Live Uncomfortably

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“So I was in this car with a crack dealer, right….Whoa. OK. I’ll back up. It was 7:30 in the morning and some guy starts pounding on my sliding glass door. So I ask him ‘Yeah?’ You know, and he says, ‘Man give me a ride to my car and I’ll give you 10 bucks.’

At the time I was hard up for cash so I’m like, ‘Yeah dude, let’s go!’

Anyway, I lived in the ghetto and this guy lived deeper in the ghetto. As I’m driving he starts rolling up a joint and says, ‘You wanna hit this?’ Maybe if it was 7:30 at night, you know?

But we turn a corner towards his car and there’s a police officer standing outside of it! So he says, ‘Keep driving man.’ And I’m like, ‘What the fuck is going on, man?’

He pulls out a rock of crack the size of my first and says, ‘This is what’s going on.’”

- Sal, 2008

A little background on Sal. He is originally from Florida. He moved to Panama six months ago. Quote, ‘I had some shit go down. My girlfriend got pregnant…’ he paused for a nervous smile…’anyway, now I’m down here.’

Sal moved to Panama with some inheritance money and is starting a hotel/resort on an island that his friend’s dad owns. As hotel owner, Sal likes to take mushrooms and scare his construction workers.

Some more fun facts about Sal:

• Sal loves Seattle. He’s never had less trouble with cops than there.

• Sal takes his friend’s word for it when they say that he was the one driving the night he crashed a Camero into a tree.

• Sal believes that all Panamanian women love it when he sings in Spanish.

• Sal is fluent in Spanish after only 6 months because he quote, ‘Doesn’t fear the language.’

Hotel Fundador

You know you’re in for a great night when someone invites you to The Hotel Fundador. How you can you not have a good time at place with ‘Fun’ right in the title?

What makes Hotel Fundador so fun you might ask? The underground karaoke bar? The deck over the river out back? The mentally insane ‘Jorge.’

I don’t actually know his name but ‘Jorge’ fits.

These are just features. The real prize is listening to locals sing Spanish love ballads. Second prize goes to listening, and watching Sal, sing an enthusiastic ‘La Bamba’ and then follow it up with the emotional ‘Sexual Healing.’

He brought the house down.

Here are some more pics from the night.

I had dibs on the one in pink.

Clay was in his element.

Hippie gringas.

Clay is a wizard with the camera. This was the best shot of me all night.

The Night

When we first walked into the bar at 9:30 it was completely dead. The guy who was running the karaoke machine had taken over the mic. BTW, his live album is going to be amazing.

After we were settled in, an old drunk guy carrying a stein filled with wine (no rhyme intended), started pointing at us saying, ‘Hay Gringos!’ Then he pulled out his six-shooter (right index finger) and started shooting at us. Luckily, Clay only got a flesh wound.

Our group consisted of:

• 3 German women who work at our hotel
• Sal, friend of the Germans
• Jeff, friend of Sal, and a gringo who wears what appears to be a saber tooth tiger claw around his neck.
• Patricia our Spanish teacher
• 2-3 other Panamanian guys whose names are important, yet I forget.

By 11 o’clock the place was just half-dead. But the alcohol was starting to kick in. You might say 11 to midnight was power hour. Power ballad hour.

The women were downing their drink of choice: Smirnoff Ice. The guys were putting back the Panamanian beers of choice: Atlas and Balboa. Sal was drinking bottles of rum.

There was a distinct period in the night where it felt like no one wanted to talk. They just wanted to sing along to these love ballads. Hippie moment: that’s the power of music

There is no crazy ending to this story. Unlike the beginning, I suppose. At around midnight we all kind of just wandered back to our cabanas. Having no expectations for a night means the outcome is always the right one.

Clay and I got to meet a lot of people and practice our broken Spanish so that’s enough for me.

I will say this: when you travel you go out of your way to meet people. When you’re home you don’t. I wish I could take all my friends and family with me traveling. Kind of like the Oregon trail.