Flights to Panama are generally straightforward and incident-free which is how FTA employees like it. Recently on my way to Panama, due to several flight changes, I was lucky enough to spend somewhere around ten hours in the Miami International Airport during which I had nothing better to do than write. I rarely write anything that's not directly related to Panama, and I try to never publish anything that's not interesting: this article would be an exception to both of those rules. 

As a child, weekend getaways were epitomized by long car rides which left us so tired and cramped that, by the time we arrived at our vacation destination, none of us wanted to speak to one another. Our trips were long because, in suburban America, nothing is close. Close was the diagonal drive across the empty parking lot from Linens 'n Things to Best Buy. The trip to the beach took four hours.

We boarded the boat, a 58-foot Hatteras at the Amador Causeway to find the captain, a large, withered old bear-of-a-man, sleeping on the couch with a half-finished peanut butter sandwich on his chest and a still-sweating glass of scotch sitting on the table.

Panama is a country rich with contrasts and some of the most remarkable experiences lie in the Republic's interior where quiet fishing towns and spanning mountain views sit below the tourism radar of large tour busses and domestic air flights. Panama's excellent infrastructure (even in remote regions) and manageable compactness as an isthmus make it the ultimate road trip destination.

  After revising a wealth of tour information posted at the Isla Verde cabins where I spent my two nights in Boquete, it was quickly decided that the Caldera Thermal Hot springs and Petroglyph tour would be our best bet - based solely on the happy faces of the beer-totting bathers in the picture. When I called the tour company, a friendly woman answered all my questions in English, with the final agreement that we would pay $50 for two people for the tour which was to include an open-bed truck ride to the springs, park entrance and refreshments.

A good day for me in the states would usually start off with a call saying that a snow storm had closed school. In Panama though, I gets calls at four AM like the one from my friend Ivan, adventure extraordinaire. “Matt, what are you doing?” he asked. “Ivan it's four AM, what do you think I'm doing?” “Well, get ready Papa because in one hour we are going to pick you up for go hunting for waterfalls.”

If you travel to the island of Taboga, I guarantee you it will make you fee like you are living out of a Jimmy Buffet song. After hearing many awesome and splendid things about the island from my guidebook and other people, I decided to check it out for myself. Plus, I really needed to get away from the noises and fast pace of Panama City. To all of those who don't know Taboga, it is only a quick boat ride away from the Causeway in Panama City and if it wasn't for the city skyline in the background, it would leave you thinking you were hundreds of miles away. The boat for Taboga leaves from a pier behind Mi Ranchito Restaurant on the Causeway and costs 10 dollars round trip. The boat departs for Taboga at 8:00 am but be warned that on holidays the boat fills up quickly and you'll have to wait for the next one at 10:30.

El Valle is a handsome enough eco-town with a market on the main street where you can stuff your suitcase with all the woven hats and handmade tzochkes you want. People wander around like its Sunday afternoon all the time here, shopping, sipping coffee, giggling. There's a funny old man who roams these parts serving hotdogs with this angry, almost annoyed look about his face that says you'd look this way too if you were dolloping relish eight hours a day.

I was asked the other day to go with my friend Gonzalo to Visit the Embera Drua of the upper Chagres River. How could I turn this down this opportunitiy? We set off on a 45 minute trip on the Transistmica and down various small roads dirt roads until we arrived at a cul de sac at the edge of Lake Alajuela. “Are you ready for Paradise,” Gonzalo shouted enthusiastically, Steve and Fiona, who accompanied us on the trip, shouted back with a quick, “YES!” I said "Hell Yeah!" though. We got out of the car and two Embera got out from under huge a Corotu tree and walked over to us.

So I went to do some spelunking last week in the caves of Lago Bayano down near the Darien Jungle. Yea, that's right: the place where all the drug-smuggling Columbians and their automatic weapon-wielding minions like to play dominoes and Candyland while they snack on Oreo cookies. My (now) dear friend, Ivan picked us up in his beat-up brown van—the kind of old rickety thing that appears to lazily heave along the pavement rather than actually roll. We headed west along the Pan-American highway until about thirty minutes outside the city, where all of a sudden, the landscape turns terrifically rustic and rural—sort of like a Latin-style Vermont: rolling hills, deep green foliage, army-looking man in camouflage holding an M-16...wait, what?

You know you've been in Central America too long when you consider $5 to be an expensive dinner, you don't own a jacket or heavy blanket, you don't ever even think about using turn signals, kamikaze showers don't bother you, your local bartender knows your astrological sign and dietary restrictions, and a trip to “the most biologically diverse place on earth”--The Osa Peninsula--is as easy as this....Costa Rica adventure travel at its best...

Driving etiquette in Costa Rica is like Kevin Costner's acting skills in Waterworld—kinda nonexistent. Canopies of giant banana and palm trees draped these tiny, narrow, one-lane roads. We passed through several small towns, each of which was bustling with activity—one small soda (cafe) after another was filled with locals celebrating the weekend. Open hearths with roaring flames, roofs made from techno-colored tin and aluminum scraps, and kitchens that doubled as slaughterhouses. This was pippy.

Here are some things that have been annoying me lately: the impenetrable plastic wrapping that comes on DVD's, SPAM emails from someone named Sashi, cereal bags that unravel as soon as you fold the flaps of the box, and the way leather sandals stain your feet when it's raining out...

The Kuna Indians are pretty recognizable. Their faces have these warm-hearted round features and the women wear distinct outfits of bright colors and their world-renowned textiles called ‘molas'. Without sounding too patronizing, they are, well, cute. They live on 365 islands off Panama's Caribbean coast and for the most part keep to themselves.

I motored up to the island of Mamitupu and entered a storybook: hundreds of thatch-roofed huts with bamboo walls and smoky puffs billowing out from all of the little straw cracks. A foggy haze suspended over the village. Narrow waterways spilled into the community making for Venice-like passages. Giant palm trees sprung up from the middle of the island like flagpoles. On the shores, little naked boys played in the sand with a beat up soccer ball. Drifting off the coast of the village were Kuna boaters going out and coming in. The Kuna people seem to have this innate navigational ability—this instinct that allows them to get from one place to another using only nature's cues.

“All my life, I've been like Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Part II, ordering up death over the phone, or with a nod or a glance. Every time I order meat off a menu, something dies. What arrives, however, is not the bleeding, still-warm body of my victim, eyes open, giving me an accusatory look. It is only fair that I find out what we're all talking about. I want to learn—really learn—where food actually comes from.”