Leaving Panama
Clark February 15th, 2008
To say I’m leaving Panama is a relative term. I’m officially checked out, but I probably won’t actually leave port until tomorrow. Then it will take a whole day to get down the river, then a night at Boca Chica, then a night out in the islands, then finally around Punta Burica into Costa Rica. So I won’t actually be leaving Panama for four days, but this is my last hurrah at the Internet cafe.
Since I’m officially checked out and it’s not likely that the officials visit this website, I can declare that they are corrupt theiving bastards! Actually the Port Captain’s office and Port Authority are on the up-and-up, fast, efficient, and friendly. The agricultural inspector, the immigration guy, and the customs guy are slime.
The agricultural guy asked me for $35, which I gave to him, then he gave me a receipt for $15. I balked and he made up some crap about another inspection and said he would give me a reciept if I had a piece of paper. He scrawled out a reciept on a piece of notebook paper which means nothing. He scammed me out of $20 and there’s no way I’m getting it back. So now I can tell the world: Santiago Ruiz is a bad man! He abuses his authority! I guess it’s not really corruption because corruption would mean he’s stealing money from the Panamanian people. The Panamanian people got their $15 bucks, but I lost another $20 that went into his pocket, so I guess it’s abuse of power to con and steal.
The immigration guy now has thousands of retired Americans living in the area so he’s ‘in business.’ He is famous for kicking people out of the immigration office for wearing shorts: You must be respectibly dressed to be in a government office. Meanwhile he is unshaven and usually wears a white, but yellowed, sweat stained, short sleeved polyester shirt.
I went into the immigration office at 4:30 one day, just before the office closed. He asked me what time I got into port and I stupidly said 7:00. Since this is outside of business hours he said I’d be charged overtime charges of $45, payable in cash to him, plus I’d have to go to the national bank and pay $10. There was a long standoff and he came back with the ubiquitous, ‘¿Que hacemos?’ This is Spanish for, ‘Show me the money and you’re done.’ Since I’m on a strict anticorruption policy, I said I’d go to the bank in the morning when it opened and see him afterwords. Funny thing, the next day when the office was packed with employees and visa applicants he didn’t mention that $45.
The customs guy has been scamming every boat for $20. I just said, ‘No, there’s no charge for customs. Never has been. I’m not paying.’ He was furious, but there was nothing he could do.
Sadly, Panama has been the most corrupt country I’ve visited in the world. It’s the only place I’ve ever paid an all-out bribe, $100 to a Port Captain eight years ago. In hindsight, I don’t know if I actually did anything wrong, but he’d confiscated our passports, arrested me, and alluded to confiscation of Condesa, plus he had a gun.
Some argue that a corrupt system is still a functional system, that it’s just our cultural bias that prevents us from accepting it as it is. Sorry, corruption is bad. It means jobs don’t get done and money doesn’t go where it’s supposed to. The victims and the Panamanian people suffer for it. I guess I’d be singing a different tune if I were buying myself out of some jail time, but strangely enough, I seem to usually be on the right side of the law in these situations.
the blog is great. thanks for hours of enjoyable reading time (when I should’ve been editing droll copy).
you’ve got a set of stones to say no to the customs guy. i guess you checked to see if he was holding a piece first….i feel like i’ve run into these ‘types’ in some of the outlying islands in the Bahamas: i am in a cove with NO boats, off season, not a soul in sight. Some dude pulls up on shore on an ATV, rows out to my boat, and charges me $25 rent for the mooring for the night. I want to tell him to go to hell—but then, what is this dude going to do when we’re sleeping? A slippery slope….
fair winds.
Fjorder,
Ugh, I’ve heard that kind of thing about the Caribbean…never been there myself. I’ve also heard that in a lot of places you get a boat boy, whether you want one or not, and you have to pay him to tell you where to anchor. So what kind of copy are you editing?
Clark
Hey Clark, The corruption issue is an ugly one and unfortunately it is everywhere in some form or fashion. Have you considered flowing your Panamanian experience to noonsite.com? From what I can tell noonsite is how many cruisers get the latest info on various country’s cruiser friendliness. Perhaps if your experience is uploaded Panama may take the bad press as a wake up call to fix some problems. Just a thought. Great post, as always.
Thank you for taking the time,
Jeff
Jeff,
I use noonsite pretty often myself, and I have offered up some posts. They give a lot of information, but i think if they try to get too specific, like what the charges should be for a specific country, it would be too much to manage. The corruption and abuse of power REALLY bothers me, for some reason. Some people just let it slide and say ‘I’m here to have a good cruise, not to change the world.’ Maybe I should be more that way, but I’ve ended up writing several complaints, and that kind of thing, over the years…always best done after you’ve left!
Cheers,
Clark