Page 13 - Panama Review

I must admit that I was a bit nervous while we were lost, riding around in circles.
However, as we moved further away from the airport area into downtown, I began to
feel much more at ease. The highway was smooth and straight. The skyline started to
come into view. It was one of the prettiest skylines I have ever seen. The Panama City
downtown skyline has few rivals. The view is magnificent. We began to see signs
saying downtown. Furthermore, the GPS appeared to be working without incident. I
was not prepared to see so many high-rise buildings and structures. It has a real
cosmopolitan feel to it. I couldn’t wait to see what it looked like during the daylight.
My wife was the navigator as she monitored the distance from the hotel, 5 miles away
she would call out, we are almost there I would say, it says here we get off on Balboa,
my wife would say. There’s Balboa 2 miles away I replied. Three minutes later the
GPS was telling my wife that we needed to make a U turn at the nearest exit. We
drove up and down Balboa for about 30 minutes. At one point, we ended up back on
the freeway headed towards the airport. With the quickness, I found my way back to
Balboa. We had enough. Our giddiness has deteriorated into profanity-laced tirades
after ending up in some secluded part of the business district. I pulled over while my
wife once again called the hotel. She put the phone on speaker so that I could hear the
directions. We spoke with Sujei at the front desk. We gave her landmarks where we
were. She said that we were very close, even though we had randomly just parked to
call the hotel. She gave us directions that were very direct and explicit and ... she
spoke great English. The only thing wrong was in my excitement of being close, I
missed a turn and we were lost again. We called back and spoke to the Night Manager
by the name of Rick. Rick, we later found out, is originally from Florida and he
literally spoke our language. We told him where we were by naming landmarks. He
asked if we could make it back to Balboa to the Hilton Casino Hotel. Well, we only
passed that hotel about a thousand times that night. We felt certain we could do that.
He said he would come meet us and we could follow him from there. We were
stunned that he would make that offer. So we headed back to where we thought we
could get to the hotel. He said he would meet us in 15 minutes. Nearly 30-minutes
later, we finally drove up to the Hilton parking lot. I pointed at Rick and he pointed at
me as if to ask, “Are you Mike?” I rolled down the window to affirm my identity. We
drove off and two minutes later we were at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. It was
sometime after 2 a.m.
Then this happened...
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