eat three times a day, every day,  if allowed.

“OK Emma.  Fine, you can go hungry”. 

“Wait, I’ll take the number 4!”

Ordered.

Received order.

“This isn’t what I wanted, it’s shrimp, I don’t want to eat this! I HATE SHRIMP!”

“Then why did you order it?”

“I don’t know, it looked like chicken nuuugggggeeetttts”

Ordering by pictures can be problematic even at KFC.  (Shrimp? really? at a KFC? who knew!)

Egads.

So we decided to get on the road to the city without further ado.  It was a pretty uneventful hour ride to the outskirts of Panama City, but then Sean took a turn toward the Centennial Bridge, instead of the Bridge of America’s. 

Grabbed from the internet because I was too miffed that we were on the wrong bridge to take a picture.  It was beautiful. 

Not that big of a deal, but it was putting us somewhat out of our way.  (Well, at least it looked that way from the pathetic map I was using). So just as we were coming off the bridge, into the thick of it we come to a dead stop (and have no real idea where we are, or where we need to go next—nothing is marked, the map is incomprehensible). Then  the skies completely open up.  Thunder, lightning, the works!

I was actually relieved that we were crawling along, because it was so difficult to see, and it would have been even more terrifying if we were going fast.  It turns out there was a multi-car accident, involving trucks, and one little car off the embankment. We kept having to switch lanes to avoid all of the trucks and cars involved.  Just as we were picking up speed, the car in front of us veered sharply the left, and that’s when we ran over the probable cause of the entire accident:  A pet dog.  He was already gone, but still it was horrifying.  I just feel like nothing can go right while driving in the this city. 

Then we began the mad craziness that is finding an area of the city that we can see on the map, but since we don’t know where we are on the map (what I wouldn’t give for a magical you-are-here dot, oh yeah that is called GPS…unfortunately even those don’t work well here!) we don’t know which direction we should be heading.  We finally ended up on a hill overlooking the city near some high rises, on a dead end street.  I asked Sean (rather forcefully) to ask the gate keeper to show us where we were on the map. Sean stood in the rain and it took the guy literally, like 15 minutes to point out the location.  Either this shows what a horrible map we have, or that the guy couldn’t read.  Either way, we now (sort of) knew where we needed to head.  And then we got lucky, because that are a couple of routes in the city that are partially marked.  There was a sign that said, “El Cangrejo” with an arrow pointing straight ahead, which is where we needed to go.  Woohoo!

So slowly, weaving through heavy traffic, we made our way to El Cangrejo.  We needed to be on Via Argentina, and of course, the individual streets are not marked, nor are there addresses. We just knew we needed to find Edificio Mediterrano on Via Argentina.  We knew it was across from a park.  We knew we were in the El Cangrejo area (the one sign had told us so) but we had no idea which street we were on.  So we kept circling around looking for the building. And not finding it.

Finally, we turned on a street, and Sean stopped and I asked a street worker, “¿Via Argentina?” while gesturing to the street we were on.  The worker looked at me like "Why is this woman bothering me?" and replied, “Si.”   Hey buddy, mark your streets like a first world, civilized country and I wouldn’t have to ask you dumbass, obvious questions!

Woo-hoo!  Two and half hours after leaving our peaceful beach villa, we were on the right street, in the right neighborhood, in Panama City. And then there it was, the building! We grabbed a parking space right in front,  and decided to go in and check things out. We were immediately stopped by the door man, who, of course, did not speak English.  Let the Spanglish ensue! At one point he was calling the apartment  because he thought we were visiting.  After much confusion, and misunderstanding,  Sean showed him the keys, and he finally understood.  We asked about parking, and he opened the gate and then we were actually parked in the building! Yeah! We took the elevator up to the 13^th floor (wait, what? 13^th floor, they don’t have a 13^th floor in buildings. Oh, yes they do! Here, in Panama!) Thank God I am not superstitious, because really, the 13^th floor? We got off on the floor, and we were looking for apartment “D.” There was an apartment “C” and an unmarked apartment door.

So, we looked around and that’s it.  Two doors.  Where are A and B?  What a weird set up.  OK, we stick the key in the unmarked door and it doesn’t open.  We keep trying, and sweating, because what if this isn’t the right apartment?  It turns out that the key is a double lock key and you have to turn the key, like three times in the same direction to get the door to open.   Will the fun never end?  So finally we are in.  It is a lovely apartment.  Very modern and civilized, and clearly the landlord spends a lot of time there.  There was food in cabinets, and clothes in the closets, and it kind of felt weird to be there. 

We were all a little frazzled from our trip into the city, and I wanted nothing more than a glass of wine, and to relax for a bit, but we had forgotten to stop at the store and get any groceries that we might need.  Argh, again! I threw a mini-tantrum myself, because now I knew I had to immediately go out and find a grocery store, in the rain, in a strange city.  I was exhausted and I just wanted to hole up, but clearly that was not in the cards.   

Via Argentina taken from the parking garage. 

Just a little note to everyone:  DO NOT WEAR FLIP- FLOPS IN THE RAIN!  We forgot to grab the umbrella, and so there we were, schlepping our way through the rain, slipping and sliding on the ubiquitous tiles that line the sidewalks.  We spotted a mini-super (it turns out we stumbled on one of the best ones in the neighborhood, which looks a lot like a Spanish version of Greenwich Village) and grabbed water, cream for coffee in the morning, and some wine (to keep me quiet) and snacks (to keep the teen quiet).  The only wine that they had simply said, “Blanco Vino” It was in a box.  Hmmm…sounds yummy.  It cost $2.15. Well, you can’t beat the price. 

We spotted a Subway Sandwich Shop, and grabbed dinner to go, and headed straight back to the sanctuary of the apartment.  We were soaked, and tired and it was heaven drying off, turning on the air conditioner, sipping a glass of boxed  $2.15 wine (which weirdly enough, was actually quite drinkable), and watching food network. 

Sometimes I wonder why I ever leave home.