Friday, May 16, 2008
Imagine owning your own dollop of sand, with palm trees and tropical blossoms, surrounded by aquamarine water. But at what price?
Nov 13, 1999 | "It's like my own little fantasy island," the mustachioed man yammered. "We've got some snorkeling planned, then we'll check out the sea turtles, then you know, hang out on the boat, have a gourmet lunch, swim, enjoy the beauty, eat some mangos, drink a beer, then we head over to see the property. We'll be there just in time for sunset, and man is it beautiful, palm trees, you name it. I'm so happy to show you guys this place. We're going to have a total blast. It's like my own little fantasy island."
A tanned American couple in their early 40s sat nearby on the restaurant porch. They listened, they smiled. The mustachioed man -- who might have been Tom Selleck's stocky cousin -- talked loudly on the other side of the railing on the dirt street of Bocas del Toro, the main town on Panama's premiere tropical archipelago. Behind him a skinny, ravaged black man pushed a wheelbarrow full of coconuts and called out his wares in a sing-song chant. "Coconut just a quarter, coconut just a quarter." Other locals rode by on bicycles swerving potholes gracefully, balancing children on the handlebars and fenders. Others wandered by on foot dressed in threadbare shorts and loose dresses calling out to one another by name.
"Hey," I whispered to my husband, Hank, as the mustachioed man stepped away from the railing to confer with a cinnamon-skinned gentleman on a bicycle. "That's him. That's Marty."
This was the man we had been waiting for, the American businessman who could make our whole trip worthwhile. But we weren't ready to meet him -- not quite yet anyway. As he began speaking to another American couple who had just arrived at the restaurant, we turned to the first couple, offering them some insect repellant for the swarming chiggers.
"Are you here to see Isla Solarte?" I asked.
"Yes," the man answered with a proud smile. "Are you with the group, too?"
"No, but we read about it on the Internet," Hank replied.
"That's Marty -- he's the one organizing the whole thing," the man said. "Do you know Marty? I can introduce you."
"No, no," I interrupted. "Please -- we came here to check it out but we don't want the hard sell."
"Yeah," Hank added. "I spoke to Marty on the phone and he talked my ear off. How did you find out about it?"
"Actually," the man answered, casting a glance at the woman, "Marty's my brother."
We smiled. "Oh, that's great," I stuttered, suddenly noticing the man's identical mustache. "Of course, I see the family resemblance."
We continued to chat amiably as if we hadn't just suggested his brother was a shyster selling tropical swampland. That's not what we believed anyway. We had snuck onto the private island the day before -- and so far, everything Marty had said was true. It was paradise.
And that's all we wanted. Our own little slice of paradise. That's all.
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