Richard Detrich’s Boquete, Panama Weblog

What I love about Boquete during the rainy season is that you can stick almost anything in the ground and it will grow . . . and grow . . . and grow. It’s a great time to start plants. A lady in town has some huge red hibiscus. Not the kind of Caribbean red hibiscus most of you have seen, but huge ones. I asked her if I could trim her bushes and she agreed. Now I will just stick the cutting in the ground. In a month they will look like dead sticks. In another month they will be sprouting leaves. Next year they will be blooming beautifully!

My love of gardening started when I was in junior high. We would go to a farm for pumpkins and Indian corn in the fall and the guy who owned the farm had beautiful gardens, and he would give me starts, so I made my own little garden with white birch fences and all. I was very proud each year when I would plant castor beans and in a summer they would grow 10 feet tall. Now I know castor beans contain one of the most deadly poisons on earth. Interestingly we use them a lot in Panama. Because they grow so fast, they make great shade cover for young coffee trees and when they are no longer needed are easy to cut down and they rot fast putting nutrients back into the soil.

But my passion for gardening really got going because of this woman.

Doris Duke, or “Miss Duke” as we always referred to her, was called the “million dollar baby” because she was heir to the Duke tobacco fortune.  She had lavish homes in Beverly Hills, Honolulu, Manhattan, Newport and Hillsborough Township, New Jersey. Every morning riding the bus to school we went through Duke Farms and picked up kids whose parents worked on the Duke estate. When I was a junior in high school Duke decided to renovate the lavish greenhouses her father had built to raise fresh oranges in New Jersey and she established the Duke Gardens Foundation. I got hired on, initially to trim bushes and dig trenches, but eventually I moved into the coveted indoor gardens. I always liked it when Miss Duke was coming home to Hillsborough. We got to go to the orchid ranges and pull out the most spectacular specimens, then take them to her house to get it all decorated for her when she came.

Early on I was assigned responsibility for two indoor gardens, the desert garden and the Chinese garden. An architect designed the pathways and flow of the desert garden, but I planted everything, and for the most part, although it has grown up over these many years, a lot of the stuff is still in the same places. And Miss Duke took a personal interest in everything about these gardens. She would drive up in her battered old Buick with her two yapping mongrel dogs - this on an estate that had spectacular, pure bred German Shepherds and Dobermans as security dogs. But Miss Duke would show up in jeans and get down on the ground in the dirt beside me planting cactus and succulents. Her dogs were always peeing on “my” plants or digging up stuff so whenever she wasn’t looking I would kick the dogs. It was an interesting contrast when she would stop by before leaving for a night on the town in New York . . . in her classic chauffeured Rolls (there were rumours about her and her chauffeur, her and her butler as well as her and Imelda Marcos, one of her buddies) dressed to the hilt in diamonds and sable and looking every inch the heiress.

My favorite garden was the Chinese garden and it still looks very much the same as when I took care of it.

When she died she left very specific instructions regarding the Gardens and the future of the Foundation. Now the Foundation directors have decided that these magnificent gardens are “perpetuating the Duke family history of personal passions and conspicuous consumption.” They have decided that “the [time of] display gardens is past. They consume an inordinate share of financial and staff resources, they would require a very expensive modernization, and they no longer reflect the vision of Duke Farm’s future.” So now they are going to be more “relevant.”  The gardens closed in May of this year and are being ripped apart.  There are groups petitioning the State of New Jersey to save this botanical treasure. www.savedukegardens.org

Doris Duke is probably cursing from her grave . . . with good reason. Duke Gardens are a treasure which should be preserved.

Doris Duke was always in or on the edge of scandal.    Some of the juicy details emerged in a NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE dated April 1996 noted . . .

A tentative settlement was announced yesterday that would end the war over Doris Duke’s $1.2 billion estate and pay Bernard Lafferty, her high-spending, ponytailed butler, millions of dollars to give up his role in overseeing her fortune.

Mr. Lafferty, whom Miss Duke wrote into her will less than a year before she died, has agreed to resign as co-executor of the estate and relinquish a powerful seat on the board of the charitable foundation that would control Miss Duke’s wealth. But while he would lose the power and prestige of those roles, Mr. Lafferty — who is 46, an admitted alcoholic and barely literate — would not give up any money. He would be paid his executor’s fee of $4.5 million, plus $500,000 a year for the rest of his life, according to the proposed settlement submitted yesterday in Surrogate’s Court in Manhattan.

If the settlement is approved by the court — which is by no means certain — it would end more than two years of litigation over the estate of the late tobacco heiress, who left most of her fortune to charity. The will has been challenged by one of Miss Duke’s doctors, former employees and others, and the bitter battle has led to charges and countercharges, including an affidavit contending that Mr. Lafferty and a doctor hastened Miss Duke’s death with a drug overdose.

After Miss Duke died in 1993 at the age of 80, Mr. Lafferty moved into her mansions and traveled around in her chauffeured Cadillac and her private Boeing 737 at estate expense. His “profligate life style” was criticized last year by Surrogate Eve M. Preminger, who dismissed him from managing Miss Duke’s estate — a decision that was later overturned.

If I had only known . . . and I was just planting cactus and fending off overtures from Miss Duke’s garden architect to join him in his hot tub in Big Sur.

“I neva f***ed anybody over in my life, who didn’t have it comin’ to ‘im, you got that? All I have in this world is my balls, and my word, and I don’t break ‘em for no one, you understand?” (Scarface: Tony to Sosa)

“My word is my bond”  is part of our cultural heritage in the US.  It’s how the West was won . . . if, of course you forget how the settlers treated the Indians . . . and it’s part of our national identity . . . except of course for Presidents, Congress and the US government.  Dishonesty seems to be a way of life with those folks.  But other than that . . . a lot of ordinary Americans still believe in the value and importance of their word.

The stock market works on this principle.  Much business in the US is done on the basis of a handshake.  My poker-playing buddy would lend other “players” hundreds of thousands of dollars, just based on their word.  With the exception of politicians and government, in the US one’s word has value and means something.

In theological terms it means something.  An old version of the Bible, that I was raised on, says, “Let your yea be yea and your nay be nay.”  So I was raised that if you say it, you’d better do it.  If you don’t intend to do it, don’t say it!  

And if you do say it, and don’t do it, your credibility is shot!  Period.  No ands, ifs or buts.

It seems the saying, “My word is my bond”, originated around the 16th Century. Since 1801 this has also been the motto of the London Stock Exchange  where transactions are made with no exchange of documents and no written pledges are given.

Now I get to Panama and a person’s “word” doesn’t mean s***!  Just because a person says they will do something doesn’t mean they have the faintest intention of actually doing it.  And they feel no shame, no guilt.  It’s a way of life.  Promises mean nothing.  Nothing!  Whether its a professional or a day laborer . . . what people say means nothing. 

In my culture it is a matter of trust.  If I can’t trust you to keep your word, can I trust you at all?  If you are not trustworthy and dependable in small things, will you be trustworthy and dependable in large things?  So coming out of my culture, when people continually don’t perform, you start to wonder if you can trust them at all.

To say you are going to do something with no intention of doing it, or without breaking your balls to do it, is the same as lying. Who trusts a compulsive liar?

It is a major cultural difference and one which is very difficult for gringos like me to come to terms with.  To promise to do something, with no intention of actually doing it, with absolutely no compulsion to perform, goes against every grain in my body. 

Welcome to Panama!

As my friends Nikki & Squirt wrote in one of the songs in their “Postcards From Paradise” play, ” . . . better get used to it if you’re going to stay, don’t give a damn how you did it in the US of A!”

But it can still be frustrating as hell!

* * * * *
Kudos (more or less) to Audiofoto

If you’ve been reading this you know that I have been frustrated in my dealings with Audiofoto in David, and that they promised (see above) to deliver my refrigerators, and then didn’t . . . well we set up a second delivery date and time . . . and they were there right on time!!! The refrigerator they brought was a floor model, not a new unit right out of the carton as I had requested and they had promised (see above), but at least it got here. I guess that’s what they expect their customers to say.

Today is the day I came so close to losing it!  And it wouldn’t do any good. No, not that . . . it’s just that I only know how to “lose it” in English and my contractor and workers speak only Spanish.  And if people don’t know your loosing it, what’s the use?

I think partly it was the dedication of the EURODAM the other day.  What’s the EURODAM (Holland America’s new ship) got to do with it?  Well the EURODAM . . . all  86,700 tons of it . . . accomodating almost 3,000 passengers and crew . . . took only 16 months to build from laying of the keel to sailing away!  My house, really a very simple building, has now taken 16 months to build!  Depressing!!  Yes, I know the  steel for the EURODAM was all precut, and it had a work crew of thousands, and sections of the ship were being assembled around Europe and then brought to Venice to be welded together . . . but even so . . . what you can’t do in 16 months!

I told you about my miserable experience with Audiofoto in David and how I walked out of there saying, “I refuse to do business with these people.”  Unfortunately we had already bought and paid for our refrigerator and freezer . . . from Audiofoto.  Then I found Infox in David and those folks really know how to do business!  I not only ended up getting the remainder of my appliances for less money, I had genuine, US-style “customer service.”  When it was time to deliver the guy I purchased all the rest of the appliances from delivered them personally, exactly on time . . . exactly when he said he would.

Well, I wasn’t looking forward to Audiofoto delivering my appliances.  They promised this morning.  It took four phone calls, giving directions to the sales person who spoke English more or less, hearing the driver in the background, who only spoke Spanish, correcting the sales person’s translation, and telling her in Spanish what I was saying in English . . . so after all this . . . they didn’t show up at all in the morning and the stories started coming . . . “Could they bring them tomorrow?” . . .  after I’d spent all day waiting!  Well, “The technician is here and if you want him to install the icemaker . . . which by the way, I paid for installed! . . . “it will cost another $25 and he can only do it tomorrow.”  No, I’ll install it myself!  “Well if you don’t give us $25 more and wait until tomorrow for delivery it will void you warranty.”  Finally it emerged that “the truck” . . . don’t think Best Buy driving up, this is someone’s brother-in-law’s pickup . . . was in the shop.  Yikes!!!  How do they stay in business?  It won’t be with my help, that’s for sure!  If they are the only outfit in Panama with what I want, I will do without!

And the guy who made our chandeliers, and never finished the job, finally showed up . . . and then wanted $20 more per light for “installation” . . . without telling me and I’m already paying the contractor to install.  And the guy finishing the doors didn’t show up . . . and it goes on and on.  I finally told the contractor, as best I could, that I am losing my patience and that if it’s not done by the time my wife, Nikki, comes home we will all have hell to pay.  I figured I’ll blame it on my wife.

So, thoroughly frustrated, and ready to find an AK 47, I figured I’d better take a break and so I went out to eat at one of Boquete’s newest restaurants  in the newly opened Rio Valle Hotel, right outside of Valle Escondido.  “The Wine Bar”, complete with fake plastic grape clusters, and “Cafe Pomodoro” feature Italian food and have a beautiful patio beside the little river that runs in the Valley just below my house in Valle Escondido.  The pizza doesn’t make it - Boquete is hurting when it comes to pizza! - but the pasta if ordered “al dente” is great, and the lasagna is almost as good as what my mother made.  Lasagna and a good merlot, $11 including tax and tip.  So I relaxed and had a nice dinner and tried to forget about building.

With the exception of the Panamonte, which has been an institution in Boquete for almost 100 years, Boquete doesn’t do well with restaurants.  They come . . . and go almost as quickly.  The record was one called “Rendevouz” which lasted about three weeks!  But folks with no experience come here and think it would be fun to open a restaurant and let others run it.  It may start out well, but soon the service sucks and the food is lousy and they jack up the prices . . . and the word gets out, and soon it is history.  Like most Panamanian businesses nobody has a business plan, looks at the competitive universe, studies the market or is willing to put cash out for a couple of years before seeing any return. 

But I think the Wine Bar and Cafe Pomodoro will make it.  For one thing the owner is an experienced restauranture with several successful operations in Panama City.  He didn’t try to open a restaurant on the cheap, but has invested a lot of money and effort and has developed a great concept.  The service is good and the food is good and they seem to actually want and appreciate customers and realize that customers are important.

Any how it was a good meal, and good wine, and the world looks a little better.

And to all of you back in the US, Happy Independence Day!

For one thing a Jewish deli with real bagels!

Something along the order of Western Bagel! All of you “Valley” people from California will instantly know that Western Bagel produces THE supreme bagel on the planet! Sunday morning and a salt, or onion or everything . . . or a cheese bagel . . . perfect! We have nothing that comes close. Even something close to Noah’s would be acceptable.

Panama City has this huge Jewish population. Why don’t some of you good Jewish kids come up to Boquete and open the real thing?

GOOD Pizza

Pizza is one of the most popular foods on the planet and particularly in the US. According to Domino’s each person in the US eats an average of 23 pounds a year! So why can’t we get good pizza in Panama? We can! Pizza Italia in Panama City makes fantastic pizza at a great price! A medium Hawaiian pizza, ample for two people, costs $4.50!! I ate at one of Boquete’s “Italian” restaurants and the same pizza was $12 and it wasn’t nearly as delicious, well baked or pleasantly served. Pizza Italia also has a nice little Italian restaurant. Whenever we’re flying out of Toucmen and stay at Riande Airport (ah, that’s another story), we always make a point of eating at Pizza Italia. Why don’t these folks come to Boquete??

Of course we need a few other things as well, but good pizza and real bagels would be a nice start.

What we don’t need is yet another diesel price increase!

But we got it! Diesel, the fuel of choice in Panama, is now $4.58 a gallon! The high cost of gas is pushing farmers who normally grow food to divert food supplies to produce fuel. The cost of rice and flour is soaring making it very difficult for people around the world whose primary food is rice.

We live in a very complex world in which, like it or not, we are all tied together.  Let one major player get out of line or take an aggressive stance  and it impacts the entire world.

Like a plague that does not discriminate by economic class, race or age, soaring gas prices are inflicting pain throughout the U.S. Nine in 10 expecting the ballooning costs to squeeze them financially over the next half year, an Associated Press-Yahoo! News poll said Monday.

Nearly half think that hardship will be serious. To cope, most are driving less, easing off the air conditioning and heating at home and cutting corners elsewhere. Half are curtailing vacation plans; nearly as many are considering buying cars that burn less gas.

As the price has spiraled upward so, too, has the public’s ire.

9 in 10 see rising gas prices causing family hardship

But can you imagine the hardship if you are a Gnobe Bugle Indian farm worker earning $40 a week in take home pay and suddenly the price of rice has almost doubled, and that is primarily what you eat?  It’s one thing not to drive your Hummer (that gets 5 miles to a gallon on a level road) . . . and it’s another thing to head off for a days work without breakfast because you can’t afford enough rice for three meals a day.

Until now Panama’s use of the dollar has been a blessing as it kept inflation low and the economy stable. Now with the dollars decline, Panama is feeling the negative side of this relationship in every sector.

According to the Panama Comptrollers office, the price of food has increased 17.2% over last year, and many saw it exceeds 20%. Consumer prices in Panama rose 0.8% in May, while 12-month inflation at the end of the month was 8.8% as consumers paid more for gasoline and food.

It appears that eight years of Bush deficit spending, piling up trillions in national debt, have hurt more than just Americans. These irresponsible fiscal and financial policies now have found their way to Panama and other U.S. dollar denominated economies of the world. 

One Panama observer claims that “the lower income people of Panama are getting hit from every angle. Utilities, food, transportation, gas, housing, rent, health care, medicine, propane, loans just to name some of the costs of living they struggle with. Their combined family income is gone by the time they buy basic food, housing, water and electricity and care for children.”

Panama & the Not So Almighty Dollar

And I’m worried about bagels and pizza? Mea culpa!

 This is Evangelisto, the 17-year-old son of my Indian farm worker, Alfonso.  

When Evangelisto first came to Boquete from the Gnobe Bugle Indian Comarca (something like an Indian reservation, only the Gnobe Bugle weren’t put there, but petitioned the government for this huge hunk of the country that’s bigger than any of the Panamanian states) he was 15.  Nikki and I picked Alfonso, his lady friend at the time, their baby, and Evangelisto up in Boquete to take them to Palmira.

Now you have to understand that all of his life this kid had lived near, not in, a tiny little town in the Comarca called Soloy.  It’s really just where there are two tiny Indian stores, a few bars, and a tiny church.  It looks like something out of a movie set!  There are no cars, except the occasional 4 wheel taxi that comes in.  There are horses tied up in front of the two little stores and Indians load up a big rice sack with a month’s groceries and head up the mountain to their homes.  Evangelisto lived with his grandparents up the mountain, so when he got to Boquete it was like being plucked from Nebraska and dropped in Time’s Square!  He was like a deer in the headlights!  We couldn’t all fit in the car, so I took Evangelisto with me in the truck.  He couldn’t figure out how to get in, had no idea what a seat belt was, and couldn’t figure out how to get out. 

When we finally got him enrolled in school Nikki took him and his dad to David, our nearest city, to buy clothes.  It was the day before the first day of school and David was packed with parents and kids buying school uniforms.  It cost about $130 to outfit him for school - this when his dad makes $40 a week - so we took care of the cost.  He was bewildered . . .

Now we have one store that has an escalator . . . you got it!  His dad and Nikki got on the escalator without thinking that this kid had never seen an escalator.  So he stood at the bottom, watching, trying to figure out how to get on.  Finally he just jumped.  Fine, he was on.  But at the top . . . he hadn’t the foggiest idea how to get off and so he just went splat on the floor.

At first we though Evangelisto might be “slow” . . . “learning disability” isn’t in the vocabulary here.  And how do you judge a kid who really has never been to much of a school?  He always turned his head kind of funny, and we thought, “Well, he’s different.”  The First Lady of Panama has a program to check kids eyesight in school and when it finally got to Palmira they decided he needed glasses.  So we went to David to get him glasses.  The eyeglass doctor said he needed glasses for the one eye, but the other eye was almost completely covered with a cataract.  Ah-hah! Dumb us!  That’s why he always turned his head kind of funny.  So she referred him to a specialist at the huge local maternal and child care hospital for cataract surgery.  After many attempts at appointments he finally got to see the specialist and it turns out he has a detached retina, and they say they can’t do anything.

So . . . if you’re an MD eye surgeon reading this, and you want a project . . . call me!!

Evangelisto is really, I think, a smart kid.  He’s learning English faster than I’m learning Spanish!  And for Christmas last year I got him this really neat GOOGLE ENCYCLOPEDIA in Spanish.  So now he comes up with interesting questions about global warming and what happens to the fuel tanks jettisoned from the space shuttle.  He’s anxious for us to move to our new house in Palmira since he wants to learn how to use the computer.

Anyone with an old laptop to donate?

So now what does my Dad have to do with all this?

Evangelisto never heard of the Nittany Lions or Penn State.  My Dad went to Penn State, was a Lions fan always, and in retirement lived 2 blocks from the Altoona Campus of Penn State and rented rooms to engineering students.  (He figured they would live with his very restrictive rules: no parties, only study.)

When my Dad died about 3 years ago and I went back to Altoona and was taking truckloads of his stuff to Goodwill I suddenly had an inspiration that some of this stuff would fit Alfonso and Evangelisto.  So I crammed every suitcase I could get on the plane (the skies were still somewhat “friendly” back then) and brought his clothes to Panama.  And Evangelisto still appears regularly in stuff I recognize as my Dad’s, like this Penn State T-shirt or a maroon “Altoona” shirt.

My Dad would absolutely love it!!

PS - I’m serious about the laptop and the eye surgery.  You volunteer to do it and work out the stuff with the local hospital and I’ll be there with Evangelisto.

For the christening of the new Holland America ship EURODAM by the Queen of the Netherlands. 

Eurodam is a larger ship and has many new features, but most notably, a more European, modern decore.  The ship will be christened near what is now the New York Hotel in Rotterdam, but what was originally the headquarters of Holland America.  In fact it still has the original Holland America sign.

Here are a few pictures of the ship, including the Silk Den with its now-notorious display of opium pipes.  In genial fun I took a couple of pokes at Holland America displaying opium pipes and wondering if bongs would be next in this blog and on Cruise Critic.  Word from deep inside the bowels of Holland America in Seattle is, “Your comments about the Eurodam (bongs) circulated all around.  Some laughed, some were offended.”   Lighten up folks, it’s funny how things change.

When I joked about the resemblance of the leaves on the bottom of the clock in the AMSTERDAM atrium everyone on board laughed!

The Eurodam blog had a photo of a stained glass window that remains inside the hotel, commemorating Holland America’s history.

Here’s the notorious Silk Den.

The famous opium pipe collection.  In case of emergency do NOT break glass.

The more modern, European decorating is evident in the stunning Pinacle . . .

So maybe next year Trans-Atlantic, if I shut up about the opium pipes!

People always ask what Holland America ships I’ve sailed on, so here, for the record is the list of all the Dam ships I’ve cruised on:

1. STATENDAM IV
2. STATENDAM V
3. MAASDAM IV
4. RYNDAM
5. RYNDAM II
6. VEENDAM III
7. VEENDAM IV
8. ROTTERDAM V
9. ROTTERDAM VI
10. AMSTERDAM
11. VOLENDAM II
12. VOLENDAM
13. NIEUW AMSTERDAM II
14. NIEUW AMSTERDAM III
15. PRINSENDAM II
16. MAASDAM V
17. WESTERDAM
18. WESTERDAM II
19. NOORDAM - The one before the current one, whatever Dam number that was.
20. WATERMAN - Well it was the first one I was ever on, and it was actual a Holland America ship chartered for the summer by the NBBS, the Dutch Student Travel Bureau and I was on as cruise staff. The name was changed for the charter - I guess Holland America knew what they were getting into! So I’m not sure exactly what ship it was: it may have been a MAASDAM. But it was a Dam ship. Lots of Dutch Genever, and lots of partying. Not sure how, but one night I ended up going back to my cabin with the First Officers hat and jacket. Maybe that’s why I don’t like gin to this day.

I’ve sailed under the green, white and yellow NASM funnel, the gaudy orange, blue and white funnel which represented Holland America’s attempt to compete with Carnival and RCCL (disasterous!), and the current, traditional art deco ship bow with Henry Hudson’s Half Moon.

If you go to the Eurodam blog today you can see all the festivities live starting around 10 AM Eastern STANDARD Time (which is Panama time year round).

I am fascinated by windows . . . not Windows . . . but windows of the world.  Wherever I go, I like to photograph windows.  Nowhere is this more fun than in Olinda, Recife, Brazil.  Olinda is the original, “old town” of Recife, dating back to the time of the thriving trade in African slaves to work the Brazilian sugar plantations.  Wisely the area has been preserved.  There are brightly colored old buildings, cobblestone streets, and it is a fascinating place just to wander around.

We’ve been there several times when I did Tri-Continent cruises on the ROTTERDAM.  It’s a hefty cab ride from the ship, but  you can get there on public transportation.  It’s not easy, since everyone speaks Portuguese, not English or Spanish, but with the help of a lot of kind people we found our way.  Getting back to the ship was one of the truly special moments of travel.  We were on the wrong bus, and we had the conductor and almost the entire crowded bus working to figure how to get us back to the ship.  Who has paper?  Who has a pen?  Everyone was digging into their purses.  It was a unique experience of people working together to help some poor gringos who were lost.  Beautiful!  Then to top it all off, a beautiful - read Brazilian knock-out beautiful - twenty something gal got off the bus with us, off her bus, to wait with us and see that we got on the right bus!

Anyway . . . I thought you’d enjoy some of the windows of Olinda.

I have been on many cruise Inaugurals which are often shake down cruises.  Things are not always finely tuned and there are always some surprises . . . some happy, and some not so happy.

I was on a Royal Caribbean travel agent preview cruise and literally as we walked on board they were finishing tacking down the carpet in the hallways.  That evening they fired up the casino for the very first time and I thought I would give it a try.  What the heck: the cruise was free, so why not donate $20.  The problem was, I kept winning!  And winning!  But I figured this couldn’t continue and that a good gambler knew when to walk away.  Besides, it was time for the gala dinner.  So I left for a fantastic dinner, but afterward could resist going back to try my machine again.  Unfortunately it had a sign taped onto it reading “Out of Order.”  Later at the gala entertainment presentation, RCCL then-President Richard Fain announced, “And by the way, we found the slot machine that was broken!”  Heck, I should have just stayed there the entire cruise and bankrupted the ship!

A not so pleasant experience was on one of Holland America’s new ships . . . now it would be one of their old ships that they’ve gotten rid of . . . anyhow, it’s another travel agent function . . . black tie, lots of glitz, and lots of free booze.  Walk into the men’s bathroom, do my thing, flush . . . and the urinal shoots water all over me!!  Then I hear all these guys with wet pants standing in the background laughing hillariously.  You had to have been there and had about a dozen drinks to see the humor, but it was funny.

Tuesday Holland America christens it’s newest ship the EURODAM in Rotterdam where it all began and the godmother is none other than the Queen of the Netherlands.  You can see it live on the www.EurodamNews.com Web site.

Carnival has just taken delivery of another new ship, the CARNIVAL SPLENDOR, and John Heald, the Senior Cruise Director of Carnival, will be the cruise director on the SPLENDOR.  John writes an often amusing blog about his adventures - http://johnhealdsblog.com/ - that I enjoy reading.  He has a British sense of humor, which Americans sometimes find bewildering.  But, speaking of “Construction Woes” and knowing that even on cruise ships things don’t always work as planned . . . consolation to me in my little building project . . .  I thought you would find this funny . . .

Correction

Jeff has corrected me that the price of cement since we started construction has gone from $5 a bag to $9 a bag, and the price of steel has doubled!

I know that many who read this blog are expats living in Panama, or folks who are thinking about moving to Panama, and so they are interested in the subject of building in Panama. Eventually I will do a post detailing our experiences from our architectural frustrations down to the frustration of getting the project finished . . . if that day ever comes! Any building project is frustration, and I know! I’ve done lots of remodeling projects - myself! - and I have built three churches. Frustration is the name of the game . . . but never more so than in Panama.

When people ask me about building my first question is “Why?” Particularly now.

Consider:

Right now, because of a lot of speculative building projects, there is a modest inventory of new housing available in Boquete. I heard the number of 5,000 dwelling units, including condos, and 500 individual homes. Many, although not all, of these are built to US expectations at least in terms of construction, if not in terms of floor plan.

Cement, which is the primary ingredient in houses here, has gone from $5 a bag when we started building to $9 a bag! And when the Canal expansion moves into full swing building the new locks you can expect that price to soar. Steel has more than doubled. Because of the fall of the US dollar and the fact that Panama uses the US dollar and imports most construction materials, prices have soared on everything. Labor costs, traditionally the lowest cost (unlike the US!), are gradually going up as well.

Take the custom built house I have for sale in Valle Escondido. The asking price is $459,000. It has a spectacular view lot and all but a few very large lots in Valle Escondido are gone. But if there were a similar lot available it would cost about $185,000. The house is 3,000 sq ft under roof (how they figure here) and if you could build it for $100 a sq ft (iffy, given the increase in costs), you’d be looking at replacement costs of $300,000, and you could not afford to use the same amount of steel as the present house uses. So $300,000 plus $185,000 is $485,000! So my house, like many of these spec houses, is really a bargain!

So unless you have plenty of time, and lots of money, and an enormous supply of patience . . . and unless nothing currently on the market meets your demands . . . why build???

There are 57,000 real estate offices in tiny Boquete just waiting to sell you one of the existing houses!

Here are a few other important things to consider about “buying a lot” and building on your own.

Noise. Valle Escondido is almost built out, but for the past four years our life here in “paradise” has been nothing but construction noise . . . 8 hours a day, 6.5 days a week. The view out of our windows has been of guys peeing in the bushes! Unless you are into watching guys peeing in the bushes to the background of construction noise . . . Are you really ready to “pay that price” for years as the project is built out.

All of these projects have great print media and advertising and loads of computer generated pictures showing what the developer hopesthe project will someday look like. They may have even sunk a ton of money into a lavish entrance and sales office. But the question is, will it ever happen? Some of these projects look the same now as they did four years ago. Some have gone belly up. Some will actually be built. A lot will disappear . . . maybe along with a lot of folks dreams and money. When you buy an existing home in an existing development you know what you are getting. You are buying a chunk of reality, not someones pipe dream. Valle Escondido may not be perfect: it was after all the first development of it’s kind in Panama. But it is a reality!

So if you’re interested in my house call me, or one of the 57,000 real estate agents in Boquete!

“Little Bunny Foo-Foo”

My daughter, Noelle, posted a picture of my grandson, Rian Patrick, on her Web site. Now that school is over she has time for this kind of thing. This picture, taken by my other daughter, she entitled “Little Bunny Foo-Foo” after the children’s song of the same name.

Funny, it doesn’t seem all that long ago that we were singing “Little Bunny Foo-Foo” to her!

Life goes by fast . . . sometimes.

However, not when you’re building! We’re getting there, slowly but surely.

This week was the Festival of St. John the Baptist, patron saint of Boquete. There was a parade through town carrying the statue of St. John, everyone had the afternoon off . . . I didn’t see anyone gathering by the river for baptism, however, it was an excuse to “baptise” onself in rum or the local rum variety, secco. And an excuse not to show up for work the next day.

When my kids were in fifth and sixth grade they were always working to earn money to buy a computer.  Lemonade stands, whatever.  They didn’t seem to be getting anywhere, so finally I just took what little they earned and bought them a computer.  Big, chunky thing.  This was long before the Internet as we know it, but we got various math and reading programs and games. One of the games was called, “Where In The World Is Carmen San Diego?” It was fun and you got to learn a lot of geography . . . maybe too much if you judge by my daughter Rebecca who truly is a “world citizen” in the best sense.

Growing up our kids went on cruises with us and since I was in the travel business they probably travelled more than a lot of kids. We thought it was a good idea for them to see how kids live in poor sections of Mexico and the Caribbean and not to have them think that everyone in the world lived like folks in Thousand Oaks and Westlake. When my oldest daughter took French in high school, I took her to Paris. She ended up spending her college semester abroad in Dijon and majoring in French.

Rebecca did her obligatory traipse around Europe with her college friends, and then spent her semester abroad in Tanzania studying ecology and taking a census of and identifying male elephants. (They all have unique ears almost like a human fingerprint and the name of the game is to photograph the ears head on and flared out . . . in other words elephant “charge” mode. Fortunately they were usually “fake charges” and there is actually an old male elephant in Tanzania named “Richard’, after me.)

Since then Rebecca’s interesting life has taken her to Australia several times, the last time with Earthwatch to identify whale sharks by swimming up next to them and photographing their unique spot patterns. When she worked at a marine institute on Catalina they would chum for sharks, and then swim with them! Off to the Bahamas in search of whale sharks. And the list goes on . . .

She works for Yosemite Institute and “YI” has an interesting program available to their staff. Years ago one of their staff members was a young man named Mathew Baxter. He was an avid mountain climber and in a freak accident was killed while climbing. His family decided to celebrate his life and sense of adventure by endowing an award presented each year to Yosemite Institute staff to enable others to have their own adventures. Previously Rebecca received one of these awards which helped her to swim with the whale sharks in Australia. Some of her coworkers have kayaked the Inside Passage and another (who had incapacitating leg surgery a year ago) to do this years Tour de France. So with her Baxter Award, Rebecca is off to Siberia for the summer. Siberia! Most people wanted to escape it, but Rebecca wants to experience it and particularly Lake Baikal which is the largest and deepest fresh water lake in the world.

Neat kid, huh?

Anyway, I thought you might be interested in this email she sent to her friends and family before leaving for Russia this week. [My wife is going along with her on the St Petersburg to Moscow leg.]

Greetings friends and family!

I’ve made it up to Seattle and I’m all ready (or as ready as one can be) to fly away to Russia. Several folks have asked if I’ll be emailing while in Siberia, but I don’t think it will be likely (the Russian alphabet is a variation of the Cyrillic alphabet- which I can’t type in and I’m guessing no one could read). So in lieu of emailing while on my adventure, I’m sending my ideal itinerary with the hope you will keep me in your thoughts and prayers during each phase of my journey.

So here is the plan (we’ll see what of this actually happens):

June 23 depart for St. Petersburg (I’m taking my Mom with me on the first phase of my journey just in case I need a hug.)

June 24- July 6th travel along the waterways from St. Petersburg to Moscow- exploring villages, palaces, and museums along the way. This is my sense of place part of the journey.

July 6th board Trans-Siberian Railroad by myself- good luck to me! This will be a figurative and literal
transition from European Russia into Siberia.

July 7th after over 28 hours on the train I’ll arrive in Yekaterinburg (where the last czar and his family
where murdered).

July 8th depart on Trans-Siberian for Krasnoyarsk

July 10th over 38 hours later arrive in the Siberian town of Krasnoyarsk

July 12th depart for Irkutsk on Lake Baikal

July 15th overnight train to Ulan-Ude then travel to small fishing village of Ust-Barguzinon on the shore
of Lake Baikal

July 16th-July 29th Work in wilderness of Zabaikalskyi National Park building trails. This is the stewardship component of my adventure.

July 29th-Aug. 5th hopefully travel and solo camp on Olkon Island (kayak if I can find a boat?)

Aug. 6th fly to Moscow (Unfortunately, time and finances do not allow for me to finish the remaining
1/3 of the Trans-Siberian Railroad- which is more than ok by me.)

Aug. 7th fly to Seattle, drink some coffee and drive home to Marin Headlands.

That’s the plan…. We’ll see what happens!

I’ve been busy finishing up my packing to fit everything into my one bag. In case you are interested, here are some of the things in my pack;
1 underwater, freeze proof, crushproof camera (my part of stimulating the economy).
2 pairs of underwear
1 tube of permethian (Erica, my friend, informed me this is the same thing she puts on Sierra, her dog, to keep ticks off. But I’m into it since but, my Siberian tick friends are willing to give me both
encephalitis and meningitis. Erica suggested I just wear Sierra’s tick collar.)
15 San Francisco key chains (gifts for folks hosting me during the trail crew)
1 Hubba-hubba (a tent, not a man)
1 pair binos (for viewing nerpa seals- the only freshwater seal in the world)
1 Russian Phrase book , which I don’t really know how to use. I’m convinced people will yell at me in
Russian. Instead of learning the language I just had my neighbor, who speaks Russian, yell at me in Russian to help desensitize me.
1 ziplock bag full of trip notes and photos from my wonderful friends!

My special thanks to folks who wished me well in words, cards, gifts and hugs- it means a great deal to
me to live in such a loving and supportive community. My thanks to all who contributed to the creation of such a phenomenal experience.

Much love,
Bec, Rebecca or Becky