But wait there's still more excitement and adventure in Panama!
Last Friday came in quietly. The four of us had a wonderful
breakfast in the hotel, we tried some new kind of fruit (bland as usual for
Panama) that we thought was lychee but perhaps it was Pulasan and filled up on
hot chocolate, juice, soda and coffee!
The next stop was
the pool for a few hours. It was bright, sunny and warm outside.
The only other thing on the agenda was shopping at the "outlet"
mall and with the vendors on the overpass as well as lunch at MetroMall.
Little did we know what was in store for us.
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| The pool at Marriott Courtyard MetroMall |
We decided to walk
over to "The Sound of Music" store first (thinking it would have
music like CD's, records) just in case it decided to start raining. When
on the overpass, Eric stopped to by a $2 wooden necklace. I continued on
to see what else was there and what I wanted to buy. Out of the blue, the
woman started yelling in Spanish to the other vendors and before I knew it, she
had swiped the table clear of all merchandise into a 3x3 Hello Kitty bag.
I went back to the other table now realizing I wasn't going to be able to
buy anything if I didn't act fast, and I found a trinket for $2 (I made sure I
picked out just the right color). Was this a police raid? They
don't have their peddlers license? We didn't think so since the
police were standing at the bottoms of the steps when we had arrived there.
We continued on to the stores realizing that the stores were closed, and
around the corner there was more Spanish yelling. A twenty-some year old
Panamanian was speaking broken English to Eric while he spoke broken Spanish.
A man in his forties picked us out of the crowd and said to us in English
"get in a taxi, go back to your room. NOW." The rioting
from Colon last week had spread to Panama City and was trickling out to
neighboring cities. According to Don Winner who writes Panama-Guide, the
protests were against a quickly passed Law 72 (which President Martinelli has
since "taken back", and this is what took place on Friday while we
were sitting at the pool:
On Friday, looters ransacked shops and stoned vehicles in
Panama City following protests outside the Congress against the law. Police
used tear gas against protesters.
The
violence resulted in more than 200 arrests in Panama City and Colon, the
northern city where the duty-free zone is located. Eleven people — a mix of
protesters and police — were hurt, authorities said.
Protests
first started last week when Martinelli signed the law.
Martinelli
proposed having some of the proceeds go to state coffers and some to local
development in one of Panama's poorest areas, but demonstrators in Colon
opposed any sale.
We never felt in danger. We just knew to do what
we were told. We stuck out like a sore thumb there. We headed back
over to the mall, and we noticed many people leaving. We also noticed the
shops were open and many people were still walking into the mall. But
then we thought about getting to the airport. The taxi situation.
Possible road closures. We had read about all of this in the past.
We thought it best to just get on the road. The staff at the hotel
told us what was going on and stated that if the mall management felt it
necessary, they would close the shops. (Albrook Mall closer to the city had
closed, buses weren't running, and taxi fares were being hiked up.)
We loaded our luggage into the taxi, paid $5 more than the day before,
and made it to the airport easily enough.
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| Were they scared for their lives? Or being melodramatic? |
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| Everyone finding taxis and exiting the stores |
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| Overpass cleared out (few vendors still packing up) and traffic picking up |
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| Policemen on their way |
There we paid a
whole lot of money for drinks and appetizers.
We longed to return to the “interior” where Balboa beer was .40 (or even
$2.50 for a bottle) and frozen drinks were $4.
And we didn’t like departing from Tocumen. It was not an easy last two hours. We waited patiently at Gate 7 only to find
out (on our own) that we would now be leaving from Gate 29 (on the complete
opposite side of the airport). We were
told to stand on line and wait to have our carry on luggage scanned only at
this gate, there weren’t any scanners.
Just one slow person that turned into three that eventually decided they’d
better move it or we would all miss the flight!
They had us empty our just bought and unopened liquids (soda and water)
even though if you were at the back of the line that rule became relaxes. They didn’t have children load first or the
passengers that were medically compromised.
Apparently (according to a passenger in line with us) since 9-11, any flight
going into the States is required to have their carry on luggage, shoes and
body searched. Unfortunately, the scanners
were at Gate 7. This is when Ray and I made our decision to upgrade our Copa airline status if possible, so we can jump to
the shorter line. This was the only time I decided that Panama might be a bit
ludicrous. Or hopefully, it wasn’t just
that I had taken those rose-colored glasses off! Patience.
And yes, I still want more of Panama.
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| $18 nachos better be good (at the airport) with $10 drinks |
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| Should have drank more to withstand this line--waiting to be searched again before boarding the plane |
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This is the one woman they had to start the search (notice the other tables sitting there empty --they were waiting for chairs for the passengers!)
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