Friday, March 3, 2006

Panama City is hot. It's a familiar heat, like New York in the summer. Not particularly dry, but not crazy humid like Santiago Ixcuintla. We like it a lot. The area we're staying in reminds me of Brooklyn, people just walking around laid-back and having a good time. Michael and I agreed that while Little Corn Island would be where we'd go for a relaxing vacation, we'd come to Panama City if we were, say, working on a book and wanted to rent an apartment for a month or two or three.

Panama City has all the conveniences and international cheeses, but it also has its own culture and feeling and giant plates of pollo guisado and rice... mmm. The Panamaniacs are friendly, but in a big-city way, which means you don't have to greet every single person you pass, but people will be nice if you do have to or choose to talk to them.

I had my fasting blood draw this morning and then we went back to the room to eat more La Cascada leftovers. Yup, we went back to La Cascada last night. I ordered only an appetizer, thinking it would be a smaller plate, but it looked suspiciously similar, just without the fries and potato. This time our food only cost $17, but we still had two cartons of leftovers.

Oh, and I also ruined oysters for Michael by accidentally informing him of what the dark green stuff is. Sorry, Michael. I thought you knew.

We got an e-mail back from Captain P. of our potential sailboat in response to Michael's questions.

"Michael I have every things onboard my ship and are the most velequiped boat you can find all over a boat to 1 milliones dollars ,so if you not trust it ,Im sorry to tell we have many peopel waiting just here ,but I said to this peopel here they have to wait for your confirm of your trip with us._

This internet here in porto bello cloose at 4 pm today and I will look after your finaly respons if no one I have to give your reservation to the next on our list."

Hmmm. Well. We had a long discussion. It would be one thing if we'd never asked in the first place and we just hopped on a boat without any information. But if we actually ask and are not given an answer and then get on the boat anyway, what's the point of asking? Didn't we ask so we could feel comfortable? And now that we got no answers, don't we feel uncomfortable? And isn't feeling uncomfortable bad?

But then again, there are no other boats that we know of. Voyager won't let us back in. If we don't get on this boat, we could be waiting around Panama City forever. Or we'll have to fly. Flying is not the end of the world, but we'd like to avoid it if we can. And maybe we misunderstood Captain P.'s tone. Maybe he is just super-chill about things.

So we went back and forth and in the end decided to take the chance. We can always just not go on the trip if things look shady when we get to the boat. So Michael responded and confirmed us. The boat is in Portobelo, about two hours out of Panama City. We're to be in Portobelo ready to set sail on Sunday evening.

After that, we went to a bookstore with an English-language section hoping to find a South America guidebook. The place had a nice selection of Lonely Planets... but no South America. But we hung out there for a while anyway. It was air-conditioned, for one. Also, I hadn't realized how much I miss just going into a bookstore and browsing and reading for a couple of hours.

We bought a copy of A Million Little Pieces even though the author, James Frey, lied to Oprah. (I guess he's lost his chance to be on the cover of O magazine.) Then we bought a bunch of supplies for the trip at the big, wonderful supermarket. We don't know what to expect with this sailboat trip at all. So we got some granola bars, some crackers, peanut butter, etc. And some fresh ginger, for seasickness.

I feel so excited! The trip has been great, but I haven't felt this "doing something new" feeling since we crossed the border at Tijuana. I've never been on a sailboat before. And we are finally going to hit South America!

 

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Panama City.

Panama City.