I did try The Londoner, of course, but the were closed. No big deal. To the busy street (lots of people) for a cab.
Not many cabs. Some woman accosted me and I ended up arranging with her to get me a cab. She spoke pretty good English, not that I needed it, but still.
She started flagging down cabs and pushing into virtual queues far more aggressively than I would have done. She got one and I slipped her a dollar, feeling obliged. He was going to charge six but she said that was a ripoff and he left. She said the going rate was two or three. Given she could have put me in that cab I can't help feeling she had some idea of genuinely helping.
While we waited we chatted a little and she said she lived round where I was and she would come with me. I didn't object even internally as she seemed fairly unthreatening and if she got me home and saved me money I didn't mind her tagging along.
A bit later she flagged down another guy. He wanted eight at first, she objected and he said five then four. She asked me if I had change and I said I did. She sort of wanted me to get in the front but I moved towards the back seat. She waved us off (so fuck knows what all that "I will come with you" (in English) was about).
The cab driver seemed to enjoy clapping his hands while he drove. But no matter. He dropped me off somewhere plausible looking and (in Spanish, I can't remember exactly how it went) seemed to want five. But for some reason I was strong and said we'd said four and paid him four and he was OK with it.
On getting out I realised I didn't know where I was. (I wonder if the driver got the wrong church - there are three near here - but I am fairly sure I told him. And if he was trying to extort more for taking me where I wanted to be he wasn't very good at it.) I dug the GPS out and I was 230m from home. Nice.
So I wandered along the fortunately well-lit if deserted street in the right direction, anticipating an unpleasant last fifty metres as per my trip out. And then the GPS died. I turned it back on and it died again. Joy. Fortunately I had a rough idea of the direction from when it worked, and by sheer chance I found myself walking round the edge of the peninsula at the end of calle 9a (so presumably one off my hostel's road, 8a) and I did indeed find it. So I at least avoided any dark streets. The hostel was totally dark but on saying 'hola' a couple of times to the buzzerless doorway some guy let me in.
I remember on earlier occasions in the trip being in cabs home and feeling chuffed with myself for speaking a bit of the language and feeling in control. (I do think even in London there's a certain "I might be paying through the nose but otherwise I am sorted" quality about taking a cab anywhere.) Clearly for multiple reasons, way beyond problems caused by my Spanish skills, that will never happen in Panama City. On three cab trips so far, not one has been without some kind of pain.
I can vaguely see why the woman helped me, given I felt compelled to slip her a dollar, even if she didn't want to cadge a ride. She's a freelance tout. And for all the fact my taxi driver was incompetent, she saved me something between one and three dollars even allowing for her fee. And also kind of educated me as to how much I should pay in future, whereas I would have 'happily' paid six had I hailed the first cab myself, whereas now unless I am absolutely desperate I will bargain down to at least four. I'd have got there sooner or later, but she helped me get there a lot sooner.
I do not see why the taxi driver dumped me 230m from where I wanted to be without at least trying to extort a further fare. I am at least chuffed I didn't bow to his attempt to get an extra dollar out of me. That would have rankled anyway, but after I found I wasn't even home (all these churches look a bit similar and from close up when you can't get a full view and in the dark I can easily forgive myself for not realising while in the cab) I would have been seriously hacked off.
And it was just classic the way the GPS died without warning. Normally I would have just swore, felt a bit vulnerable and swapped in the batteries from my camera, but tonight as I figured I wouldn't need to take photos and I might get mugged on the way to the jazz bar I had left the camera behind for the first time in months. I suppose at least it did give me that initial direction which made all the difference.
But all in all, I'm not loving it here. It wasn't a bad night, although it was overly pricey, but there's just too much shit to deal with. I think, honestly, everywhere in South America I've been and on my previous trips to Mexico, you got a cab off the street and got to where you wanted to go. (Yes, in Mexico the cab drivers would try it on occasionally and overcharge if you weren't clued up. But I bet they at least took you where you wanted to go, although the only times I realised I was being overcharged - prices in advance - I told them no and got another cab.) I guess that would be too simple for Panama.
This eats at the very core of my philosophy. I have always worked on the assumption that as long as I'm not physically at risk, if I am lost all I have to do is get a cab and pay the price and be home. I always make sure I have money for that should it be necessary. A kind of banker's solution to being lost. But this place seems to suggest that won't work, and I don't like that. If you can't rely on a taxi driver to take you home in return for payment, what can you rely on?
Anyway, I have been bashing this crap out for too long and it's 4:15 now. I can't surf (well, I coud reboot the laptop and see, but I suspect they've killed the wifi and I can't be arsed) and I probably shouldn't, so to bed.
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