🇵🇦 No Gods, No Más-ters

Hello Adventurers, 

After recharging my soul last week in Mexico City, Ciudad-dy Pobjoy abandoned his family for Panama City this week. And it was a truly soleless move. Like, my single pair of shoes are now so bald that anything other than dry, flat, and sunny conditions will be disastrous!

Luckily, Panama brought the heat...allowing me to slip and slide through history. And how could it not? Roberto Durán, Van Halen, the Canal, and Noriega (not Noreaga)...all fire starters that set the world ablaze...each with a different connection to this artificially disconnected place.

I knew the names, but wanted to know more. So I did three marathons in Panama City, and this issue recounts my findings...which I have uploaded to the interwebz from Sint Maarten or Saint Martin or wherever the hell I am in the embers of empire.

And on that note...over the next coupla weeks I'll be visiting a constituent of a kingdom, a collectivité d'outre-mer, an overseas territory, and an unincorporated territory...all will be too small to be visible on my 2023 Trek Counter map...yet all will be counted as a country visited in my tally.

It's probably technically incorrect to do this...but I don't care: there's no rules, no gods, and no quit either.

Plus, each place feels like its own thing. And their colonizer stepdaddies — the abandoners of forced families — they never fully brought these Islands into the formal fold. Instead they just gave these second-class members different technical surnames. And that's soulless; especially since they stepped all over them. But us, let's step into it 'cause I'm stepping through it.

- Ben Pobjoy

P.S. I did an interview with NOW last week while marathoning Mexico City. You can read it here.

2023 TREK TRACKER

Where in the world...record am I?

• Countries visited: 13

• Flights taken: 23

• Kilometres flown: 33,843

• Marathons completed: 37

• Kilometres trekked by foot: 1,748.5

• Total kilometres trekked since 2015: 64,840

RAPID WEEKLY RECAP

A speedy synopsis for time-crunched readers

• The Wildest Thing: Unintentionally arriving to Panama City for Carnival 🥳

• The Biggest Obstacle: Internally navigating the emotional aftershocks from last week's familial love bomb in Mexico City: it went from us together...back to me being alone, and that transition blasted me 🫤

• The Lesson Learned: Honing my 'HMF' response...when they yell "Hey my friend!" I 'hightail metres fast' 😤

FIELD NOTES: PANAMA CITY, PANAMA

A deep fake that's real

Panama City is a Potemkin village of sorts. Not because of the human-made constructs like the Panama Canal or the artificial mainland-to-island Amador Causeway built from Canal debris or even because of the futuristic Cinta Costera 3 bridge / road / path thingy that unnatural-y juts into the Pacific Ocean, but because this place tries to sweep poverty under the rug by putting lipstick on a pig...done for the visual pleasure of the monied, the expats, and the cruise ship tourists.

And that is not a criticism or a condemnation. It's quite the opposite: I like lipstick, I like pigs, and I really like Panama City. The latter is one of the most fascinating — and photogenic — places I have ever been to.

Anyway, this place feels like a Photoshop program on a computer terminal that's been left open at a public library...where different users with different visions — and total variance in abilities — have hopped on for a hot second to go buck wild...each trying to override others' contributions. Overall, it's less collaboration and more collision: there's crude copying and pasting of dramatically contrasting things, a million layers, lots of texture, 8 bit design rendered in '80s filters, and futuristic 3D renders with corny solarized flares. The latter didn't interest me much here — it's just that ubiquitous 'sheen of the wealth aesthetic' one can see anywhere — but you can get a sense of it in the Punta Pacifica neighbourhood or from the gaudy architecture of the F&F Tower.

Me? I was more interested in using my marathons to explore how the diametrically opposed forces here — from the political to the historical to the economical to the social — were uncomfortably grinding up on one another like tectonic plates to create fissures or clashes or negligences. As such, my PC interest was biased: I studied one side of this place's prism...and you would likely have a very different 'take' should you visit. And that's what makes Panama City so interesting: it is whatever you choose to see, and believe it to be...politically correct or not.

Regardless of one's conclusions, I think we'd all agree that: the tap water tastes like fertilizer, a crazy variety of birds live in the city centre as well as along the city's coast, the cab drivers annoyingly honk — and yell — at every tourist to try and score rides (which is a synthesis that lets any man temporarily feel like a cat-called woman), and that Panama City smells wretched in many parts because there's open, overflowing dumpsters full of people's shitty toilet paper — and rotting garbage — which the hot and steamy weather accentuates to next-level, gag reflex-testing gore.

The stink could make you blow chunks...so in this issue of the newsletter I did things a little differently by 'chunking things per area' because that's what I blew through on my marathons...

PANAMA CANAL

I don't really care for boats or waterway locks...so I can't say that my visit to the Panama Canal was totally worth it. Actually, the marathon to get there was physically taxing because it was done along the shoulder of a sun-scorched highway which reflected sunlight off of the asphalt right at my faulty ass' shitty navigation...and then the route home was through a hilly service road that was a heat-locked corridor through steamy jungle...which fully nuked my brain.

All of this is besides the point though. For me, it was important to visit the Canal because of how it completely altered the world (from industrial innovation to global trade to new levels of foreign influence to geo-politics to relations between democracies and dictatorships, and beyond).

I cannot even begin to recount the history of it all, so I would encourage you to read this Wikipedia page to get a primer. Basically, tens of thousands of people died to construct it, and the leasing of the lands — and the transference of the ownership — is a saga that spanned centuries.

In short, the Canal is/was an insane project...and as a lover of history and politics I felt obligated to hit it. And overall, this is what makes my Marathon Earth Challenge so incredible: the incredible amount of world history I am stepping through daily as I traverse the world by foot. It's not always exciting — like, the Canal is pretty boring — but my guiding principle is to bear witness to as much as possible: to observe, analyze, learn, and grow. And to achieve this, I must stroll through as much as I can...regardless of the entertainment value. Plus, history isn't often fun...or it's more often like a horror movie...and I personally hate that genre.

Anyway, would you find a visit to the Panama Canal worthwhile? I don't know...there's a long line to get in, it costs $17.22 USD to see, the experience is prefaced by an elective screening of a Morgan Freeman-voiced IMAX film about it (which I skipped...but jeez what won't that guy 'voice' these days?), and the ships aren't constant...they actually pass through the locks at certain times which are hours apart. Overall, it's a bit of an organizational gong show...so you can't say I didn't warn you!

EL CHORRILLO

El Chorrillo is an objectively dangerous place, and I took extreme precautions marathoning its edges as well as quickly cutting through it one morning (done at an early hour because gangs like to sleep in). Many claim they want to get the cheddar, but few Gs want the worm.

So why risk a visit? Well, my answer is as complicated as the place itself. El Chorrillo was first populated by immigrants who built the Panama Canal, boxer Roberto Durán and dictator Manuel Noriega lived there, it was decimated thirty-ish years ago when Drunkle Sam invaded it — and destroyed much of it — in total violation of international law, many neighbourhood residents died and/or were displaced by the urban warfare, residents were promised $6,500 for destroyed homes, and many still want answers.

It is a heavy place pockmarked by war and poverty, and I think it is telling that some of it overlooks a graveyard. And that some of the buildings remain gutted and abandoned (which some people haphazardly live in), while other buildings on the perimeter — as well as the tallest ones inside — have been painted bright colours by the government to give the appearance of...I don't know...happiness from afar?

But boy, when you stroll through it, it ain't happy inside.

Here, life is hard. Roosters eat from dumpsters, stray dogs saunter the streets, garbage blows around like tumbleweed as the tumbling smell of weed blows around, the sidewalks are tacky with grime, gangs roam (from Casco Viejo, I saw two policemen do the Uvalde Shuffle aka 'swerve and not protect' when young balaclava'd marauders spilled out onto the street from a tower), big vultures fly above in concentric circles, water inexplicably pours from some buildings and creates outdoor showers which residents walk through fully clothed to cool down, blaring music blasts out of numerous building windows to create deafening cacophony, and the "Hey my friend" calls are constant...I turned the temperature down on one hot interaction by sharing a cold Powerade with a G out front the blue tower pictured below. That specific building is a stand-out signifier of El Chorrillo's misery (its courtyard is full of so much garbage that the walls are blackened like 10' up from the ground). It's not France or Greece, but it had Athena vibes.

Most interesting is that El Chorrillo borders Casco Viejo, the latter being the 'Old Town' which has been gentrified and Disney-fied for tourists. It is bisected by police who keep El Chorrillo contained on one side — and from the other side — tell advancing tourists to retreat back to the gift shops full of treats.

CINTA COSTERA AND THE CAUSEWAY

The Cinta Costera is a seven kilometre-long, ocean-side beltway divided into three sections that runs from Paitilla to Casco Viejo to El Chorrillo where it almost connects to the Amador Causeway. The latter is fascinating because it is an artificial construct built from canal debris that connects four islands...which once had military fortifications as well as a notorious Noriega residence.

And just to be clear: the costera and the causeway aren't a neighbourhood. Rather, they're paths, ones I lumped together in this issue as well as ones I lumped together on a marathon. And IMO, they're worth cruising!

And if you do hit them, make sure to hit the Mercado de Marisco Cinta Costera smack dab in the middle of both. The market is full of freshly dead fish, cranes flying around inside, and vultures loitering outside eating remnants of fish bait on the fishing boats.

The Cinta Costera 3 is a bridge / road / path thingy that unnatural-y juts into the Pacific Ocean. While I have not yet been to Dubai...the Cinta Costera 3 feels like something outta Dubai by virtue of its outlandishness.

It is amazing to trek or bike because the surroundings underneath it shape shift. At low tide in the morning, the structure sits above a field of sludge which locals forage for crabs, but by late afternoon the ocean waters return; segueing from sludge to serene. The whole thing feels like a fitting metaphor for Panama City.

The Amador Causeway is a thin band of transplanted earth that — like an artificially Viagra'd penis — boners out into the Pacific Ocean. One side borders the entrance to the Panama Canal while the other side offers a panoramic view of Panama City.

Locals bike and jog the causeway (and some fish from it too)...as dorky tourists rent all types of contraptions (from quadracycles to electric scooters) to cruise it.

And speaking of cruises, the ships dock at Perico Island which the causeway connects to. It's worth checking out for a few minutes because it is full of plump, cherry tomato-coloured senior citizens from America and England that are melting in the heat. Nearly all are wearing those silly-looking-on-them Panama hats (which ironically originated in Ecuador).

While the area is touristy, I did enjoy visiting the Centro Natural Punta Culebra on Noas Island to see exotic-to-me wildlife. For $7 USD, I got to inspect starfish up-close in shallow tanks which was trippy AF (their top-side markings are like one-of-a-kind fingerprints).

The best thing though? Seeing uncaged sloths hanging upside down in mango trees...it was such good vibes! They barely moved and looked like fat, furry coconuts...and were so adorable. Oddly, they're somehow simultaneously boring and totally entertaining. I think they may be my spirit animal because they seem funemployed too.

But unlike them, let's move on...

As I was backtracking the causeway towards the mainland, I bought a piss warm / machete'd coconut from a vendor for $2 USD...because I had hunger pangs and was getting dehydrated.

The hot coconut water wasn't refreshing...but staved off the pending heatstroke headache, and the fatty coconut meat effectively fuelled me. Downside was a very sticky beard and tacky hands afterwards...so you may want to hit the carts selling DIY snow cones...and get a double-pump of flavoured syrup to cut the fertilizer taste of the local ice.

A last note about the causeway: look for the wrecked boats that dot the harbours, and get up-close to the Biomuseo. The latter was designed by Frank Gehry, and is falling apart vis-à-vis loose panels and peeling paint. To me, both are emblematic of Panama. City: everything looks great from afar, but then when you get near to things here they often look un-great.

CASCO VIEJO

It would have been logical for this section on Casco Viejo — being the 'Old Town' — to follow the section on El Chorrillo since they're essentially conjoined, but I wanted to let things breathe...and have you see it after seeing both the Cinta Costera and the Amador Causeway...because that's the procession route that brain-dead, cruise ship tourists are ferried along in cabs or on tour buses.

While the Old Town is quaint and charming, it is peculiar. Yes, it's 'old old' but it's more 'old bones with recently renovated façades and whacky paint jobs' giving the area a bit of a Disneyland vibe, replete with the types of shops you'd expect. This area is actually a UNESCO World Heritage Site...and that sorta shocked me because it's so finessed. My take? Seems like some former FIFA peeps work at UNESCO...if you catch my drift.

Anyway, I didn't necessarily enjoy the area but I liked the literal cracks it had (for both the visuals and the metaphors), and I liked the manicured ruins of the Iglesia de la Compañía de Jesús as well as the other unkempt ones.

Oddly, the really old ruins — being the ones from the 16th century — they're on the other side of town. That too is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and having visited those, I can say they're more fitting of the designation.

The best oddity in Casco Viejo is the Parroquia San Felipe de Neri. The seemingly normal church is a ruse, because one of its side rooms contains a totally bonkers nativity scene behind glass. I can't find a trusted source to substantiate the local legend, but supposedly the nativity scene was donated by a local family. Anyway, if you're the niche-type that loves Jesus and model railroading then this thing is an overlapping Venn diagram for you!

In closing, what I liked most about Casco Viejo is that it is a thought-provoking example of 'for tourism' gentrification (and do look for the anti-gentrification, pro-resident billboard that local activists have installed in the area). All of it really makes you question who this place is for...and it definitely doesn't seem like it is for Panamanians!

AVENIDA CENTRAL ESPAÑA

Avenida Central España is pedestrian zone just outside of Casco Viejo that is full of discount stores, street vendors, and restaurants akin to Québécois casse-croûtes.

There's nothing spectacular about this general area in terms of attractions, but I found it to be visually spectacular: vendors selling fake gold jewellery from the tops of red umbrellas, indigenous Guna women strolling in incredible textiles, lots of local riff-raff yelling at one another, and all of it set against this dented and dated dystopian backdrop that's as crumbling as it is colourful.

BEST LOCAL THING-Y

My cousin Jay warned me that the coffee in South America would be terrible. And it struck me as being both impossible as well as unthinkable given the region produces so much coffee. However, I didn't doubt Jay for a second: not only did he live in Brazil for a long time, he also did a wild car trip around the continent with his mate Spence.

So why is it so bad? Me, I can only confirm that is it (i.e. instant coffee everywhere)...but I can't personally tell you why. However, I can share Jay's hypotheses: the best shit gets exported...which seems as good an explanation as any other.

Now, are there likely some exceptions to this? Sure...but I'm not some coffee aficionado doing a global taste tour...I'm a mad man marathoning, and drinking whatever mainstream brew I come across.

But behold! There is good coffee in Panama City! I got my first taste of it at a non-fussy coffee chain. And then I felt bold AF and went all chips in:

I paid $12 USD for a single cup of Panamanian geisha varietal Abu coffee from the hoity-toity Café Unido in Casco Viejo. Firstly, no that's not a typo: it was $12 USD. Secondly, no I wasn't tricked or scammed. Thirdly, I did it because this lauded coffee often sells for $1,000 USD a pound...and I wanted to taste the hype.

And guess what? It tasted like the exact type of coffee I hate the most: the super fruity kind that tastes like drupes and berries. So wait...why is this the best local thing-y? Well, because I also ordered a $4.25 USD soy latte alongside the geisha from Café Unido, and the latte was delicious...made with the regular, old-school type of espresso I like most (i.e. thick in consistency, Italian in attitude, and cocaine-y in its cardiac jolt).

Also, being the bad bish that I am, I did swing by the stunning American Trade Hotel in Panama City on another marathon to grab a doppio there. It was okay, but the light-filled dining room was better.

And to those in neighbouring El Chorrillo...the ATH has Aesop soap in the bathroom so the damage is done! The hood is officially going to yuppie hell...in a figurative artisanal Etsy handbasket made of sustainable fibres and high profit margins!

POBJOY'S GLOBAL PRICE INDEX

This is an on-going documentation of how much things cost in different places around the world. Here are some of the things I bought in Panama City (all prices converted to USD)

• Three cans of chick peas, three cans of mixed veg, two 1.5 litre bottles of water, two 600 millilitre bottles of Coke Zero, a tub of hummus, a tub of tahini, six carrots, six apples, 454 grams of frozen blackberries, 350 grams of coconut raisin granola, and one 946 millilitre carton of soy milk from a grocery store: 35.10

• One 600 millilitre bottle of Powerade from a convenience store: 82¢

• A medium soy latte, one 1 litre bottle of water, and one vegan oat cranberry cookie from a coffee shop: $9.45

MARATHON MUSINGS

Trade secrets for better trekking

I'm good at endurance sports because I'm bad at boxing. Said another way, boxing taught me everything I needed to know in order to excel at marathoning. It also taught me countless other lessons that have kept me off the canvas mat in life (i.e. work ethic, radical accountability, calmness, etc.).

I've always loved to fight (my caveat is that homoerotic man-on-man violence has to be consensual...that's how masculinity stays organic rather than toxic)...but I first loved boxing as a spectator, and then became a practitioner much later in life...initially teaching myself as much as I could.

But it wasn't until the big dawg bought me some lessons for a mid-30s birthday with superstar coach Jorge Blanco aka The Spaniard that I became a real student. And the hard sparring that followed, it comparatively made marathoning much easier. More on that in a sec.

I won't bore you with the details but coach Blanco patiently taught me so many invaluable techniques.

He's a technique freak, and when I started with him, he drilled me for months and months on movement alone — playfully chirping my honky inability to develop his so-called 'salsa hips' — all before he even let me lace up...be it in shoes or in gloves.

I didn't get it at the time, but Blanco's techniques — from the fancy footwork to the breathing — made me the crucible I am today. And come to think of it, I owe him more thanks than I've ever properly expressed to him. That's the second note to self in this issue of the newsletter. Anyway, because of him — and all the sparring I did around the world — anyone can bring me any heat...because I don't melt.

That's not macho, it's just what boxing taught me: how to be calm in the storm, how to punish more than you're punished, and how to hold on — and ultimately push through — when things get tough or start going very, very badly. And for me, they often did. And to reiterate, I was never a good boxer. Jorge would confirm this as would Jamie-James and Binni, two mates I regularly sparred with.

I won't tell old boxing war stories because that shit is corny...but I will say this: I learnt more when I was being outmanned by better and physically bigger opponents in sparring than I ever did when my outsized-length arms, outsized cardio, and outsized love of fighting were bigger than a similar-sized sparring opponent. Why? Because easy wins produce no lessons, period. It's the hard losses...they produce all lessons, always.

I'm still not that physically literate — I was sedentary and obese for so long — that I came into my body real late in life. So I'd never claim I mastered boxing...that actually takes a lifetime. But I've sorta mastered my take on marathoning, and that's 100% because of boxing.

No matter how hard a marathon ever gets, it is always way easier than that terrible feeling of being pinned against the ropes in the ring...getting blasted with head or body shots or a combination of both...and someone in your corner yelling out, "Do something! Get outta there! 45 seconds left in the round!"

Ooof.

I don't miss that shit, but I'm glad I waded through that shit.

But in that very painful flurry — which I've often found myself in...remembering specific instances sparring in Reykjavik, Mexico City, Istanbul, and Los Angeles — that's where I developed the fury to withstand.

And it's not a sweet science, it's something altogether different.

It is transcendence: a blasted body, a macerated mind...and your soul just having to go to some other plane — to not just hold everything together — but to figure a way out...as you're still getting cracked by punches while you're on the verge of cracking.

And it's more than just being calm in the storm.

It's you having to become lightening in someone else's storm as they're thundering pain unto you from countless angles.

This is all long-winded...and written a few days after I myself had been wishing for some cool, long winds:

But I mention it all because my second marathon on my second day in Panama City was very difficult. I won't tell the war story because that shit is corny. All you need to know is that on some service road strip in the jungle my organs felt awful like offal, and my soul had to go elsewhere to withstand.

And that skill is something boxing expressly taught me, and it is something I've uniquely leveraged to do 630+ marathons since January 2015.

On the next day's marathon in Panama City — my third in three days — I trekked by Roberto Durán's home. The one in El Congrejo, the one he earned from all the training and all the boxing. And the one that he ultimately adorned with a giant 'highlight film reel of him' above the front window 'cause his brain is apparently nuked too.

Anyway, history unkindly remembers Durán as his "No más" soundbite.

But I was a boxer. And know Durán to be way more than a quote: he was a bad motherfucker in and out of the ring (and one of my all-time faves for it).

Him — and every boxer...just to stomp my point — they paved the way for me to pound the pavement like I do. Because fighting just trains you different, and it makes you different.

Anyway, Durán...him and me...we got out of El Chorrillo. At different times and in different ways, and outta other different-yet-sticky situations too. And, yes, all because of boxing.

Haters will hate...but there wasn't any quit in our escapes. No más? Pfft.

Have any questions about the content of this newsletter? Reply to it, and I'll try and answer you when it's safe to do so!