Maestro and Mississippians; December 2016 Panama Travel Blog #5; to Aunt Gerry
Raine was to leave on the noon flight for Tampa and the
morning was busy with her organizing, packing and giving Vicki last minute
pointers. We had our coffee in the ranch house and stayed out of
the way. Joel invited us to have dinner with them and we offered to pick
up wine and a few additions for the leftover turkey to round out the meal so we
set off to Bocas Town. The morning was proving to be very hot
and we quickly finished our arrangements for transport the following day back
over the continental divide to David Airport where we would pick up our rental
car and head to Boquete. We visited the gourmet kosher
store (yes, you heard right… a kosher store in Bocas) and selected a couple of
bottles of wine, scooped up a few vegetables at one of the super markets and
hailed a cab back to the casa.
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Bocas Town Waterfront |
We deposited our purchases in the ranch kitchen and returned
to our casita for a quick freshening up. I wanted to give Raine a proper
goodbye and waited inside our casita as I watched for her approach to the front
gate. I waited a bit and then waited some more finally going back to the
ranch house and inquiring about her departure time. We had missed
her. Raine was very focused and very intent on getting the next
chapter of her story going, so she finished her errands and was gone.
Later that day she texted me and apologized for not saying goodbye but it was a
perfect excuse to see one another in the near term and get another chance to
say goodbye. Carlos won’t depart for Florida until Dec 14 staying around
to help Joel and Vicki settle into their new life.
Bryant and I borrowed a couple of bicycles and took a short
ride down the beach seeking lunch. We wanted to see how The Flying Pirate
was getting along since our visit the year before when construction had begun
on Skully’s, an open air bar and grill that was part of the operation.
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Road to Paki Point |
Steve played the part of a pirate very well. He had a
peg leg and wore a headscarf. His beard was long enough to be tied at the
point on his chin and gathered into a long strand that hung down to his barrel
chest. His rough look covered up a very polite and soft demeanor.
Well-spoken with a good business head, Steve was always interesting for a chat
over a beer. His leg? Not cut off in a mid-sea booty
battle. He is an adrenaline junky and was a base jumper. He landed
badly on one jump and mangled his leg. His prosthetic is shaped to look
like a pirate’s wooden peg leg. His business name The Flying
Pirate? When he first moved to Bocas he flew an ultralight until the
local airport clipped his wings. He had flown afoul of the regulations.
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Maestro in 2015 |
During our last visit, Bryant had taken pictures of me with
a large green parrot sitting on my shoulder at the buggy garage. Maestro
was still there, having taken up residence at the outdoor bar, and was causing
quite the spectacle trying to overturn a beer bottle that one of the employees
was drinking. The two of them had an obvious relationship as the guy was
able to handle the parrot every which way and the parrot had no challenge when
perching on his shoulder or head or clinging to the front of his shirt.
I walked over and began to talk to Maestro to see if he
would remember me. He stared. I stared. He didn’t look
receptive so I backed off and sat down to eat lunch with Bryant and admire a
large pirate themed mural painted on the wall that separated the open air
restaurant and bar with the buggy garage. I ignored Maestro and he went
back to battling the beer bottle.
A sudden breeze made the day cooler than expected and the
water lapped lazily along the rocky beach. Several large bench chairs
were hung from trees along the water’s edge and one of them called my
name. I got comfortable and admired the view and Bryant joined me.
We relaxed, took a short snooze and pictured ourselves doing this every
day. Maybe. Maybe not.
Maestro had given up on the beer bottle and was cackling,
chirping, and shrieking making noisy mayhem from his perch in the bar roof
rafters. His ‘person’ had left the area and he was not happy.
I walked over and, reaching up, tapped one end of the long slender branch that
was part of his extended perch. My finger remained in place. He stopped
shrieking and cocked his head looking at me. He slowly walked down the
branch and inspected my finger. I was waiting to get bitten by a very
long sharp beak. Instead, he lifted one foot and extended it and
stepped up on my finger. I stayed still. He walked down my arm and
got comfortable on my shoulder. That was OK…until my sunglasses and
earring became his next objects of desire. I was able to get
him back on my fingers and moved my hand away from my neck. We were
friends. Until I went to put him back on the branch perch. Maestro
was having none of it and his acrobatic abilities were put to full use.
Each time I positioned him to step on the branch he would pivot or swing and
manage to stay stuck on my hand without biting or scratching me. I
noticed that I was being watched and then realized this was not the first time
Maestro had done this to guests. Very funny, Maestro. Perhaps that
is how he earned his name. Very good at orchestrating. Eventually
we parted ways successfully and Bryant and I hopped on our bikes and pedaled
back to the casa.
Back in the ranch kitchen, Vicki and I took charge in the
absence of Raine and we soon had turkey soup and turkey salad ready for
dinner. The wine was poured, Carlos did the Brucha as he did every
evening and we set upon the meal. Last year I observed that Raine and
Carlos observed the teachings of the Torah although neither were Jewish.
Their Sabbath observance and other rituals made me feel right at home.
During the meal we treated everyone to music that we loved
including Flamenco and Jazz Fusion on our laptop. With Joel and Vicki
being Mississippians (Joel prefers being called a Redneck), we compared rock
band favorites and selected classics from Spotify. As this was the
third meal we shared with them we learned about their life back home having
both grown up on rural farms and then pursued careers. She in mental
health and he in the oilfields around the world. I liked that they
were open, salt of the earth folks and Bryant seemed to connect with them on a
common level as he also had a childhood rooted on his grandparent’s rural Texas
homestead.
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Joel Vicki Bryant Raine and Carlos |
I noticed that Joel was happy dressed in old t-shirts and
wrinkled shorts every day. Vicki always had on a cute outfit with her
hair fixed nicely and her makeup in place but not overdone. Both
loved their hard liquor mixed with coca cola every day at 5P. Not
eyebrow raising observations. However, Raine had let it drop that Vicki
shopped for items at Dillard’s to fill the container being shipped down to
Panama, was not happy with the mismatched crockery and service ware in the
kitchen, lamented the lack of a dishwasher and was miffed with the top loading
clothes washer that took soap directly into the tub instead of the models that
offered soap dispensers. This was going to be quite a lifestyle
change for Vicki when she comes to understand that designer shorts from
expensive department stores would just not do and that appliances died
regularly in the heat and humidity of Bocas, so there was no logic to buy
expensive ones. I wondered how all of this would mesh with the
cross section of guests they would certainly host. High season was going
to land with a sober thud on Dec 19 when their casa would be booked full
through January.
We leave at noon for the transit by boat and van back over
the continental divide to the cooler climes of Boquete and to our Rhode Island
friends that have just completed their first full year living in the bosom of
Volcan Baru.
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View of Boquete Below Volcan Baru From Plane 2015 |
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