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travel

The maleantes keep slowing me down

by Eric Jackson

It was ye olde tropical cloudburst, which started as the pitter patter of a few drops as a friend and I were leaving the Evergreen Building in San Francisco (where we had dined at the excellent Golden Unicorn). She was going to El Cangrejo and I was headed back to the office in Perejil.

By the time we got to Via Argentina the rain was coming down in sheets, the water washing down the street was more than a foot deep and visibility was ever decreasing. After my friend was dropped off near Colegio La Salle the cabbie headed for the intersection of the Transistmica and Tumba Muerto, planning to go under the bridge, turn left and head toward my destination. But under the bridge was heavily flooded and he sensibly didn't want to risk getting his cab stuck in the flood. So we turned right, heading up the Transistmica in order to do a U-turn and get to where we were going by passing over rather than under the bridge.

But the water was also flooding on the Transistmica, making it well nigh impossible to see the road surface.

WHAM!

What neither the driver nor I saw was the missing sewer cap. With the price of steel scrap up because of China's building boom, the old crime of stealing sewer caps, storm drain grates and the like has become a growth industry. The hole that the rain kept us from seeing flattened the cab's tire and ruined the wheel upon which it was mounted.

The only reasonable way to proceed was to go down to the intersection with Via Brasil, make our turn (illegal but there wasn't any traffic to speak of and no cop was there) and limp down to the gas station across from Hospital Santa Fe. There he could fix his tire, and though the water was still pouring down from the sky, I had an umbrella and was only a block or so from the office.

Nobody was physically hurt, but the maleantes had slowed me down.

That was about three weeks ago. As these words were written I was bruised, scraped and slightly sprained from another version of the same crime.

Walking down the sidewalk near the National Sanctuary, I was looking for an address. As in, not looking at my feet. At this spot there was a foot-wide, foot-deep storm drain cut into the sidewalk, which is ordinarily covered by a steel grate.

But some hoodlum had stolen that piece of metal to fence to a crooked scrap dealer, and I stepped with my flip-flop clad right foot into the hole. That sliced a postage stamp-sized piece of skin off of my big toe, sent me sprawling and scraping my left shin and abrading my hands on the sidewalk.

Ouch! No serious injury here, although there might have been.

But this sort of crime is out of control in Panama City, and it really is a travel hazard, whether you are behind the wheel or on foot.