Gamboa,Friday, March 25th, Local time: 3 p.m

Sweet, sweet Ecuadorian Chiquita:

Guess who is back? Well no time to lose anymore with absurdities! I think I stopped my letter yesterday whereas I was about to talk to you about Panama City.

Well, have a sit,  cigarillos, patacones, and some salsa music because here comes my daily story! Once upon a time, there was a country named Cuba. Havana was its capital. Everyone was outside, chilling out, passing time, talking about what is happening in front of their eyes. Well, that is exactly as Panama City.

According to my wise father, « almost every city in South America takes Havana as a role model». Maybe that is true, I never was there, I just smoked a Romeo y Julietta cigar once. Anyway, so Panama city is big, you can see its Skylines from almost everywhere. The old part of the city looked like any old Spanish colony I guess. It had a commemoration place for the liberator, Simon Bolivar and another one for the conqueror ( Balboa in our case)

«No highway code, just my way» shall think people here. Seriously what a mess to drive, everyone is just doing whatever they want. Honestly, I promise you! Today I saw a guy who was driving through the grass and the flowers, just to pass three or four cars. And well finally he couldn’t reach the road anymore and jammed the traffic for thirty minutes. So classy!

What else? Ah yeah, funny thing which reminded me on Bangkok (Thailand) : Lottery. Maybe there is the same thing in your city, but in front of the supermarkets here, they are selling bunch of those tickets. I have never seen that in Paris, Berlin ,or any city where they sell Lotto!  I don’t know, maybe it’s something which belongs to the countries from the “South” ( I’m sorry for this expression, I couldn’t say it with another terms, shall we stop to be hypocrite at last?)

Another funny detail : the advertisement. I already told you about those on TV, but well , on the street they are only about half naked women who’s talking up the goods of beers, beaches or anything else. Apparently, boobs are a great way of persuasion over here!

So when we walk into Panama city, we have the impression to be sometimes in Manhattan, sometimes in a old part in the Havana, or in some old European Mediterranean city.

It is like a rootless city ,and a rootless culture! But I will talk about it in my next letter!

In the meantime, I send you all my loveliness ( instead of affection, I’m sorry I hate that word ! Even if I know that sending loveliness doesn’t mean anything for Shakespeare! )

Share This

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

About the author

Rafael
" 'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed".