Instead, I caught a ride with Miguel, who had sought me out on couchsurfing.com weeks earlier to invite me for a stay at his place in the city. In the car also was Kaj the Dutch James Bond (who Miguel had also found on CS), Froste the Swede (pronounced like the snowman), and Ricky from San Francisco. The drive was long and hot and I was thankful that I was not cycling the dull, hilly distance.

We arrived in the city well after dark and picked up yet another couchsurfer from a pub. His name was Daniel, a cheery dude from England. We all dropped our things at Miguel´s downtown flat and went out for a night on the town.

A causeway extends several kilometers over the water of the southward-facing bay of Panama, connecting three islands with a built-up road and offering a fantastic view of the towering downtown. The location was US millitary access only until control of the canal was given over to Panama on December 31, 1999 in accordance with the Torrijos-Carter Treaty. Several students had been gunned down in protests against the American control of Panamanian territory, leading to negotiations which resulted in the signing of the treaty on September 7, 1977. Now the causeway houses bars, restaurants, and marinas, with the occasional converted bunker as the only reminder of the unique location´s history.

Miguel took us out to a waterfront bar owned by a friend of his. Huge tankers loomed between us and the city, which shimmered like a futuristic vision manifest across the dark water, waiting for passage through the Panama canal. Nella - Miguels friend, a beautiful woman, all smiles - served us buckets of Atlas and Panama cervesa. Kaj, fluent and suave in most languages in existence, was already chatting in both English and Spanish with two women at the bar. We stayed late into the night talking, drinking, and laughing together like old friends.

The Gang at Nella´s place

Nella and I, feeling breezy

The next day Miguel took us on a tour of the city. The place was exactly as I´d pictured it - all white, dense, oozing history. I took it as a good omen, like forgotten faces from a dream, as we wandered the crumbling edifices of Casco Viejo. The city was destroyed in 1671 by Welsh pirate Henry Morgan and a band of 1,400 men. Old Panama was looted and burned, though to this day nobody knows whether the flames were set by the pirates or by the residents of Panama in a last ditch effort to stave off the raiders. The city was reconstructed in 1673 about five miles southwest of Old Panama with a great wall on the ocean-side. The remains of this ancient settlement are still inhabited - the poor in apartments hundred of years old and the wealthy in renovated complexes with Brazilian restaurants downstairs. The President himself lives in the gentrified outskirts of Casco Viejo, with a great balcony looking over the bay towards the skyscrapers of modern day downtown Panama City.

Casco Viejo

Downtown from Casco Viejo

Casco Viejo

That night we went out to a casino in Miguel´s neighborhood of El Cangrejo. I won $1.84 on Texas Tea and cashed in. In an insightful reversal of roles, we laughed and became oddly giddy at the realization that we were being carefully watched like small prey by the various gaggles of Colomian hookers, who sulked about the place in bright clothing and fake breasts, ever searching for a glimmer of ¨yes¨ in our naive gringo eyes. Miguel took us to a bar down the street and a Colombian girl squeezed my butt on the way in. Another suddenly began rubbing my belly as I waited absent-mindedly for a beer.

We thought it was hilarious, somehow - stupidly enjoying all the attention over a game of pool. I realized that Miguel had taken us here intentionally. He was getting a kick out of the way we percieved the decadence with novelty. We joked about our newfound popularity for a while, but then, as if someone had pressed a button, the realities of the situation sunk in and at once we were somber. Fat gringo wastoids walked away with beautiful young women who would never find love notes scrawled on napkins hidden in their pockets. The thin film of humor had popped. We left.

The bus for San Blas left at 5am sharp. We did the sensible thing and stayed up playing pool until the 4WD SUV pulled up at the first light of dawn. At the end of the three hour ride to the Caribbean coast we were awoken by the driver, who yelled ¨EVERYBODY OUT!¨ as if we were soldiers landing for the first time in Vietnam. We were all foggy and disoriented except for Froste, the prudent Swede, who had gone to bed shortly after midnight. We were loaded into a large canoe-type boat with a 15hp motor and skimmed across the morning waters, registering nothing.

Kaj, Ricky, and I - drugged and being transported to Guantanamo Bay

Zonked in the car to San Blas

San Blas is an archipelago of 378 smallish islands, home of the indigenous Kuna people, who were driven from the mainland during the Spanish invasion hundreds of years ago. In 1925 the Kuna fought Panama and won their autonomy; the entire province is now exempt from national taxes. Due to the limited gene-pool on the islands, the Kuna are among the highest in the world in rates of albinism. But rather than being seen as outcasts, albino children are considered "moon children", touched by divinity, and often end up becoming chiefs or other upper-rung officials.

We docked on a larger island covered in palm thatched huts and ate a breakfast of bread and instant coffee. Hammock were strewn everywhere. I later learned that, while most of us enjoy the leisurely function of a good hammock, the Kuna take it to the next level - they are born, sleep, and are buried in hammocks. Their cultural arte-de-force is the mola, a bright and colorful style of patterning worn as clothing or on small rectangles of fabric depicting items of food and nature. The women wore brightly colored head-scarfs, intense blouses, and vibrant beads which snaked about their dark calfs. The overall effect was clown/ninja/lollipop, island style - short, broad-shouldered, and easy, easy going.

A Kuna woman in the city

After an hour ride, we were deposited on a deserted island about half the size of a football field (American) and left for the day. I laid in the sand and tried to sleep. Ricky napped in his hammock. Froste read a book. Kaj met everybody on the island, alternately joking loudly in French, Spanish, German, and a few languages I couldn´t recognize. Later, when the spice of life returned, Ricky and Kaj initiated a coconut tossing contest while I constructed a make-shift Tiki god from debris. Just before sunset, a couple canoe-things buzzed over the horizon and took us back to the main island.

San Blas - living in a postcard

The next day we were taken with about ten others to a more distant plot of sand, called by the locals ¨dog island¨ for an unapparent reason. We snorkled around an old shipwreck and drank coconut juice. I found some shells and made a hemp necklace for a friend. Others joined me. We all sat around in the shade of a palm, weaving away. It was pleasant - there was absolutely nothing to do. Eventually the boats buzzed back and we we loaded up.

Tropical craft time in San Blas

Back on the big island we met a few Kunas about our age and had some drinks with them on an overturned canoe. The island had electricity from 6pm to 11pm, so when it finally sputtered out, Ricky produced two small Mag-Lites and spun them around in an wild raving dance. The natives thought he was god. They fed us shots of a local moonshine and chided us to teach them how to do the light thing.

Around three in the morning, one of them insisted that I meet his family. So off we went, around the corner, into an open thatched doorway. Several people slept around the small room in hammocks and he woke them all, introducing his mother, his sister, his aunt. Aunt had a small child suckling from her breast. We exchanged an awkward ¨hola¨ and I left, wondering why the young Kuna had taken me there in the first place.

At dawn we left the island and headed for the city. We met up with Miguel. Daniel rejoined us from his own stint in San Blas and we all climbed a small mountain which overlooks beautiful Panama City. In the evening we went back to the casino, where Ricky made twenty bucks at blackjack in five minutes and I broke even. Then out to a hip little bar in Casco Viejo, located in the remains of the old city bank. You could still see the vault locks in the doorway. It was Froste´s birthday, the big 21, so we bought him an excess of tequila and he danced like a man possessed. Lord of the dance!

One interesting side-effect of travel is the opportunity to observe this flimsy collection of identities called ¨I¨ in new and unusual contexts. Our group, it seemed, unhinged the bubbly, bold, and free-flowing aspects in each other, psyche-clockwork-champagne. We had excellent synergy, a classic click, and we laughed and danced like idiots, like old friends. After a while we merged with a group of American and Canadian ex-pat girls who were living in the city - talked, danced.

Then off to club, where Hooker Affective Disorder hit quick. I chatted with one, ¨Jessica,¨ for a while, telling her we were astronauts scheduled for the moon from Cape Canaveral in a week. We were on our last bit of study down here in Panama City, practicing communication skills with foreign entities. It felt like it should have been funny, but it wasn´t. She smiled and faked laughter - always waiting for that deal-sealing ¨yes.¨

Kaj flew off to Ecuador this morning. Ricky, Froste, and I went to the Miraflores lock on the canal and watched unfathomably huge ships being lowered 16.5 meters on the last leg of their 8-10 hour crossing to the Pacific. Over 27,000 workers died in the construction of the canal, most under the original French overseer who intended to build a direct, lock-less channel straight across. The US took over construction and the mammoth project was opened for business in 1914. Now, over 14,000 ships pass through annually, saving time and operation costs necessary to round Cape Horn. The amount of land removed in its construction, if strung together in flat-bed rail cars, would circle the planet four times.

Wow.

Biking by the Panama canal