to move up and down
El Cupolog
Pan-american Transmissions : The Road to Tierra Del Fuego
Leaving Hostal Miami
The cargo boat was loaded and ready to go. After a week of delays we were finally-maybe-probably bound for Colombia.
Captain Fierra didn’t make definitive statements.
“I don’t work like that,” he told me.
We said our goodbyes to everyone in Hostal Miami - the dirty, dysfunctional, completely marvelous, four-story palace that became our home over the last month. We would no longer share a corridor with sword jugglers and fire dancers …
… and the drunks on the first floor would no longer wake us up when they yelled at their 15-minute hookers.
“You stole my cell phone, you whore, give me back my cell phone!”
“I ain’t giving you shit till you admit you took my wallet!”
It was a place to be missed, but Hostal Miami wasn’t always so … entertaining.
A fat Colombian robbed Ania’s wallet and left without paying his $600 room bill. He had been living there for months. It was unexpected, to say the least. He was always nice to us, sharing his food and talking about renovations he was doing on the Russian ambassador’s house.
After leaving, he continued his robbing spree. He tried to steal $3,500 in cash from his boss, got caught, and is currently sitting in jail with Ania’s debit card and the $15 from her wallet.
Was really worth it, Ricardo?
Either way, Hostal Miami remains a good memory in our minds. It was the place we learned to work the streets.
Money: the main limit to our travels, was no longer an issue. We now knew we could survive without it and moved forward.
To Colombia.
Hostal Miami - Panama City, Panama - © Diego Cupolo 2011
Birthday Cake for Marie
Hostal Miami - Panama City, Panama - © Diego Cupolo 2011
Reading, Watching
Hostal Miami - Panama City, Panama - © Diego Cupolo 2011
Monthly Report: Juggling Lemons, Waiting
Fellow Pichi,
A middle-aged man in a olive green business suit is pissing on the wall behind me as I begin this letter. By the time I finish it, I’ll be sitting in a police station.
Panama City cops can be real pendejos.
We’ve been on the road three months now. It no longer feels like traveling. Ania and I have learned to make homes out of every place we stay. Especially these last few weeks. We we’ve been staying at a live-in hostel in the center of Panama City. The place is full of Argentinians. (You’re everywhere.) Some have been living there for months.
And for good reason: Panamanians love to spend money. They’re trained consumers.
An important notion considering every single person at the hostel earns their rent from the streets. Artesanos, malabares, payasos and musicians. It’s like living with a traveling circus, but with more comforts and less animals.
Watching so many people make money from nothing can be motivating. It didn’t take long for Ania and I to try our luck on the streets. We started baking and selling arepas con pollo asado and it worked. Panamanians loved our Venezuelan flavor.
Then, when we got tired of eating arepas, Ania started making feather earrings and we sold those too. Now, at this moment, I’m sitting outside a big shopping mall and Ania’s playing the flute at the main entrance. She made $12 in the first half hour.
That’s five times more than any journalist gets paid.
It’s sad, really. I’ve been applying for freelance jobs and pitching articles to different magazines, but few respond. The way things are right now, I can make more money with three juggling balls than with 10,000 words.
Only I forgot my juggling balls at home.
I’m using old lemons.
It works. It works very well. Ania plays the flute and I juggle lemons. People laugh and they give money. People like to laugh. Reading, on the other hand, that takes too much time.
Talking about time, I should have mentioned we’re doing all these silly street games because we’re stuck in Panama waiting for a cargo boat to Colombia. It was originally supposed to take off last Saturday, then Wednesday, and now the captain’s saying next Saturday.
Maybe.
It’s worth the wait though. We’re going on a commercial ship that costs much, much less than any tourist cruise to Cartagena. Flights are out of the question.
In the meantime, I’ve been trying to learn something, anything, about Panamanian culture. Compared to our days in Nicaragua, Ania and I have been very detached from local events and issues. We’re usually surrounded by foreigners here. We stay in the hostel at night and when I look down at the dark street I know there’s another side to the city that I barely understand.
Prostitutes, pimps, gun shots, addicts, and police officers taking bribes.
The other night I walked past a pool of blood on the sidewalk.
Maybe it’s better if we keep to our games during the day and stay inside at night. The bars are too sheik for our taste anyways.
We just hang around malls and work now.
The malls are safe. There’s plenty of crap to buy. La Navidad es mas.
We were doing well until two cops showed up. Foreigners are required to carry their passports at all times in Panama. We didn’t have ours so they brought us to the police station to make sure we weren’t terrorists.
It’s been two hours now and the air conditioning is so strong it’s making my bones hurt. The cops are nice though. They all look about 18 years old. Only the guy in charge seems to know what he’s doing. When I gave him my press card he got frustrated and yelled.
“Now you brought in a fucking journalist?!? Fucking great!”
I brought those cards along especially for these kinds of situations. Maybe they’ll get us out faster, maybe not.
Either way, I hope you’re doing well. We’ll be heading for Colombia whenever this boat is loaded and ready to go. What happens after that is an open question. People say Ecuador is a good place to work. All I know is that we’ve made a nice home here in Panama City.
I’m going to miss the circus crowd and the fifty cent papayas.
If someone offers you a cheap car, take it. We’ll need wheels for Patagonia.
We can sort out the finances later,
Diego
Panama City, Panama - © Diego Cupolo 2011
Another Day on Avenue Central
First thing I saw yesterday morning was a man with his head submerged in a street fountain. He was wearing a towel as a cape.
As soon as the hostel door closed behind me, the man pulled his head out of the water, exhaled violently, and looked straight into my eyes through his black panty hose mask.
The devil found me that day.
After that, the man jumped across the street and started howling at the sky. He knocked on the windows of moving cars. Yelling nonsense. No one stopped him.
All I wanted was a papaya.
Panama City, Panama - © Diego Cupolo 2011
Another Night at Hostal Miami
Panama City, Panama - © Diego Cupolo 2011
The Four Graces
Ngöbe–Buglé Women in Casco Viejo, Panama City - © Diego Cupolo 2011
Indigenous Indigent
Hundreds of indigenous people filled the central square in Casco Viejo yesterday afternoon. They were members of the Ngöbe–Buglé, Panama’s largest native group, and they came down from the Chiriqui mountains to protest the government’s recent efforts to repeal Law 10, a measure that makes indigenous land inalienable.
Few could speak Spanish, but one man told me, “If they get rid of Law 10, we’ll become slaves again.”
He said the protest was about a proposed hydroelectric dam that would flood their land. In fact, there are many land-use issues in their region. I read the Ngöbe–Buglé live above one of the world’s largest cooper mines.
After several attempts at conversation, I realized the language barrier was too thick and gave up. Most people looked at me in confusion. When I approached groups, the men stared back with anger in their eyes and the women hid their faces and toothless mouths.
They didn’t have money, but they rode buses into the city. They didn’t have umbrellas, but they stood in torrential downpour. They didn’t have much, but they got on their feet and used their voices, and in the end, that’s all they’ll need.
“There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can’t take part. You can’t even passively take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.” ~ Mario Savio
Casco Viejo, Panama City - © Diego Cupolo 2011
With Everybody Watching, Noriega Hides
After a 22-year absence, former dictator Manuel Noriega’s return was supposed to be a historic moment for Panama.
It turned out to be a joke.
People gathered around televisions in the streets, waiting to get a glimpse of old “Pineapple Face,” but he never showed up. News cameras were kept at a distance. Reporters said he had arrived in Panama, but there was no proof.
Airport security claimed there were too many assassination threats.
“What is this, another Bin Laden?” A man yelled at the TV. “I don’t believe anything until I see his face.”
Later on, a few blurry images of Noriega were aired. They showed an old, sad man with gray hair being pushed in a wheelchair. He arrived in Panama to serve more jail time for his war crimes and he looked limp.
The people in the streets weren’t satisfied. They seemed hungry for more.
Extra police forces were on patrol throughout the night.
Panama City, Panama - © Diego Cupolo 2011
Noriega Returns
Full story on Aljazeera, a news source that unlike U.S. mainstream media, focuses on the event instead of his old drug trafficking charges.
Panama City, Panama - © Diego Cupolo 2011
Back to Hostal Miami
The Argentine pretty boy moved out with his whore and a Colombian tattoo artist moved in. We bought bananas in the street. Life was cheap. Life was good.
Panama City, Panama - © Diego Cupolo 2011
Feather Light
Ania perfected her jewelry skills at Hostal Miami and started selling feather earrings in the streets. She spent her days playing the flute, collecting spare change in a coconut shell, and waiting for clients.
I sat by her side and read. Waiting for Colombia.
Casco Viejo, Panama City - © Diego Cupolo 2011
Arepas Calientes
Cities are for money and it was time to make some.
Everyone in Hostal Miami earned their rent from the streets. They were stop light artists, musicians, artesanos and they made well above Panama’s minimum wage - a pitiful $1.61 an hour. (It ain’t cheap to live there either.)
For this reason, and many others, Ania and I gave up our job hunt and our hopes of staying in Panama City and started selling arepas in the streets. It was something to do while we waited for a cheap cargo boat to Colombia.
It also paid better than a “real job.”
The Venezuelan corn patties were stuffed with pollo asado and sold for a dollar each. We tripled our money every time we hit the streets.
People loved them. Mostly locals though. Tourists seemed skeptical and ignored us.
Our small business venture was a success …
… until it started causing problems back at Hostal Miami. There was one half-broken stove for 25 people and another couple was running an empanada business out of the same kitchen.
They viewed us as competition.
The guy was a macho, Argentine pretty boy and his girlfriend looked like a prostitute - a skinny, bleach blonde Italian with breast implants. She was 35 and changed mini-skirts at least seven times a day.
Her cleavage: always prominent.
An unexpected find in a place like Hostal Miami.
I ignored them. I simply made more arepas and the tensions grew inside Hostal Miami.
It was a good lesson in capitalism. Two profiting parties using public resources, fighting over them, and pushing everyone else out of the kitchen in the process.
In the end, the money wasn’t worth the trouble. Ania and I sold our last arepas and went into the feather business.
One must cook with love, not greed.
Casco Viejo, Panama City - © Diego Cupolo 2011
Aged Wood
Casco Viejo, Panama City - © Diego Cupolo 2011
