From My Notebook 48 Years Ago In Panama

In 1975 the Panama Canal and roughly 5 miles either side of it was still US territory and called the Canal Zone. Politically I was trying to stay neutral, although the Vietnam War was at its height . . . I had no idea what to expect, but my sponsors, the Lucas company, had an important depot in Panama.

11th April, 1975

Leave San Andrés for Panama on SAHSA plane. $90 all in (tips and tax included)

For some reason I say nothing in my notes about this extraordinary event. The plane was a Lockheed Electra with a Honduras airline, SAHSA – often referred to as Stay At Home Stay Alive. They tried to squeeze my bike into the cargo hold but it wouldn’t fit, so they rolled it up the gangway into the cabin and tied it to the back of the pilot’s seat.

Fly over sea for an hour, then over Colon and parts of the canal (before landing at the airport).

Because some of my luggage seemed to have been lost I wasted time and missed the cargo deadline. So had to return next day for the bike. But all worked out (thanks to the sponsorship of the Lucas agency in Panama).

The Ambassador had me to dinner and found me a hotel. Lucas man, Martin Allen, took me to the airport the following day.

12th April

Taken to visit Colon by a rep. of the David Brown company.

In spite of all the attention I was getting, I was bitterly disappointed to get no mail in Panama. The absence of my pieces in the Sunday Times has had a two-fold effect on me – more subtle one being that it robs me of a form of communication with my friends. If they then fail to write to me I feel lost to them entirely. Why didn’t Jo write? I know that the most probably explanation is that it required too much effort, sorting out how much to say or how little. I am deeply resentful that she can’t even get a postcard off but prevented from expressing my resentment by sense of guilt – or rather my undeservedness. (I walked out. She drove me to it. I failed to satisfy her. She made Utopian demands. I was too weak to resist the temptation to step up on her pedestal. Once up there, there was nowhere to go but down.)

Riding through South America is nothing like riding through Africa. Nor is the second year of this journey like the first. It has taken a while for me to appreciate the cumulative effect of this second continent.

My confidence with the bike is much greater, and I have fewer morbid fears of sudden disaster – though the accidents I’ve had were, if anything, more dangerous than any in Africa.

The experience is more varied and intricate. The psychic pressure is greater – there is more aggression, hostility. The journey is slower, more tiring. I feel much more remote here which combined with absence of mail makes me feel abandoned. But against this there’s Bruno’s company, and Malu’s friendship.

I find myself much more rigidly held by habit than I would like. Although I know that people and situations will respond to my needs, I still find myself reluctant to let go of accustomed sources of comfort and security.¬ Restaurants, hotels, cash transactions, conveniences.

Riding up to Volcan yesterday in Panama, I had to force myself to go on rather than return to the certain comfort of known hotels in Concepcion.

When I arrived in Volcan (because everywhere the grass was too tall and wet for comfort) I looked longingly at the Cabañas and asked a man how much they cost.

Eight dollars – too much. Where else can I go? The pension at five or six dollars. Is there a camping place? He thought about it – then said I could sleep in the garage by the motel.

Out of the conversation my confidence revived. In fact, with my hammock slung between the posts of the porch (which was what the ”garage” turned out to be) I was more comfortable and happy than I would have been in a hotel. The human contact was the essential prerequisite.

The pension Mexico on Av. Del Sur 4 (formerly Av. Mexico) is four streets up from the Av. Balboa, which runs along the coast – but not I think right on the sea; I can’t remember the water’s edge.

The name of the proprietor is Maduro – this is an old name for one of Panama’s richest families. He is brisk, balding, dapper, not afraid of unpleasant details (“I sell combs. They are not expensive. You see, this one is 20 cents. It is so plastic it conforms immediately to the shape of your hand as you drag it over and through a 4-month growth.”)

Or – guests are not allowed to cook, although here’s Pete Shoemaker doing it in front of your very eyes. He has a special dispensation awarded by himself on the grounds that if he’s not allowed to cook, he’s leaving. They would rather have him stay. He pays a daily rate ($6) but lives there by the month. Mrs Maduro is white and all knots and sinews under her kimonos. She hustles and hassles and loves it.

Shoemaker is a young alcoholic sex-maniac. I accused him of not being able to leave the drink alone [The accusation was remote and implicit, but he dug it out] He swore it wasn’t true. When working, he said, he never drank until after work. He has a good face and body, but the skin round his eyes is inky stained. He has just ridden round from Rio to Panama on a Kawa 750. He says there wasn’t anywhere he wouldn’t rather have been in a car.

When he got to Iguacù and found he had to go back to Säo Paulo for some papers, he went there and back non-stop. Curitiba, Säo Paulo, Curitiba, Iguacù, 1200 miles non-stop – mostly at night. Insane.

He didn’t enjoy the journey – just fucking and drinking between rides. Spent $10,000.

“Remember that bridge coming into Ecuador,” he said.

It was in Ecuador, and I remembered it well. Two planks for four-wheeled traffic and only joists in between.

“I fell on it,” I said.

We were both laughing and he howled and shook my hand.

“Me too Pal. Which way did you fall?”

“Into the middle!”

“Jesus! I only fell against the side.”

He says he has screwed every girl in the pension (a very job lot they are too). Says they’re all very discreet about it, but he doesn’t mind telling me. That’s why he stays here. It’s a license to screw, he says.

There’s a Sanyo Widemaster fan in every bedroom. It’s really silent. I have a big double room and fill it as usual with my stuff. There are those louvered windows which you can never open, and lots of recesses in the walls. It’s not a bad life at the Mexico. The style is “rooming house international.” Panama is just a blend.

The Ambassador was leaving on Friday for Boquete with his daughter, to return on Sunday evening. I was invited to use the new pool at the weekend.

Called his secretary (Sheila?) who received me there. There were three women stranded on the concrete round the pool. The first impression was hideous, but of course conversation and attention brought them to life. Sheila was a widow capable of having fun – a compulsive talker – she wore horrible slacks and bent the door of her brand new car on the pillar of the Ambassador’s porch.

With her was a floating 3rd secretary – Scots – who filled in for the holidaying 1st secretary and had massive jellying white thighs and a dour and homely face. The Australian girl had a reasonable figure, but her face had never got finished off properly.

At some point during the week I went to a bank in the city to change my traveller’s cheques into dollars, since that was the official currency of Panama. These were the same cheques that I had been carrying since Rio, nine months earlier, where the Sunday Times had misguidedly arranged for me to receive money in this form. The whole of Latin America was starved for dollars – no bank would give me dollars for my cheques, and the denominations were too high so that I was always left with piles of local currency which lost much of their value when changed at borders.

In Peru I thought I’d found a bank that would give me dollars. After I had countersigned them the bank official told me that I couldn’t have dollars after all. There was a heated exchange, and I took my cheques back but now, in Panama, the bank refused to cash them because they were countersigned, and I would have to have a reputable person to vouch for my identity. In the absence of the Ambassador
I was in despair when an American voice behind me said, “I’ll vouch for him.”

I turned to see an American Naval officer who introduced himself as John Mallard.

“Glad to be able to help,” he said. I thanked him profusely and he gave me his phone number, inviting me to call him any time. He explained that he lived on a naval base in the American Canal Zone. In fact he turned out to be Captain John Mallard, a submariner, and he ran the show.

Capt. Mallard and his wife Ann

April 15th

On Sunday I called the Mallards. Was immediately asked over. Within an hour of arriving I was asked to stay there. The change was instant, abrupt. I felt as though the ambulance had finally arrived – the rescuers had spotted me – I was going to be all right. It’s only afterwards that you see how good or bad things were before.

In the Mallards’ garden