el crispito

The next evening, we tried to take a cab to a Thai restaurant that we had read about in a guide book. We were worried that maybe it was no longer around, so we explained to the taxi driver that we are vegetarians and asked if he had heard of the place. We thought maybe, if he had heard of it, would know if they had vegetarian dishes and if it was any good. He had not heard of it, and when he could not find it, he stopped to ask a guy working as a valet for a nearby restaurant about it. The valet indicated that indeed it had been where we thought it should be, and then he told us it was no longer there. He suggested Madame Chang's, a Chinese restaurant nearby, and we thought that sounded okay. We asked the cab driver to take us there, and he said he would, but he had to go down the street, then turn around to come back on the street where Madame Chang's was located.

He started to do this, then he ended up stopping in front of some other restaurant and asking if we wanted to eat there. We told him that we were really in the mood for Asian food, because we felt we would have a better chance of being able to get vegetarian food, so we would preer Madame Chang's. He pulled back onto the street, turned a few corners, and then, at a place called "Crepes and Waffles," he pulled into their parking lot. He asked the valet there, "Do they have vegetarian food here?" The valet there confirmed that they did: crepes and waffles. He then turned around to us and asked if we wanted to eat there. We politely tried to tell him that we understood that we could eat there, but that we really were in the mood for something else, like, oh, Madame Chang's that we'd indicated that we wanted to go to multiple times. His response was, "This place has food!"

We paid him and got out of the car, deciding that it was not worth the hassle of arguing with him about it any longer. The valet began to guide us to the stairs for Crepes and Waffles, yet he seemed to understand completely what I meant when I thanked him and explained that we wanted something a bit more exotic. We finally encountered a great place called Habibi's which serves great Leganese food, but the experience left us really cold on Panamanian taxi drivers. Why he even asked what we wanted, since he was going to take us to some random place of his choosing anyway, did not make sense.

Whe had a similar problem trying to get to the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, wherein the taxi driver pulled up and stopped in front of the Museo de Antropología, telling us we had arrived at our destination. Shawn pointed out that it was not the right museum, that the one we wanted to go to was on a different street and had a large park across from it. The only thing across the street from the museum where we were then parked was a row of tall office buildings. It was clearly the wrong museum. It took some coaxing and demonstrating that we were not going to pay until he took us to the proper museum before he drove the three or so blocks more to the proper location.

Of course, not all taxi drivers in Panama are this way, and we were happy to find an exception one night while we were out walking about and trying to find a specific bar. More like the cab drivers we were used to from other places, this guy came up to us and asked if we wanted a ride. We told him we were not going far - less than 10 blocks - and he offered to take both of us in his air-conditioned van for two dollars. (In Panama, even at night, the idea of being able to pay a couple of dollars to go even a short distance in air-conditioned comfort is very attractive.) He was pleasant, obviously knew the city, and took us exactly where we wanted to go, not just where he wanted to take us.

He gave us his card and a couple of days later, when we wanted someone to drive us around the city to do the few remaining things on our list, here and there about town, we called him. He not only drove us around, but he gave us some great information on the city. When Shawn wanted to take some photos of a government building exterior, he excused himself for a bit, and when he came back, explained that he had arranged with the rector an invitation to come inside to take photos. After I fell in a hole while shooting photos, scraping my knee and muddying my pants, he stopped and bought alcohol to clean my wound and a rag to help me clean up my pants.

It was nice to find such a gem, after dealing with what seemed to us to be the worst taxi drivers in the world.

If you need a driver in Panama, we highly recommend him. His name is Roger O. Caparroso, and his cell phone number is +507 6634-2482. He has an email address too, but I do not want to publish it here for fear that he will end up getting lots of spam and scam emails. If you are interested, drop me a line in the comments below and I'll send you his address. Oh, and he speaks both Spanish and English.