Panama City & San Blas Islands

My short sojourn to Panama City in January 2009 was memorable for a number of reasons. In reverse chronological order: I fell for a beautiful, older Argentinian woman and we escaped the city to the San Blas Islands, spending days snorkeling and sunbathing, and nights kissing in hammocks or on dance floors; I had a phone call with an extremely influential Goldman Sachs executive that I had worked extremely hard to get and was hoping could lead to a job, that went exceptionally poorly, adding to a general sense of disorientation around what I would do for money after school; and, of course, I was robbed of nearly all of my most important possessions my first night after landing - passport, cash, credit and debit cards, camera, you name it - gone.

In retrospect, being mugged more or less right after walking off the plane was perhaps the best thing that could have happened to me, not just that trip but as a first experience traveling alone abroad. The details of the lead up to the mugging, the mugging itself, and the fallout thereafter are a story unto themselves[^1], but suffice to say that it is both liberating and reassuring to know that even when everything goes very, very wrong, you can still find a way to salvage a trip.

After a long night and morning-after spent with the Tourism Police and American Embassy folks trying to get a temporary/emergency passport and cash infusion, I quickly changed hostels from a forgettable someplace in the Bohemian Casco Viejo to a more memorable spot up town called Hostel Mamallena (“Hostel of the Big Tittied Woman”).

Walking in with nothing to my name except a Western Union envelope containing $300 cash and a piece of paper acting as my passport, I got the cheapest bed possible, a top bunk in a mixed dorm, and went to the honor system fridge to have a Bilbao. It just so happens that in the kitchen, there was a beautiful, elegant woman making herself some kind of cucumber sandwich for lunch. Trying not to gawk, I grabbed a beer and slinked away to a sofa to think about what, if anything, I wanted to do with the 9 remaining days of my trip.

It so happened that next to the sofa I sat down on was a group of Americans doing the exact same thing, albeit under different circumstances. We struck up a conversation and it was then that I had my first of many magical travel experiences, this one of the type where a small group congregates in the hostel lobby, the tales from the road and the beers start flowing, the group balloons as people walk in from their various day trips, future plans and trip ideas are exchanged, and as day turns to night you find you’ve made not only new friends but often future travel companions, whether for day trips or longer excursions. The entire experience is truly and intoxicatingly magical - the same sort of energy that musicians and artists tap into when they get together and improvise on a collaboration.

Finally retiring to my bunk a little buzzed and excited to have plans to visit the Metropolitan Natural Park the next day with David, a Harvard Economics PhD student whom I couldn’t fathom would be slumming around with the likes of me, I laid my head on the pillow and was about to drift off when in walked Isa, the beautiful cucumber lady from earlier, and also, it happened, my lower bunkmate. We exchanged names and a few minutes of small talk later, she was coming to the park tomorrow too. So it goes on the road.

The trip to the park the next day was beautiful but uneventful and I was in a rush to get back to the hostel to prepare for my Goldman Sachs phone call late that afternoon. A bit flustered from the events of the last couple days, I had forgotten that I needed an international calling card (Skype wasn’t yet a viable option for computer-to-landline) so in a serious time crunch I went running around to nearby tiendas in search of one. With a minute to spare, or maybe a minute late, I was able to get out onto a rooftop patio with a landline and dial through to an executive assistant who patched me through to her boss.

Now, when I say this person was influential in Goldman Sachs, I mean that he was Vice Chairman of an entire division (which he basically created) within the bank, sat on the boards of multiple major non-profits, etc etc. That sort of person. And I was…nobody. So, in my mind, this was a big win and opportunity for a nobody like me to, maybe, become a somebody by way of somebody else’s support. It didn’t quite go that way.

The call started with a brusk, “This is ____. What can I do for you?” Apparently the EA had not briefed her boss on the purpose of the call. So, a bit flustered already, I attempted to explain what I just explained to you in the last paragraph, but a bit more decoratively, trying to make it seem like I wasn’t what I was and wasn’t basically asking for handout assistance from a person of influence. Didn't work.

All the while, as I mentioned, this phone call was happening on a rooftop patio, and suddenly the ambient sounds of the developing world around me became deafeningly loud - jackhammers, cranes, cars honking, people yelling, music blaring. It all became white hot noise that I could feel getting hotter with my embarrassment.

From what I remember, after having been told with a New Yorker’s politeness that I wasn’t qualified enough to be asking for help from him, I tried to rebut and reframe my ask, apologizing for the noise beforehand, and was quickly cut off. “Listen kid, I’ve taken hundreds of calls from developing countries all over the world. You need to prepare better.” The call wrapped up pretty shortly after that. The tone of the conversation didn’t feel very open to excuses about being mugged - and moreover who wants to hire the sort of dipshit who gets mugged abroad - so all of that went unsaid and I ate a shit sandwich.

The next day was fairly uneventful. Isa, David and I went to visit some ruins, grabbed lunch at a local buffet, met a new friend Sabino and went dancing at a club. Most importantly, though, the four of us arranged logistics to visit the San Blas Islands, the Jeep for which would pick us up the following morning at 5am.

A more seasoned traveler now, the private Jeep to the coast and motorized schooner to the islands weren’t all that adventurous, but at the time I was living out a childhood fantasy, Indiana Jones in the jungle about to retrieve the Chachapoyan Fertility Idol. It didn’t hurt that the meeting point for the boat was at the end of a jungle-cleared airplane runway.

The next few days were filled with scenery that continues to be some of the most beautiful I have seen in my life.

The San Blas Islands are a scattering of islands off the northern coast of Panama, just off the Gulf of Guna Yala. There are islands everywhere, some of them big enough to have a small town, but many of them are remote, with only beaches and palm trees. When you think of being stranded on an island, the island you are imagining is likely very similar to many of the islands in San Blas.

The water in San Blas is turquoise in its deeper parts, and bright almost neon blue in the shallows. There are tropical fish and coral everywhere, and plenty of wrecked ships for them to call home. There isn’t much to do aside from just while the day away on the beach with a book, taking a cooling dip every so often. The food is plain - mostly rice and fish - and the accommodations simple - sleeping mats and hammocks in simple huts. In the morning, you wake up with the birds and in the evening, you fall asleep to the sounds of insects.

By the time we had departed for San Blas, Isa and I were that weird sort of relationship you see so often among young solo travelers who hit it off but are only destined to be in one another’s lives for a handful of days: couple-ish but not really coupled. We’d sneak touches under the table while exchanging stories with other travelers and kisses around convenient corners or in darker doorways.

The thrilling intoxication of travel romance is extremely memorable, and especially so against a backdrop of such raw, natural beauty as San Blas. To this day, now more than 15 years later, I remember the initial, heart fluttering trepidation of kissing at night on the shared dorm sleeping mats and Isa’s tender touch as she applied aloe to my very sunburnt back before lights out (I’d fallen asleep in the shade and woken up in the sun). Thankfully I have these photos to remind me of all the other beauty from the trip, otherwise the beaches, birds, boats and other et cetera of travel would surely blend together with the many trips taken since. But there will only ever be one Isa in Panama City and San Blas.

Isa departed Panama almost immediately after we returned from San Blas, and I spent my last few days catching up with a friend I’d come to visit who was studying abroad, the plan for which got derailed by the mugging. At the airport on the way home, I was offered a massive flight voucher and stay in a 5-star hotel if I’d fly out the next day. In retrospect, I should have taken the deal, but after such a rollercoaster of a trip, I was tired enough to want to go home.