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baby clams and garlic. The rooms were very basic with bunk beds, showers,
and fans - all the cabins were on the beach, and all had a great view of
the beach and ocean. There are some other small Cabañas in Santa
Catalina and an Italian-owned pizzeria as well as an Argentinean grill;
this is frontier country and a few brave pioneers who could see the value
of the spot have begun to build restaurants and hotels so that other people
can come and enjoy the incredible beauty of this part of Panama.
You can get
to Santa Catalina from the town of Santiago, which is the capital of Veraguas,
the province where both Santa Catalina and Coiba are located. The trip
to Santa Catalina takes about 3 and a half hours from Santiago.
From Santiago
you travel to the town of Sona: this part of the trip takes about one hour.
From Sona you take the road to Santa Catalina; after an hour or more on
a paved road, you take a left onto a dirt road and drive for an hour and
a half until you arrive to Santa Catalina. If you are planning to drive,
I suggest you rent a 4x4, as the last stretch of road before entering Santa
Catalina is very rough and muddy, especially during the rainy season.
The Trip
To Coiba
Well, it was
one of those funny things. I was in a cab talking to a friend about going
to Coiba and how we should try to get there. I knew the traditional way
of getting to the island was through the depressing port town of Puerto
Mutis, but I had recently heard that a quicker and much better route to
Coiba was by boat from the town of Santa Catalina. I wasn’t even sure that
we could get to Coiba as the government controlled access to the island:
how would we make it to Coiba? I said this to myself as my friend left
the cab. Well, the cab driver hadn’t said anything during our conversation;
he was listening to the booming radio, but when he turned down the radio,
I told him half-jokingly that I was headed to Coiba for the weekend and
he said to me, "I know all about Coiba, I was a prisoner on the island
for 4 months". Panama luck. He told me a very interesting story and it
went like this: In 1987 he had been working as a cab driver – I knew him
and the company he worked for, Howard Cab – when he received a call to
pick up an American GI. When he went to pick up the GI, the GI was with
a Nicaraguan whore that he had picked up at some bar on J street. They
were carrying drugs in a bag that they put into the car: they told him
- the cab driver - about the drugs. All of this made complete sense to
me and sounded like a lot of stories I had heard while in Panama. The GI,
the woman and the situation: I had seen it myself when I first arrived
in Panama and there were still American GIs in the country. Anyway, the
cab driver drove the GI and whore to Howard Air Force Base; when they arrived
the GI asked the cab driver to wait for them. They put the bags full of
drugs in the trunk of the car. As the cabby waited for the GI, a Panamanian
policeman pulled up and decided he wanted to check the cab; the cabby told
me he thought the cop was stopping to talk with him, Panamanian to Panamanian,
but he didn’t talk, rather he searched the car, found the drugs and arrested
the cabby and took him immediately to prison. Set up? The courts believed
his story about the GI and the whore, but he confessed to the court that
the GI had told him what was in the bags. That meant he would get time.
But it was during the military years in Panama, just as the relationship
with the U.S. was turning sour; in 1987 Reagan froze the Panamanian banking
system and the country began to ration, so the cabbie's case was lost in
the rush of events. The invasion, the turmoil within Panama after the invasion,
and, well, the cabbie's case was forgotten about. He continued the story.
In 1994 he
needed to get an official police record to complete a piece of paperwork:
in Panama a police record is needed for many things. Well, they checked
his police record and found the old offense from 1987. It had survived.
When he went to pick up his police record, they told him that he was under
arrest and that he would be shipped to Coiba immediately. And he was taken
immediately. He told me that the boat ride from Puerto Mutis to Coiba Island
took 6 hours - it can - and that the camp wasn’t as bad as he had expected
- the military years were over, and the island was more relaxed – he told
me there were a series of large army tents that people slept under; there
was one meal at noon and people grew vegetables. He was glad to have left
when his time came, but remembered the experience in such a way that he
was willing to tell me about it. I thought Jesus what a start to the trip.
I knew I had to reach Coiba after that, though it wasn’t going to be easy.
I rented a
four-wheel drive on Friday, November 12, 2004 and picked up a friend, Cef,
and grabbed my wife Gabi and three other people and headed off. We left
at 6:30pm and drove the three and a half hours to Santiago from Panama
City. We stayed at the Hotel Pyramidal in Santiago. The Pyramidal cost
us $30 for a room with three beds and great air conditioning and large
pool. The Hotel is Chinese-owned and has great plantings between the rooms.
We arrived about 10:15pm, checked in and took our friend Rosi to see her
Aunt on the outskirts of Santiago. On the way to the Aunt’s house, we passed
a loud food processing plant that spewed foul odors and fumes. The air
beyond the food processing plant was clean and sweet and in the thick grass.
It was a rural quiet area. We waved goodbye to Rosi in the darkness and
went back to the Pyramidal and slept well.
We woke early
the next morning and had a typical breakfast for Santiago: meat with fried
bread and a Coke. Very tasty and very wide awake. Panamanians love fried
things in the morning: chicken, bread, meat or pork. Mies nuevo
and caraminolas – these are names of fried foods - are special names
for people in Panama, and when you say them, and when they realize that
a foreigner knows about them, they light up with lighthouse beams of energy.
We headed to
Puerto Mutis; Cef was reading the paper and talking about the recipes.
Gabi and the others argued in the backseat. Puerto Mutis is a funny port
town. It narrows down to the sea; the current here is fast moving and the
town feels dark and dirty. The seafood restaurants are famous for being
very good, so if you like seafood, you’ll like this place. Cef tried to
negotiate a boat. Cef is an old-time friend and is always good in a “stick”.
The price for the three-hour boat ride was going to be $400. We left and
decided to go to Santa Catalina. I had heard from other people that Santa
Catalina was the place to go: I knew it had great surfing and a great beach,
but that it was very hard to get to. To get to Santa Catalina you have
to go to the town of Sona. So we drove from Santiago to Sona and picked
up some supplies; it was 11:00am. We drove through the hot sun and windy
countryside towards Santa Catalina. The area south of Sona in the direction
of Santa Catalina is famous for rice and meat production. Large rice fields
lined the road and cattle were more numerous as we drove closer to Santa
Catalina. I almost missed the left turn to Santa Catalina and then the
road was dirt and stone. We were smoking cigarettes and sipping light rum.
We drove down a sharp hill and then right into a series of mud puddles;
there was a black Mitsubishi in front of us. It stopped in the distance,
as we were 4-wheeling through the mud and bad road. When we got close to
the black Mitsubishi we realized the occupants of the Mitsubishi were pulling
their pants down and pissing on the road, one of the girls who was pissing
saw us and jumped up and got in the car and waited for us to pass. We were
15 minutes down the road from the Mitsubishi, looking at pastureland, when
the black Mitsubishi reappeared and drove very fast and very wildly past
us.
The drive went
on but the heat of the afternoon made us tired and weak. We pulled into
the town of Santa Catalina at 2:00pm and were happy with what we saw. Very
nice little town. Looks like one of those beaches you find in Costa Rica,
except much less developed. The road wound down to the beach, which was
dark sand. The town was very green with brightly colored houses made out
of wood and concrete. The town was a bar, a store and a restaurant. There
were some Europeans and Americans walking around. We began negotiating
for a boat and got one for $200. Good. Then we met an Italian guy, David,
who offered us rooms for $10 a night. Momentum now. Good. David, the Italian,
got into his 4x4 and drove out of town through high grass that grew on
a seaside plateau that looked out over the sea and surrounding countryside.
A small wooden sign that said Jamming was stuck in the ground next
to the road. It was the name of an Italian-owned pizzeria. Down a rough
road and through the shallow ocean and we arrived to the Hotel Oasis.
Great view of the ocean and a large, dark sand beach. We needed money and
drinks so Cef and I decided to drive back to Sona for both. There is a
money machine in Sona. Two hours there, two hours back. Off we went, the
temperature was even more intense as the afternoon went on. We talked about
many subjects on the long ride. We both had friends from Chile and both
Cef and I had traveled through Chile; he in 1982 during the Falkland Crisis,
and I in late 1997. Pinochet was still Chief of the Army in 1997. Cef said
to me that it was funny to him that they had recently found Pinochet insane:
”He had always been insane for God’s sake”! “Now they realize it!” "After
all this was a man who in 1980 wanted to have a single presidential term
that would last for 16 years: isn't that crazy?" This was all said with
comic inflection and a touch of insanity. The disturbed Pinochet had taken
a democratic country with a long history of democracy, and disciplined
it into a dictatorship of the disturbed in the name of national security
threats. And people went along with it because the dictatorship protected
them from possible dangers and, more importantly, Pinochet's rule was economically
very beneficial to some people. And so a culture of killing and intimidation
was established in formerly open and democratic Chile. The Chileans went
from Citizens to Subjects in one generation under Pinochet. Don’t let it
happen to you! Thank god, that Chileans are finally moving away from the
dictatorship mindset.
We arrived
in Sona and went to a pollo asado. The name was Esther
Asados and they served a very good roasted chicken with yucca or patacones(fried
plantains). We bought what we needed and got back on the road, headed for
Santa Catalina. We arrived as the sun was going down and we went to bed
early.
We woke up
the next day to look for a boat. Our captain, who we had made the deal
with the day before, was at home, and probably drunk, but his friend and
first mate told us he would be happy to take us over to Coiba. As the first
mate talked to us, I could see Coiba in the far distance. I could see the
outline of the island and the high mountain center. It looked like a prison
island even from this distant viewpoint: rough and intimidating. We picked
up the others on the beach in front of Hotel Oasis. On the short
ride over from Sanata Catalina to Hotel Oasis, I knew it was going
to be a hard trip, because the boat was small and the waves were big and
I was whip lashed around as we raced at high speeds through the surf. The
driver, Tacho, smiled at me and said that the boat was normally used for
fishing. Cef groaned as we flew into the air and back down onto the rough
sea.
After we arrived,
we walked to the Hotel, but what we didn’t realize was that low tide was
beginning and so the boat became stuck on the sand. We all pushed and the
boat hit the water and began to move; we all jumped on and the motor turned
over on the first pull and off we went. The ride out was hard and everyone
was grimacing, but the dolphins jumped near the boat as well as flying
fish, and the great anticipation of actually arriving to Coiba was exciting
enough to make the one-hour, and very bumpy ride, worth it.
Tacho took
us to Granito de Oro (Chunk of Gold) first and as we approached,
Granito
de Oro, I thought what are we doing here; it’s just a bunch of volcanic
looking rocks. And then we went around to the other side of the small island
and there was the most beautiful white sand beach with a little grove of
palm trees at the top of the beach casting a shade across the white sand.
The water was clear blue and everyone was excited about the place. I took
pictures and ran around happy to see this. Coiba was right across from
Granito
de Oro; it was huge and looked very intimidating. We left
Granito
de Oro and went to the ANAM office on Coiba. ANAM is the government
agency that runs Coiba National Park. ANAM has a small place where people
can stay for $12 a night. This is paradise: $12 a night, bring something
to eat; there is a small island town about 30 minutes from Coiba that can
be reached by boat. We pulled in and met the people who ran the small ANAM
station. They seemed to want to have visitors and were very nice to us.
In fact, I forgot my shirt and as we left the island, they ran to the boat
to give me back my shirt, very friendly for a prison island. Where the
prisoners lived is on the other side of island. Tacho didn’t seem to want
take us there. He said the government had taken everything and there was
nothing to see. There are many dead people buried there – always better
to leave the dead in peace. We headed to Playa Canales: white sand
with a small freshwater stream running down into the ocean. So you could
swim in saltwater and then lay in the freshwater stream that ran down the
beach to the ocean. Hot sun now. We headed through the little islands and
saw a huge house on a hill on one of the remote islands. We were told a
large American company had bought the whole coast. I was told two people
had bought this incredible landscape: Mick Jagger and Michael Douglas.
I heard this in Panama City, not Coiba or Santa Catalina. Who knows?
We did go to
the small town near Coiba: drunks walking around and dazed out. Sharp-featured
Latins with wild eyes and crazy talk, and with beer and loud music. This
was the old story: drunk on Sunday. Back to Santa Catalina we went. First
against the sea current, then with it. The ride back – as always - was
quicker. We unloaded our stuff and jumped into the car for the long 6 and
a half hour drive back to Panama City, It was 4:30pm when we left so our
arrival was going to be late. We ate in Sona and then drove to Santiago
where we bought water; we stopped in Aguadulce to use the lavatory and
then reached Panama City at 10:30pm. One last thing: if civilization is
killing you a trip to Coiba might be good.
Suggestions
If you are
planning to travel to Santa Catalina and Coiba as part of a road trip or
tour, and are planning to go to the Chiriqui Highlands, then be sure to
take the back road from Sona to the new Inter-American highway. At the
back of Sona near the hospital is the entrance to the old Inter-American
highway. The highway is one of the great eye-candy road trips you will
ever take. There is a town off the road called Las Palmas – the town is
30 minutes off the old highway. Anyway, it has a great waterfall you should
see. You might be able to camp along the old highway. Be sure to try and
ask someone if it is all right. Normally people will be happy to oblige
you. Remember, if you’re tense, then they will be tense.
Sona
Late February
there is the Patronales de Sona, this is one of the best country
parties in Panama. The weather is bone dry and the winds are high and the
party is blasting for 5 days or longer.
Fairs
January to
April is fair season in Panama. And the weather is hot and dry. There is
the Flower Fair in Boquete in January. The International Festival of David
is in March. The fair in David is one of the largest fairs in Central America.
My favorite fair is the Azuero Fair; there is also the Ocu Fair and there
is much more to see and enjoy.
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