Day 10—The Proverbial Wall

Disclaimer: If you will be offended by an ungracious rant…DON’T READ THIS….This is venting. 

I promise, I am polite in public, and I am NOT AN UGLY AMERICAN! 

This is venting…on the internet, in English…OK, ‘nuff said…I warned you…

(and by the way, this is a toned down version).

I am friggin’ sick of this place.  NO ONE FRIGGIN’ SPEAKS ENGLISH! Ok, I get it. This isn’t an English speaking country, but damn those people (ON THE INTERNET) who claim, “You don’t really need to speak Spanish to get by in Panama.”  LIARS! All of you! YES. YOU. FRIGGIN’. DO!!!! I personally don’t want to fumble through my vacation always unsure of what just transpired.  I want to have clear understanding of when I was an asshole, and when the other person was an asshole.  Here…WHO KNOWS?!

And really? I now know how zoo animals feel… STOP STARING,  and smirking slyly.  I see those smirks. I’m SORRY!  I’m the idiot who believed the people online, who claimed that I didn’t really need to speak Spanish, when clearly I do. STOP STARING!

And don't even get me started on the feral dogs who can't be bothered to move out of the middle of the road even when you honk.  Or the feral horse, that started to follow us home.  

And REALLY, WTF with the “rich-people” lock down on all of the beaches, and the abysmal roads that lead to said beaches.   I swear, after spending ALL morning jolting a kidney loose on the god forsaken beach roads de Panama, we never could find public beach access (OK, we found one beach access on one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen, but this a RANT, and I don’t want to be nice right now…I’ll save that for another day).  We went to like four or five beach towns and just drove behind beachfront houses, on horribly rutted roads, WITH NO BEACH ACCESS!

I know it looks like a river bed, but it is a beach road. In Panama.

At one point in Farallon, behind the Decamaron Resort, we finally stopped and asked some guy (free-lance security?)  “Playa?”   (Maybe we confused him because we forgot to put the question mark at the beginning of the word?)  He pointed us straight ahead, and then (sort of) indicated to turn left toward the beach .  “OK, gracias!”  We were so excited.  Finally, beach access! The problem: THE FRIGGIN’ STREET ENDED 100 yards up (Oh, I’m sorry, 100 METERS—that one is for you Mary Poppins), and it was almost impossible to turn around.  And of course, the humiliating 10 point turn (with me sweating outside of the car to make sure we didn’t crush someone’s fence) was witnessed by two caretakers, who, of course, WERE STARING (and I bet smirking)!  WTF? Are these people messing with us???

And then we were totally humiliated at the gates of Buenaventura, an under construction development that we decided to check out.  There seemed to be signs pointing to open houses (but they were in Spanish, so who the hell knows).  However, we were turned away at the gate by two gate keepers who DIDN’T SPEAK ENGLISH. And of course, they wouldn’t even open the gate for us to make U-turn, so we had to awkwardly back up and make a weird 5 point U-turn in front of the gate, as the gatekeepers, and a truck full of gardeners stared at us. STOP FRIGGIN’ STARING! How did we know we were supposed to be on a list? This development will surely be for wealthy Panamanians and expats. The point: Do all rich expats speak Spanish?  If I were a rich expat, I would want a least one bi-lingual gate keeper for an emergency such as, “The Shitty-ass roads I just had to drive down to get to my fenced-in-million-dollar home blew out my tire. Could you please call a tow truck?” 

I wouldn't want the gatekeeper responding, “¿Que? No, entiendo”

And also, what is with the empty restaurants.  Really, no one eats lunch at noon?  We’ve been to two restaurants so far, and at both restaurants, we have been the only people in each one.  Ok, maybe 4 pm on a Saturday was a tad early for dinner (see why we can’t have friends), but no one even wants a beer at 4 pm?  Egads, I think perhaps the Craig-Murphy Clan are totally off schedule from the rest of the world. (Wait, I’m supposed to be ranting about Panama, not our weird eating schedule).

Never mind…I’m done ranting...FOR NOW...

On our way back to the condo, from our grand non-beach, bumpy road excursion, we were stopped at a police check point.  It was just an arbitrary spot on the only road into Gorgona, and two police officers (who were wearing scary looking military uniforms).  AS we drove up, Sean  rolled down his window.  The officer rattled off a rather long soliloquy in Spanish.  Didn’t get a word.  Sean pointed down the road and said, “Touristas, Gorgona, Costa Grande Apartemente”. The officer responded with another long winded speech in Spanish.  Sean countered, still pointing down the road: “Lo Siento, Touristas, Playa Gorgona”  The officer had a look on his face like, “Well, I tried,” and waved us through.  When we got back to the condo, and asked about this encounter, we were told we were supposed to show him our driver’s license and passports.  Geez, why didn’t he just ask?

For dinner,  we went to this Mexican Restaurant because Emma didn’t eat lunch like a normal person, so she was starving and kept nagging us to go.  This restaurant reportedly has an air conditioned inner room.  So when we walked in, and I said we wanted to sit inside. Then I realized that it was like 3000 degrees inside, and so I said, “Maybe we should eat outside?” I made a fanning motion with my hand to indicate I was hot. The person who was helping us, quickly grabbed a remote, switched on the A/C and started slamming windows and doors shut.  I have to admit, I was a little embarrassed,  but relieved.  I shrugged, and found a lovely corner seat that had a view of the restaurant.  

We proceeded to order (luckily, I know how to read Mexican Food, so it was easy).  We were served our beers (and in Emma’s case ginger-ale) and then like 7 chips and some salsa.  They were delicious, but a bit scant.  Emma ordered  a chicken burrito, Sean beef tacos, and I (as always) ordered a chili relleno.  The food was really good.  Emma’s burrito was ginormous (and delicious too).  

Sean ended up with taquitos, rather than tacos...

and I had a wonderfully delicious chili relleno stuffed with meat and cheese.  

But, here is the weird thing.  After we were served our food, the cook came out of the kitchen, and stood against the far wall just staring at us.  I kid you not.  Every time I glanced in her direction, she was STARING. Not just shyly glancing over once in while…FULL ON, FLAT OUT STARING.  Really? What do you do in a situation like this.  It was really weird and uncomfortable.  So I just pretended not to notice for a while, but then I thought, “Well maybe this poor woman needs some feedback on her cooking.”  So I looked up, made eye contact, and gave her a big thumbs up and said, “Muy bien!” Her face lit up, and she nodded…and then… 

continued to stare…

for the rest of our meal.  

Sigh.