Panama Day 1: Arrived in Bocas del Toro

November 3, 2011

The Panama City airport (Tocumen International) is easy to negotiate… sort of.  I got through immigration with no problem and I waited maybe 10 minutes in line; they added more agents as the line got longer behind me.  Since I had no checked bags I walked past the luggage carousel and right through customs where I had to wait all of 30 seconds before a security officer could see me.  Once she examined my form she gestured to have me send my bags through the scanner and I was done.  Once into the arrivals hall I just needed to find the check-in for Aeroperlas Regional – this is when the fun began.

More of Panama City from our puddle jumper

Nowhere could I find a ticket counter for Aeroperlas.  Remembering that this is a TACA-run airline, I ventured over to TACA, which has many counters on the second level of the airport.  After several of the agents conferred I was finally directed to “the little white house” that is outside the main terminal to the left past the taxi queue, which is the domestic terminal.  That makes sense that there would be a separate terminal for regional airlines, but there are no signs anywhere.  So I walked the three minutes over to “the little white house” and there is indeed signage indicating that it is for domestic aviation.  In the domestic flight building there is a security check point for airport employees and another room that looks like a waiting room for security with a scanner.

I approached the only desk in the room and a young woman came over to me to ask what I wanted.  It turns out she is part of airport security and does a pat down of all the airport employees as they come in from the tarmac.  I observed that she did a somewhat more aggressive pat down of young men her own age and they seemed to enjoy it… joking back and forth and engaging in mutual flirting.  I thought it odd that a security person would be dressed in attire quite that tight and wearing four-inch heels but what the heck, this is Panama.  After a certain amount of gesturing and showing her my ticket information (printed in both English and Spanish) she pronounced that Aeroperlas was “no here” and I returned to the TACA counter in the main terminal.  This time the TACA agent, who appeared to be a supervisor, assured me that I was to just wait in the domestic terminal until my flight was ready.

This still did not feel right since there is absolutely no signage in the domestic terminal to indicate that any airline, regional or otherwise, would be leaving from that location.  I still had a couple of hours before my flight was supposed to depart, so as long as I was in the main terminal I grabbed something to eat for lunch.  As I was eating the whole situation was gnawing at me and I finally decided to find someone with more authority.

The Tocumen to Albrook 9-seater

Instead, I ran into Doug, a retired cop from Kansas City, Missouri who was supposed to be on the same flight.  Doug had the same mistrust of the "just sit and wait" instructions and was more aggressive than I.  He found the TACA office and went in to find out what was going on.  It was there that he found out that our plane had been cancelled due to the bad weather.  True, the weather had turned nasty since I had landed and we experienced some pretty dramatic thunder and lightning.  Bear in mind that I live in the Tampa area, which is the lightning capital of the US; it is no coincidence that our hockey team is called the Lightning!  So when a couple of thunder claps caused car alarms to go off all over the parking lot out front, I knew this was a significant storm.

OK... so our flight is cancelled.  Now what?  The TACA lady said she would arrange for transportation to Albrook Airport to catch another flight to Bocas del Toro.  Now the pieces of the puzzle were beginning to come together.  I thought that two hours-plus was a long time to fly from PTY to Bocas… that’s because, contrary to what the Aeroperlas website inferred, there are no flights from Tocumen to Bocas; you have to go to Albrook first.  After making a phone call, and with a little pressure applied, she decided to send a plane for us instead.  We were to remain at  the domestic terminal and we would be met there about an hour before the plane was to take off.

Doug and I had time to swap stories and it turns out we were on the same flight originating in Tampa.  He has his 37’ Endeavor sailboat in St. Petersburg and is planning to go back and get it after Thanksgiving and sail it to Tortola in the British Virgin Islands.  He is meeting his wife in Bocas to sail a friend’s boat to Tortola in the meantime.

Our new TACA friend showed up a little later than we expected but got us checked in and through security.  While we were waiting another passenger showed up, Brittany from Maine, who is returning to Bocas to continue her dive instructor education at Starfleet Scuba.  The flight to Albrook took all of 10 minutes and took us up the coast past all the Panama City high rise buildings that make up the coastal skyline and very near the Bridge of the Americas.  I am fairly certain we flew right over the Country Inn & Suites, where I will be staying for my final few nights in the country.  Fortunately we had a co-pilot on the short trip as Doug confirmed my suspicion about the pilot after we landed… he was quite inebriated.  Considering his condition he made a pillow soft landing in heavy cross winds.  It was kind of fun being the only three passengers on the plane.

Hotel Olas from the street

We were ushered from our plane to a holding room and sometime later our bags arrived followed by two guys in military fatigues and a dog that sniffed our luggage.  This was getting pretty comical.  Our flight left about 20 minutes late but even with all the adventure we ended up making it to Bocas only 8 minutes past our scheduled landing time.  The flight to Bocas was on a much larger plane, an ATR 42 twin turbo-prop, that held probably 40 – 50 people.  The Bocas terminal is a lot like the old terminal when I first arrived in Key West – very small but functional.  The luggage was plopped on the ground outside while the ground crew checked the luggage tags for some, but not all, and we eventually collected our bags.  Doug met his wife out front and together we walked the 6 or 7 blocks to Hotel Olas and they continued down the road to where their dinghy was tied up so they could go to their boat in the marina a short distance away.

While the Bocas airport lacked amenities and glitz, I noticed that the tarmac was new and, according to Doug, the terminal is in the midst of a make-over.  On our walk to my hotel I noticed, in stark contrast to San Pedro, Belize, the streets are all paved and there is a concrete ditch system along the roads to collect the large amount of rain this island receives.  The ditches were chock full of minnows, which I am sure eat a lot of mosquito larvae. 

Once getting settled in at Hotel Olas and being welcomed by Nairobi (a rather interesting name) I headed into town to walk around and grab some dinner.  Bocas Town was hopping.  I arrived on a Thursday night and there were quite a few people in town strolling up and down the main street and going to the bars and restaurants.  I also noticed that there is also a lot of active construction going on.

View of Caribbean and the mainland from the hotel

Nairobi suggested I try the Reef Restaurant, which turned out to be a good recommendation.  I sat at the bar and had a couple of Balboas (one of several Panamanian beers) before deciding to try the ceviche made with shrimp, squid and langostino.  The Reef is right on the water and a couple of times during the night water taxis stopped to drop off folks coming in from nearby islands or perhaps boats anchored in the bay.  The bar tender and server, Joel and Marie, kept me entertained and the Balboas coming.  For four cervecas and a great dish of ceviche served with freshly made banana chips, the bill came to only $10.50.  I like this place.  I met the owner/chef Derek on the way out and let him know how much I enjoyed the food and atmosphere.

As I walked back to Hotel Olas it hit me that I had not seen a single mosquito even though I did not apply insect repellant.  I guess those minnows in the ditches are doing their job.  I had heard that Bocas is one of the few places in the country where you need to be careful about drinking  the water and meant to pick up a big bottle in town but forgot.  Nairobi got me fixed up with a bottle of water and I spent some time sitting out on the second floor balcony enjoying the sound of the rain on the tin roof and just taking it all in.  Not a bad first day.