August 2005 Vol.2 Issue 5

Livin’ on Bocas Time
by Richard Howes

When I first came to Bocas del Toro I fell in love with the slow, casual lifestyle. I had grown-up near the ocean in California, but lived landlocked in Nashville, Tennessee for twelve years. Now my house is fifty yards from the waters edge and I can hear the waves breaking day and night. It’s a soothing sound and lying in bed at the end of a long day I fall asleep like a baby in a cradle, safe and content, rocked by the rhythms of the sea.

But my initial observations of life on Bocas have changed. My romantic attachment to this paradise has mellowed and I realize that life here is simple but not simplistic. People face the same struggles and problems here as they do anywhere: there are children to be fed and clothed, rent to be paid, school supplies to buy. Conversely, Bocas is special place that attracts special people; people who care about ecology, low environmental impact, education, and share a common concern for improving the local community. And so, as I prepare to open a new business here, my romanticism has tempered, but I feel more a part of a real community.

It’s heartening to live in a small town where individual effort can actually implement change. Enjoy your life here, revel in the treasures Bocas offers, live the good life. But remember those who came before us and the future of the children who will follow. Give back more than you take. We can help improve the community and still live in paradise.

Having said that, I think I’ll hang-up the hammock and take a snooze. Sleep is so much sweeter when you’ve given back.

Editor’s Corner

I have been BUSY! The Bocas Breeze website (www.TheBocasBreeze.com) has several new features. You now have the capability of linking the latest Bocas Breeze news to your website. Article categorization has been improved, internet-only advertising options and online payment with your credit card are now available! Within the month, online classifieds will be operational. You will be able to add or delete your classified ad in between the printed issues. And don’t forget that the price for your printed advertisement includes TWO MONTHS of online advertising on the Bocas Breeze website!

We have a celebrity in our midst! Mary Austin Crofts, writer of several articles for The Bocas Breeze, has granted permission for the Panama quarterly publication, Focus Magazine, to publish her article “Bringing Your Pets to Panama” that was published in the May/June issue of The Bocas Breeze. So, if you enjoy writing, send your articles to The Bocas Breeze and you never know where it could go from there!

The newspaper is seeking good-quality photos taken in the Bocas area. Wouldn’t you love to have your photos published? Send them to our email at BocasBreeze@yahoo.com! (PLEASE – I’m running out of photos taken by my husband and me!!!) ;-)

A comment about the disappearing messages from the Mayor…we have made several attempts to contact Sr. Binns for an appointment, to no avail. If you have any kind of influence……..! ;-)

And, last but not least, The Bocas Breeze needs a landline telephone. I’ve had a phone number for 18 months - just no phone connection! They say they need to put up new wires along the main street. So why don’t they??? New wires = MORE PAYING CUSTOMERS! If you have any kind of influence with Cable and Wireless……..! ;-)

Have a great month!

Melody Burt

………….Well, seriously, my real trip was about as harrowing an experience!

Since I was emigrating, permanently, from USA to Panama, I needed only one-way air ferrying. Attempting to buy a ticket, I learned “AAAA”, “America’s Airlines Asinine Accounting”, which uses voodoo math to price one-way fares equal to or more than round-trip fares. But my intrepid travel agent, using Internet stealth, booked me on two foreign carriers with fair one-way fares. Twice as long a trip cost half as much. So……....

On a sunny Sunday at 6:30 a.m., I arrived at Miami International. Finding no ticket counter for Mexicana, I was informed that they had moved, secretly in the middle of the night I surmised, because no one knew to where they had gone. So, with skycap carting my luggage, we explored the airport until we discovered Mexicana’s new location. I must have been one of only a few travelers who found the plane, because we took off with just five passengers aboard.

Arriving in Cancun a few minutes late, my panic subsided after I realized that I had one hour more than only five minutes to catch my connecting flight to Panama, since the time zone had changed. Because they knew I was coming, they had hidden my entire airline. Not only did no one know where it gated, no one had ever even heard of Lloyd Aero Boliviado.

Speaking muy poquito Español and Italian sign language, I was able to communicate to an airport guard that if we phoned the airline, maybe, they could tell us where they were. No one answered the phone. Time evaporated, I began to sweat. Another guard read my itinerary and excitedly exclaimed he knew where to go.........he took me to a gate numbered the same as my seat assignment. Time was moving; flight leaving in 32 minutes. I was not moving anywhere. A guard sergeant said he’d walkie-talkie every guard, promising to find my plane, and meanwhile I should go thru Customs, where some jumbo jet had just disgorged 300 passengers. Time marched briskly; I oozed thru the Customs line, excreted with only 8 minutes to takeoff.

The sergeant actually found my plane; he’d radioed the flight tower to locate the craft on the air controller’s screen. He drove me in his cart, waiving me past terminal exit security, speeding to a far edge of the airport, to a freight terminal. Inside, the sergeant pushed thru terminal entry security, and delivered me to a ticket counter, displaying a hand lettered poster, ‘L.A.B.’. I hugged the sergeant, and kissed him goodbye.

The Lloyd Aero Boliviado agent explained that they had no fixed facility in Cancun so they rented whatever gate was empty for each flight. Then he told me my $103 bargain fare didn’t include an airport departure tax of $42! With no time left to protest, I paid. He gave me a scrap-of-paper boarding pass. Then I was ushered up two staircases, across an empty concourse, down a three-story ramp, over the airfield, up the plane’s boarding stairs – gasping with emphysema – onto a 727 jet, being held late for me. Exhausted, dripping sweat, I collapsed to sleep. I was so wrung out that I didn’t think to ask any of the 50 passengers onboard how they had found this plane.

I made it to Panama. But I was certain my luggage didn’t. In Miami, I’d checked two bags thru to Panama, to by-pass baggage claim/customs/ security/re-check in Cancun. Seeking certainty from turmoil, I’d assured turmoil of uncertainty. If I’d been lost, so was my luggage. And, lost permanently. Because, after triple searching myself, I confronted ill fate – I’d lost my luggage claim tags. I would never find what I could not prove existed. Overwhelmed in gloom, I staggered to the baggage claim area. There, awaiting me, like money lying on the ground, like lost puppies found, was my luggage. Eureka! A guard merely asked my name, looked at the bag ID tags, and told me to move on. (Oh Happy Day)

I’d planned to stay overnight and play in Panama City. But I decided I’d had enough adventure for now, and to fly on to Bocas. It was 2:00 p.m., plenty of time to catch the 5:00 p.m. flight, which departed from a different airport, an hour cab ride away. I called Aeroperlas to reserve a seat, and learned that, on Sunday’s, the flight left at 3:00. Sunday.......no traffic. The cab driver said he could make it. When he told me to fasten my seat belt, I knew this was going to be the thrill ride of the day. We screeched in 40 minutes later.

The shuttle plane had 2 prop engines, 2 pilots, 10 seats, and 2 passengers, me and a surfer, who was traveling with his surfboard, which straddled all 5 seats on one side of the plane. ‘Hey, Dude’ was from California, ambling thru Central America looking for his dream wave. He gave a cassette to the pilot, who played heavy metal rock music for us, over the P.A. speakers. The mountains, the jungle, the mist, the flying, the music…..it was surreal.
They didn’t stop playing the baseball game, in the grassy park at the end of the airport runway, as we landed. A batter hit a homerun, all the fans cheered, the ball rolled across the airfield, and bounced off my plane’s tire.

Home. In the Mouth of the Bull. Eager to be consumed!

BOCAS FIRE!
by Rick Buckley

On the evening of June 8th, our bags were packed and sitting inside the front door in preparation for the following day’s flight to Panama City and New York. Our departure checklist was nearly complete: gas shut off, quads stored in the bodega, bicycle put away, etc.

We were sitting on the veranda enjoying the last of another spectacular day in Bocas, when Yvonne asked, “Don’t you smell smoke, Rick?” Although I try not to admit it, my sense of smell has diminished significantly over the years, and I depend heavily on my wife to detect unusual or unpleasant aromas. She claims that I could stroll past a skunk that’s been dead for three days without ever taking notice.

Anyway, we walked to the front of the house, where the source of the smoke became evident; a brush fire was burning fiercely on the vacant property adjacent to our home. Being from the Big Apple, we have about as much experience with brush fires as most country folk with navigating the New York City subway system.

As in many similar circumstances when we have no clue, we called our neighbors up the hill, Dave and Lin Gillingham, who seem to have an answer to any problem in Bocas life. Dave was at our door in minutes to survey the situation, and Lin who passed minutes later, driving one of her employees home, said she had notified the “Bomberos” of the fire, and would make sure they were on the way.

In the meantime, we laid out our garden hoses to defend our “castle”, as Dave did a back-burn to create a clear zone between our home and the approaching flames. Neighbors began to arrive, either to assess the danger or just out of morbid curiosity.

Suddenly in the distance we could hear a siren, as the bomberos came racing (as fast as you can race on Bocas roads) to the rescue. Within minutes they were on the scene, deploying their hoses. Yvonne dispensed cervezas to our neighbors, who were now settling in for their evening entertainment.

Soon the pumper was revved up to full speed as “Bocas Bravest” took up their positions against the approaching conflagration, and within minutes they had subdued the enemy. Cheers went up from the spectators, as they realized that our local fire department’s skills far exceeded their orchestral talents, which we had witnessed in several parades on 3rd Street. Thank goodness!

The fire extinguished, the bomberos packed up their radios, equipment, and hoses, and headed back to the firehouse. We knew that they would have hours of work ahead of them.

The next morning, we were on the early flight to Panama City, and did not have time to stop off and thank the bomberos. Therefore, we now want to publicly offer a “muchas gracias” to our local firemen, who, most of the time, go unnoticed, but who are always there when you call. We should all be proud of our professional fire brigade.

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