A Stranger in a Strangely Comfortable Land

A warm breeze blows off the Bay of Panama, caressing the city with a woman’s warm touch. I sit on a veranda of an outdoor restaurant atop the seven-story Costa del Sol Hotel, feeling the breeze and watching the twilight come. And I wonder, what could I have been thinking?

I mean, I knew the canal was here and I knew we had to boot Manuel Noriega out with loud blasts of rock ‘n’ roll, and I knew the U.S. had returned function of the ocean to ocean waterway to Panama. But beyond that, I was pretty ignorant of the country before I suggested to my adventuresome wife, Cinelli, that we go there.

Someone once said that God created wars to teach geography to Americans, which is pretty much true. But since there haven’t been any, well, official wars in Central America for a while, the conditions here haven’t been impressed upon me. So why did I say to my wife as we were discussing vacation possibilities, “How about Panama?” I don’t know.

Cinelli, who will go anyplace in the world despite distance and dangers, immediately agreed that it would be a sensational place to go, because there were rain forests and jaguars and monkeys and maybe crocodiles

“Crocodiles? In Panama?”

“Something like that. Caymans, I guess. And the fer-de-lance, which is a snake.”

“I know it’s a snake,” I said, visualizing a serpent dropping from a tree on to my head or striking out of the thick, green hell.

“Oh, good. Then you probably also know that a jaguar is an animal and not a car. At least not here. In Beverly Hills maybe, yes, but not in the rain forests. So it’s off to Panama, si?”

“I guess.”

This is an unexpected country, a place of tall buildings and jungles, of wealth and desperate poverty. Indians still live in the rain forests which, though within an hour or so driving distance, seem like another world. Their history goes back 11,000 years, and much of how they exist today is rooted in that dream time before human memory.

We booked our tour through Gray Line. I found it on the Internet, prices and all, and then went looking for books on Panama. I bought three, but the only one I really needed was in the Lonely Planet series. It wasn’t until later that I realized I knew the author, Scott Doggett.

Buying the book told me much about Panama’s history and culture, not to mention the location of some incredibly good restaurants, but you have to actually be in the country to even begin to understand it. I’ve only been here a beat and a half, but already I love it.

While stereotypes are always dangerous, Cinelli and I have found the people to be friendly, helpful and generous, and that’s not just at the hotel. We’ve managed to function despite a language barrier, due to the kindness of strangers. I suppose they could be muttering “Stupido Americanos” under their breath, but they smile when they’re saying it, so who cares?

When they hear my name, they are dumbfounded that I don’t speak Spanish, and no amount of explaining satisfies their confusion. So I shrug and grin stupidly and say, “I dunno,” the way they’d do in the U.S. if they didn’t speak English. One or two practiced the ancient technique of shouting at me to help me understand, but that doesn’t work here any better than it does in the U.S.

Panama City, with a population of about half a million, is as sophisticated as any large city we’ve visited ... and as busy. One can get just about anywhere in a taxi for $2 or $3, whether it’s to the canal, old town, the French plaza with its incredible eating places or any number of museums.

Traffic is unbelievably heavy, and cabdrivers consider it a game to go from Point A to Point B without dying. They miss other cars and vans and buses not by inches, but by the microscopic methods that scientists employ in measuring the sizes of spores on rat hairs. I would guess that the mortality rate of tourists is greater in traffic than in the jungle. It has been said, for instance, that to a cab driver, stop signs are only suggestions.

Weather is a part of the total experience in Panama, where in the mountains of San Blas it is said to rain as much as 100 inches in a year. As I sit overlooking the city now, the darkening sky is mostly clear and a full moon is visible between strands of clouds. But one can still sense the presence of rain in the humid air. And when it comes, it comes with flashes of lightning and roars of thunder that shake the very sky.

We will be in Panama for another week, and much remains to be seen in this magic country. I feel comfortable here, which is rare, because I don’t usually feel comfortable anywhere. An eight-hour ride through the canal from the Pacific to the Atlantic was the technological equivalent of climbing to the top of a pyramid. The canal represents that kind of achievement.

Tomorrow, it’s off to the jungles, in which my comfort, I fear, will be severely tested. Cinelli is electrified by the prospect. I remain, as usual, cautious.

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Al Martinez’s columns appear Mondays and Thursdays. He’s at al.martinez@latimes.com.