by Heidi King
Tourists often brag about where they have been. Travelers don’t know where the hell they are going. I brought María here to Bocas to find out what we were to each other. We were travelers.
The Red Jacket
Editor’s Notes from Patrick McGreer
I have spent so many hours poring over their blogs, diaries and personal letters to arrange what you are now reading that I no longer remember my first impressions of them. Except María, of course. Women as beautiful as her are not forgotten easily.
The Lost and Found is a hike-in lodge seven miles east of Fortuna Lake – now a reservoir to a huge dam. It requires a fifteen minute walk up from the David to Bocas highway. Like a lot of my guests are out of breath from the walk and María was no exception. I smiled and joked that she should have taken the elevator. She didn’t smile back. At first glance she was so cute I immediately assumed she was innocuous and would be amused by my joke. But she remained vacant and when she held my gaze I felt a kind of chill I cannot explain. “Tengo alas,” she said. I have wings. “I just need to learn to use them.”
They arrived at the top. Gabriel, our handyman and part-time night safari guide, was helping Dr. Mike with his luggage. I am sure I shook everyone’s hands and answered their questions: Why don’t you guys build a zip-line for people’s bags? Did you carry everything up yourselves? Why did you come to Panama? The introduction speech I give is always new for the guests, but for me it is a routine that has become one big blur. It was this monotony that convinced my business partner Andrew and myself that we needed to take a break. So we decided to lease out the hostel for a year.
We didn’t build a zip line because, well, we need money, and that will come after the new private cabins, the sauna, new shower change rooms, a bigger cage for Rocky, our pet kinkajou, and composting toilets. I didn’t carry everything up by hand, but yes, I paid people to carry everything up by hand. Gabriel made a buck per hundred pound bag of cement he carried up for our builder. I carried one and vomited on arrival, so I gave Gabriel a job after we fired our builder.
How I decided to come to Panama is a much more involved question with several answers, depending on who asks. The financial answer is the short one. While most of our peers were getting married, buying real estate and unknowingly heading into the subprime mortgage crisis, Andrew and I taught ESL. Although we are both Canadian, we met in Korea and bonded over basketball and websites for people who don’t want to go home, like the Escape Artist and International Living.
Andrew saved his money with the goal of buying a little plot of land in Costa Rica. The idea was to teach a little and then build a beach shack, teach a little more and build something more. I was looking at offshore stock brokers, and Panama, with all its banks, came up frequently. Somehow, we met in the middle. I decided land was a better investment, and I sold Andrew on teaming up and investing ahead of the curve in Panama. Land values were set to rise with the increasing arrival of retiring Americans who like that Panama uses the US dollar, is cheap and is close to home. We made a loose plan to meet up in Panama, not really believing the other would actually show up.
In fact, I myself didn’t know if I would turn up or not until a couple of months after I left Korea. What helped me make up my mind had been following me for years until it sat neatly in a chest of drawers near the beer fridge at The Lost and Found. It was a red rain jacket that my girlfriend gave to me when we said goodbye at the Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul. I left the girl that might have been ‘the one’ for the security of a high paying job in Korea and the freedom money could give. I promised to return one day with the jacket. What I really wanted to do was return to her once I had banked money. But she met another teacher like me, and although they broke up for a time when he was faced with my very same dilemma, they reunited again. They now have a lovely family. I have the red jacket.
The red jacket stayed with me in Korea. I led an uneventful life, teaching every over time hour and dreaming about sitting in front of the 7-11 on Khao San Road in Bangkok with a cold Singa beer. After nearly four years of teaching, I gave away most of my belongings and brought my jacket to Koh Lanta, in Thailand. On December 26th, 2004, I got up unusually early to buy shaving cream. I noticed a big commotion down by the beach, so I walked down and saw Thai kids running down to the receding shoreline to throw flapping fish back into ocean. Scuba divers shouted frantically, dropping their weight belts and flippers and running in the opposite direction.
The Asian Tsunami of 2004 didn’t kill so many on my island, but it did destroy my bungalow. The few things I did salvage were stolen the next morning from a garbage bag I had with me when I passed out on the side of a rock quarry, drinking with a biker gang from Germany. But I had my passport and my bank cards with the money I saved in Korea. And the red jacket.
I made it to Khao San Road in Bangkok and finally did what I had day dreamed about all those hours teaching Korean kids… drinking Singa and doing nothing. There was nothing on my ‘to do’ list. Freedom…. Just another word for nothing left to lose. Now what?
I thought back a few days to a moment on the side of the rock quarry on KohLanta. I was with about eighty other tourists who fled from the waves. From where I was standing, I saw no death or serious injury. So I was talking cheerfully with other tourists, exchanging stories and emails for photos. But then one lone tourist drove up to us on a mini-bike and shut his engine off. He searched our faces and shouted, “Veronica! Veronica!” The tourists looked at one another but no one named Veronica called out. And he drove off.
Freedom, standard of living, security. Choose two.
I had all the freedom in the world but no one looking for me. No hockey trophies sitting under a bed somewhere. A bank account, a few Myspace friends and the jacket. I wanted to go somewhere for a change, someplace where the faces of the people I met would not be all just one big blur after I said goodbye. I didn’t want to choose a country just for the money. I wanted a place of my own, a place to set up and call home. I wanted more than just the jacket. The list of places where you can buy land and own a business is a short one. But in Canada I am just like all the rest – I’m Canadian. So I decided to build the Lost and Found. The red jacket followed me to Panama.
The building of our eco-hostel was impeded by the owners of La Fortuna Dam, the huge hydroelectric plant ten kilometers up the road from our location. The dam is a classic example of the behavior of a multinational corporation that grossly exaggerates economic benefits to local communities and bribes governments to allow megaprojects that suck capital from the developing world. Built with foreign expertise and financed by predatory loans, the dam does not contribute a penny to the local economy.
The dam’s turbines are housed in soccer field-sized chambers deep underground. Tunnels large enough to park a chain of jetliners burrow through mountains of the Fortuna Forest Reserve. The water generates electricity by tumbling through the tunnels, and is later regurgitated and spat back up when there is excess power in the grid. La Fortuna Dam generates 40% of Panama’s electricity, and its owners make multiple millions of dollars selling power to Costa Rica. The watershed is protected by law, a law the owners wrote themselves and presented to the General Assembly for rubber-stamping. They created the vast Fortuna Forest Reserve, prohibiting all those living within its boundaries from ever titling their property and effectively squashing economic development in the region. But they missed a little piece of land that was titled before the reserve was created. We bought those eleven hectares, eleven hectares of paradise, a garden of amazing organic coffee planted among alluring orange and lemon groves.
The company’s reasons for objecting to our presence in the reserve remain a mystery to this day. They wrote a threatening letter of objection to the Minister of the Environment and an email to us demanding we leave. Our environmental impact assessment was rejected even after local officials had told us to build. We were shut down and fined. Our life savings were in jeopardy.
Ou
r fortunes began to turn after a chance encounter, what I would call destiny if I were a superstitious man. About a twenty minute walk from the lodge is the little town of Valle de la Mina. Andrew was there getting some local food at a small restaurant when a grandfatherly man dumped out Andrew’s glass of water, filled it with a strange red liquid and said, “Dale pues”. I never really got a handle on what that means. Could be, ‘Okay then,’ or ‘Do it.’
Andrew did it. It had bite. It tasted tart and almost effervescent.
They finished the bottle and the man pulled Andrew down to his farm to show him how his organic fruit wine was made. His name was Félix González Córtez, but the village knew him as Don Cune. As a small boy he loved to eat an animal known in these parts as a conejo pintado. As a five year old, he could never get whole word out of his mouth. All he could say was something like ‘cune’ (koo nay). So when he asked for his favorite food, he would say “Quiero cune, quiero cune!” When his parents wanted to get him home quick, they shouted Cune. It became his name.
“Más orgánico,” he would say with a smile that ran ear to ear, beaming underneath his signature weathered straw hat, the brim upturned in the style of the Panamanian peasant.
Turned out Cune had a passion for all things organic. Why kill your customers? was his line of thinking. But Cune had some problems of his own. His coffee yield was down 80% due to coffee rust, a crippling fungus brought on by increasing rainfall. It was a temptation on a farm just to spray chemicals, but Cune had worked more than ten years to obtain organic certification and was just one year away. Because of the rules governing the reserve, however, he was ineligible for any type of loan to improve his farm because he had no deed to his home, no collateral to offer. Although he had lived there for decades, he was, in the words of the CEO of the hydroelectric company, “a squatter that we tolerate.” Andrew had a cup of coffee -- world class. Then he had some more wine -- wild blackberry, cashew fruit, pineapple… a little sour, with bite reminiscent of Don Cune’s wit, wry but merry.
The two of them became fast friends. And it occurred to Andrew that perhaps the best way to help our business was by finding a way to help Don Cune.
Later, over a couple of beers back at the Lost and Found, Andrew and I decided, screw it! Screw the dam, screw the government. Dale pues, we defied the law and opened. Immediately we started to run tours to Cune’s farm, adding a farm to table lunch, fresh sugar cane juice, coffee and wine with a bite. Neighbors partnered with us to run horseback tours, jungle treks, birding and hot springs tours. Defying all expectations, the Ministry of Environment left as alone. The mayor of the district noticed what we were doing and supported us, even if it was mainly because he wanted to tax us. The Ministry of Tourism got on board. Despite countless hours of headaches, the legal fees and even more impact studies, we opened and take pride when we extend our middle finger toward the dam, knowing we employ three times as many locals as they do. Great rewards come from great challenges.
There is still unfinished work. The community needs more English to participate more fully with opportunities our tourists bring. But now I have a To Do list and I have a place to be. I am part of the community.
A part of me wasn’t sure, after all this work, that I was really ready to lease it out to Steve. Meeting him didn’t help. Steve was crass and sexist who made jokes at the expense of others. I had two days to make up my mind before my flight back to Canada. Andrew was coming a week later, so I had a two day window to veto the whole operation.
In a way it was María who helped me make up my mind. Later in the evening, I was paired with her for our nightly foosball tournament, and she warmed up to me despite my dumb elevator joke. I thought we were getting on well, but I think she just has that way with guys -- she makes you feel like she is interested in your stories. When she hangs off the loft in the bar, showing you her tattoos, you think that this is for you and you alone.
But it wasn’t. I had a feeling she was with Matt, and I saw him from the corner of my eye almost every time I gave María a high-five after a goal and every time I gave her a hug after a win. It wasn’t that he shot me dirty jealous looks or that he was insecure. It was that I saw him in me, following this girl.
Later that same night, Greg from the Bambu hostel brought out his guitar and we sat around the campfire as he played. I sat next to Matt. It turned out we had a lot in common. He was an ESL teacher like I had been. He admitted that Steve wanted him to quit his job in Panama City, but it was really because of María that he was considering quitting and helping to manage The Lost and Found.
I saw him at the same crossroads where I found myself many years before at the airport in Istanbul, wondering if following the girl was the right thing to do. Wondering which path might lead to regret. I saw him wanting community and wanting family. Matt and I walked back to the main area to grab some beers for our friends by the fire. I took the moment to tell him the truth. “Steve is a funny guy,” I said. “But I don’t know if I want to leave my hostel with him. I need to know if you are in too.” Matt paused and looked back toward the fire. “Fuck it,” he said. “I’m in.” Dale pues.
When we went down to the beer fridge, I opened the dresser next to the window. “María looks cold,” I said. I tossed it to him – the red jacket.
I shook everyone’s hands goodbye the next day. I saw the reflection in Matt’s eyes, and I saw me. I saw María, mesmerizingly beautiful; wearing the jacket that I knew would never make it to Turkey. I never knew what happened to the red rain jacket.
I am just a player on the sidelines. The narrator of the story. Very little is actually written about me in their blogs, diaries and letters home. But had I decided not to lease out The Lost and Found, so many lives would not have forever changed. I would still have the red jacket but I would not have this book.
Rocky is Fine
By Steve Banks
Dear Patrick,
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to manage The Lost and Found. I promise to keep it in great shape.
Guess I missed your call the other day. Try not to call during happy hour in the bar.
I decided to plant a garden so we could have more organic, raw, fresh alternatives for the guests. Also thinking of building a zip line if we can save up the cash.
Luz came back from vacation and introduced herself.
Did you ever notice that there are more male backpackers than female? We are thinking of ways to even out the ratio, like having ladies night in the bar or something. But not Monday… that is reserved in your honor for trivia night, a huge hit.
Gabriel is carrying rocks up the hill.
Your buddy,
Steve
P.S. Rocky is fine.
Ladies’ Night
By Steve Banks
Hey Andrew,
Things are great here at The Lost and Found. You really made a nice place. Maria and Estrella are painting. They are working with a kind of Egyptian theme, symbol of Isis, story of Osiris, that kind of thing. Maria wants to build a labyrinth and is talking about adding more fun things to do like a treasure hunt.
Bought a Panama Hat… looks cool.
Told Patrick that Monday was trivia night in his honor. Do you think he bought it? Actually every Monday the girls drink free if they flash their tits.
P.S. Would you fuck Jessica Alba but only if I fucked her first?
Response:
Hey Steve,
Good to hear about the improvements to The Lost and Found. Keep up the good work. What is the treasure hunt about? Is Matt helping out Maria? Are they hooking up?
Andrew
Imagine
By Dr. Mike Anderson
Imagine: You are alone in the jungle. Suddenly you are surprised by a coiled pit viper. There are two more behind you. What do you do?
To help Ooznahvi answer this question, I decided to take her with me for an afternoon stroll. We set out down Arco Iris, a scenic, looping road in the hills outside of Boquete where I rent a l
uxurious house that literally looks like a castle. It was a beautiful December day late in coffee season, but we could still see the Indians in traditional dress hauling bags of freshly picked coffee berries. The brugmansia, the white trumpet-shaped flowers that hang their heads along the side of the road, were still in bloom. We continued our walk, turning onto Bajo Mono, another country road that traces the tumbling headwaters of the Caldera River, passing cascading waterfalls and charming bridges until it finally reaches the trailhead for the famous Quetzal Trail. We were on our way to confront fear at the Skeleton Temple.
Some of our fears are primordial -- they are part of our hard wiring, our collective unconscious. In many ways they unite us and help us survive. But some of our fears we learn as individuals, and they become obstacles to the achievement of our personal goals. The single most important step to overcoming these fears is to simply identify them and discover where we learned them. The dark halls and vacant rooms of the Skeleton Temple are like the caverns of our unconscious. They wait for us to shine a light and see that there is nothing to be afraid of. The temple was the perfect place for Ooznahvi’s first shamanic journey to the underworld.
The Skeleton Temple, as I call it, is an ominous, unfinished mansion guarded by barb wire and imposing eucalyptus trees. It looks like an ashen palace, noble, yet completely unloved. The local legend says that a wealthy Arab built it for his fiancé, who later killed herself after he was gone on work for an unusually long while. They say she plunged herself in the rapids of the river that runs along the edge of the property. After learning of her death, the wealthy owner didn’t have the heart either to finish the construction or to sell it.
I threw my jacket onto the barbed wire to help Ooznahvi over. She protested – this was illegal, she said, there could be dangerous homeless people inside. This, of course, was all possible, but this was merely her fear of the unknown searching for a rationale in logic. As we approached the house, she convinced herself that no one else was nearby and began laughing nervously. I helped her through a ground floor window and we waited inside for the sun to set behind the volcano.