We're on our way to Buenos Aires, Argentina for a week with Gord and Leslie who are renting a two bedroom apartment there and have invited us along to visit them. This is our first trip out of the country since returning from Austin, Texas in 2020 at the beginning of the
COVID pandemic. We have been careful and, while fully vaccinated, we are cautious and a bit fearful about travel.
We're flying business class on COPA airlines, which happens to be a Star Alliance partner, with a stop in Panama City to change planes. That's Panama City in the photo at left — it's a tall modern skyscraper city with some very interesting buildings. We've flown this way before on our trip to Rio de Janeiro and Manaus back in December of 2012. As the connection time to change planes is very short we've decided to break our trip with a two night stay in Panama City at the Gran Evenia Panama, a new hotel near the convention center. We have booked a "Romantic Getaway" at the hotel which promises champagne on arrival, a gourmet dinner and a breakfast at the restaurant. Kate is excited — there's a roof top swimming pool.
Monday, November 7. We are staying overnight at a Toronto Airport hotel as our flight leaves early the next morning. We had booked at the Hampton Inn & Suites where we've stayed before — it's convenient and reasonable. However, we've been moved to the DoubleTree down the street as there's something going on at the Hampton. Both are Hilton hotels and the DoubleTree should be a step up. I have confirmed by email and telephone that they are expecting us at the DoubleTree in spite of continuing to receive welcome and confirmation messages from the Hampton. It's confusing but works.
At the DoubleTree there's a bit of a struggle at check in. They expect us but don't know about the end stay — when we return on the 19th it will be late at night and we'll be staying with them again. We've arranged to leave our car at the hotel and the "package", which includes "free" parking, is only for 8 days but we're staying a few days longer. It ends up that we pay another $100 for parking.
There is an attached restaurant, "Turtle Jack's", but we are not keen about going to a restaurant and decide to order room service instead for our dinner. We have brought some wine from home and, while the room is quite nice, there are no glasses. Reg goes to the restaurant and borrows a couple of wine glasses — they are accommodating. The room service meal is ok, nothing stellar.
Tuesday, November 8. Kate has had a sleepless night. She's awake for hours waiting for our alarm at 3:45am, for the shuttle we have arranged at 4:25am, to get checked in with COPA and meet our scheduled security check in at 5:15am. Reg has been fiddling with his Android phone features and has set his alarm to play "Are You Still Taking Them Pills" by Brennen Leigh. It's a gentle way to awaken and Kate has a good laugh.
We are too early for the hotel's "free" breakfast but we're given a little bag of fruits, juice, etc. as we check out — Kate declines. The shuttle driver, who is prompt, on time and efficient, says our big bag (our single check-in luggage) is too heavy. Actually it's not, we checked at home. The bag is 28.5lbs and COPA allows 30lbs for business class, which we are flying. We're allowed two bags each but only need one checked bag.
We are up at this ungodly hour because we have a scheduled time slot to go through security. This is a new service called YYZ Express and the idea is to speed people through the security checks. When we reserved our time slot they gave us a choice of 5:00am or 5:15am (for a flight scheduled to leave at 8:05am). There have been huge delays at the airport and that explains why they want us there so early.
The shuttle driver lets us off at the COPA check in sign at the departure level of Toronto Terminal 1. It's pretty much at the middle of things (perhaps a bit to the one end). At the designated COPA check in area, we have printed our boarding passes the day before, there's no one around, no one in any queue, and no one at the counters. A COPA stewardess approaches us to tell us they moved our check in counter to another place which happens to be at the other end of the airport.
We have ordered a wheelchair for Kate as there are some very long walks at the airport and she has knee and ankle problems that make walking hard. I've had a knee replacement in May and, while much better, still struggle a bit as well. We don't get the wheelchair until we check in. It is a long walk and Kate is struggling. We pass a wheelchair on our way to the check-in but she declines my offer. At the check in we are first in the business class line and all done by 5:00am. We're then told to wait "over there" for a wheelchair but learn they aren't staffed until 6:00, so we have a long wait ahead of us. We tell them about our YYZ Express appointment at 5:15 and are told not to worry as wheelchair clients are taken around the security lines.
A COPA stewardess, from our flight, does coordinate several wheelchairs for several passengers. She has a young "gofer" fellow helping her but it seems he really doesn't know much. She pushes Kate back the length of Terminal 1 to the original spot where COPA ought to have done their check in. It's right by the International gates (the security queue at the US gates in between was huge). Reg struggles a bit to keep up with the stewardess who is pushing Kate's chair at quite a brisk pace. It's a long walk, just to get to the security check in, and Kate would have been in real trouble if we hadn't got the chair. This is the first of many struggles and delays with wheelchair support on this trip.
We're quickly through the airport security but Kate, as always, sets off the alarms for all her surgical metal (an ankle, one hip and one knee have lots of metal). Oddly Reg, who has a partial knee replacement does not set off the alarms. It's a short walk to a wheelchair waiting area where shuttles are supposed to come and pick us up. The COPA stewardess, who has wheeled us this far, calls for a shuttle to take us to the boarding area which, as it turns out, is a very long way from this waiting area. It's now about 5:30am and, no shuttle in sight, we guess that maybe they too only start at 6:00am.
But hey, we're business class! Shouldn't we be waiting in a privilege lounge, dining on hors d'oeuvres, drinking champagne and resting with our feet up? It's COPA business class not Air Canada, but it is a Star Alliance partner so perhaps we can. The nearby map of the "E" pod shows a lounge nearby but it turns out we're a very long way from the "E" pod.
We wait quite a while but never see any shuttles in action. Our COPA stewardess returns with more passengers needing wheelchair assistance and with some surprise she remarks, "You're still here!" She calls again for the shuttle and one arrives in a bit. These are glorified golf cars that are quite a bit longer to seat maybe 6 or 8 passengers. They're electric and have a bicycle bell to warn walkers that we're coming through.
It's a very long drive to the E-pod and we are both glad to have the shuttle ride. Kate couldn't have made it, neither could I with my bum knee. We arrive at the "E" pod just before 6:00 and are dropped off by the lounge — which hasn't opened yet. There's quite a queue waiting for it to open which grows longer as we wait nearby on the designated "wheelchair" benches.
It's now well after 6:00, the queue to get into the lounge has grown even more and it is still not open. We give up on the champagne and hors d'oeuvres idea (a nice fantasy that sometimes holds true) and decide that all we really want is a coffee. We head on a little further down into the "E" pod where we'll find our gate. Our kindly stewardess has told us there's a Tim Horton's coffee shop right by our gate.
An aside. Toronto has a lot of Tim Horton's coffee shops, there seems to be one at almost every corner. I've read recently that Toronto has more cannabis shops than Tim Horton's. I assume that's true, and, if so, then the Toronto Airport is one of the few places that has more Tim Horton's and no Cannabis shops!
We wander through the Duty Free shop but don't buy anything. Usually we'd stock up for a trip with a bottle of "Double Vodka" (the higher proof stuff) and perhaps some Scotch. But why would we on this trip? We have the "Romance Package" at our Panama City hotel and liquor is probably much cheaper there and in Argentina than at the Toronto Airport Duty Free. No doubt there's a Duty Free in the Panama City Airport as well.
We grab a coffee while we await boarding and Kate does some work on her laptop. We are to board at 7:25 for our 7:55 flight and we are parked outside our gate area where there are a ton of Latinos who, like us, are heading to Panama City. We note a hugely obese fellow in shorts with very skinny legs and remark to one another that he better have booked business class else he will not fit in the economy class seats.
When we do board, as business class we get on first. We are greeted by the same COPA stewardess who had helped us earlier. She recognizes Kate by her large floppy straw hat and cane. She offers to get Kate wheelchair assistance for boarding but we decline — we can easily handle the gang way/jet bridge. It's not that far to walk and we're not that crippled.
On the jet bridge, just as we're getting onto the plane, there's a young couple who are traveling with their small dog. The dog is in a small vented bag but there's been a poo/pee incident; they take him out of his bag and they open the door to the outside from the jet bridge to tidy up the mess and deal with the dog. COPA and airport staff are very excitedly saying, "Oh, no! You can't do that!". Imagine if the little pup escaped out the door and onto the run way!
COPA airlines uses Boeing 737 planes. On this leg it's a 737-800; on another leg I recall it was a 737-Max (I didn't mention to Kate but I recall the Boeing 737-Max was the one that was grounded for a very long time after a couple of spectacular crashes in 2018/19 where a ton of people died). These are narrow planes with a central aisle. In business class, there's only 4 rows with two nice seats on each side. In economy there's 21 rows with 3 seats on each side. For all of our flights we've selected the front row.
We are in the front row to the port/left side and across from us on the other side of the aisle is that huge fellow we mentioned earlier. He is flying business class! He declines the breakfast service and Kate has a theory. She says there's absolutely no way that he would be able to pull out the serving table from the arm rest and swing it over his tummy — it sticks out past the front of the seat. The poor guy, life must be incredibly difficult for him.
But we have another chubby story (not that either of us are model bodies). After everyone is on board, they bring on a woman in a narrow special purpose wheelchair designed to go do down the aisle of the air plane. However, they can't squeeze her past the first row of seats where we are sitting. Not because of the big guy (he's well inside the fixed arm rest of his seat, as are we) but because she's pretty big herself and her hips bulge outside of the chair. So much so that the chair is effectively stuck. The stewards, who are dealing with this, are all laughing and talking in Spanish, she's laughing too. The steward in front of her says something along the lines of "Can I" or "May I" and motions with his hands that he needs to squish her hips in so they can get down the aisle. The other steward is shocked and the first says, "Well, otherwise she'll have to sit here for the flight". So the lady agrees to his helpful suggestion and he reaches down and pushes her thighs and hips in so they can get by, perpetuating this as they go along past the business class seats and on into economy. He's laughing hilariously, so is she, and so are we.
I've described the seating already. We've downloaded a bunch of movies, music and podcasts to our Android tablets (we have a pair of matching Samsung tablets recently purchased). Kate starts a series but is not too far into it. Reg plays Sudoku relentlessly and even gets the "best time ever" on one game. Then he's listening to the John Prine tribute show (we had taped it) and crying softly to these tunes. Over the course of our trip we did watch several movies downloaded from Netflix. Turns out there is an onboard entertainment system but the tablets work very well for us. Kate watched some of the onboard entertainment.
The flight is from 8:00am until a 1:30pm arrival and along the way there's a breakfast service on real china with proper cutlery. It's nothing to be excited about, the food is just so-so but there is real china and they trust us with proper forks and knives. Reg has an omelette on hash browns; Kate, who is flying as a vegetarian (she's actually a pescetarian) had baked beans, mushrooms, fried tomatoes and potatoes — a sort of "English Breakfast". There is a steward who is devoted to business class but, apart from the breakfast service, we don't see much of him.
After a while we're thinking about the hors d'oeuvres and champagne we had expected in business class and ask about the bar service. Kate had some wine, while Reg had a beer (I should mention that we have been cut off from the bar service on one transatlantic flight because we had exceeded the drink limit, but we were younger then). They certainly did not come around and push the bar service. In fact we think we were the only people in our cabin who ordered a drink!
The flight was otherwise uneventful. There's not much to see although I did briefly get a glimpse of some small island and reef in the Caribbean Sea. We arrive in Panama City in the early afternoon in time to get a glimpse of the many ships, dozens if not hundreds, in queue/waiting/leaving the Panama Canal.
We arrive at Terminal 1 (the old terminal which is attached by a very long walk to Terminal 2, the new terminal) and are waiting for wheelchair assistance for Kate. There's several chairs waiting at this "pod" off Terminal 1 but they prioritize those making connections and we wait a long time for someone to help us. As we're getting off here for a couple of nights in Panama City there's no urgency to tending to us. After a bit we tire of waiting and Reg starts out wheeling Kate only to discover that the chair he's pushing has a fanny pack and cell phone that must belong to the staff who will return to take care of us. So we head back to where we have started and meet up with the support staff.
There are lots of wheelchairs, but only a few staff. E.g., one agent ends up pushing two chairs, so Reg takes Kate and her chair and off they go. How hard can this be? It turns out to be quite hard, a long confusing struggle and we ultimately make our way to the Customs and Immigration guys at Terminal 1 (recall we arrived in Terminal 1) only to be told by the kind and helpful agent that we need to be at the Customs and Immigration at Terminal 2 where they will have our luggage. This trek between terminals happens to us several times on this trip.
This turns out to be another very long walk to the new and fancy Terminal 2 where they have our luggage and where we're expected to exit. When we arrive at Customs and Immigration, it's not busy at all. Our luggage is the last lonely piece on the baggage carousel and everyone else, all the able bodied, are long gone. After picking up our lone (heavy but under 30lb) bag we're told we have to fill out a form outlining "who are you", "where are you staying", "how long will you be here", etc. Why wasn't this given to us on the airplane before we arrived? We dutifully fill out the form which is perfunctorily ignored as we exit having our bags scanned one final time. Why do they do that? Are they worried that we might be smuggling "Double Vodka" into Panama? Every country scans your luggage before you get on the plane, only some want to scan your luggage before you enter the country. Why is that?
We get a taxi for $40 (the coin of the realm seems to be the US dollar) to our hotel. We don't have the address at hand (reminder: always have the address at hand when you enter a country) but the driver knows the hotel and we're whisked off to arrive about 20 minutes later. The airport is to the east of the city, the shoreline there appears to be marsh and mangrove swamps.
Panama City is a tall very modern looking city with high rise towers dominating the skyline. Our hotel is a modern 5-star hotel, part of a Spanish chain. They're ready for us, we have an 8th floor room (it's a 10 floor hotel), and we arrive to a rose petal strewn bed — that's part of the "Romantic Getaway" — and soon are delivered a bottle of Spanish Cava and some fresh fruit. We decide against the "Romantic Dinner" on our first night (we can do that tomorrow once we have it figured out) and have room service instead. Our dinner is 2 different fish dinners with an excellent Tempranillo, Merlot, and Shiraz blend. The white we might have ordered was a Verdejo which might have worked better. As in Argentina, we drink red wine with our fish dinners.
We're looking at things we might do in Panama City and are investigating the canal and wildlife tours but none of it makes much sense. We've seen the canal before (although it's been expanded/doubled since our last visit) and the wild life tour doesn't make much sense. With COVID everything is up in the air. There's only a few guests at the hotel and tourism, a major industry beyond the canal and banking, has been hit hard. In the end we just hunkered around the hotel.
We go for a swim at the pool, bar and gym on the roof. It's a nice lap pool which is surprisingly cool but there's nobody at the bar and we're the only folks in the pool. It's a lovely modern hotel but are we the only guests? We spend a bit of time writing these notes by the pool deck. The weather is hot and muggy.
It's election night in the USA with polls closing at various times across the country. We watch hoping that the "Red Wave" does not materialize. It doesn't, but why isn't the "Red Wave" of liars, miscreants and MAGA goons washed out to sea?
Wednesday, November 9. On the second day we briefly left the hotel and found a nearby variety store that also sold some wine. We stocked up a bit for some time spent by the pool. We did not wander the city at all.
On the main floor of the hotel there's a bar and a fine gourmet restaurant — El Jardín de Gaudí Restaurant. Part of the restaurant is air conditioned and inside with a glass wall separating it from the patio area where we had a nice lunch. Both are dressed out in a green verdant garden theme although much of the greenery is plastic. The patio had a broken tile floor — that's an homage to Gaudi's work in Barcelona. We visited Barcelona back in 2000 especially to see his work.
We have our "Romantic Dinner" on the second (and last) night. It's à la carte which we found confusing. We were expecting some limitations but basically you could have anything you wanted from the menu. The menu is limited but there are some very good choices. Reg had a nice steak and Kate had more prawns (we ate here for lunch as well). We didn't find that lovely Tempranillo blend we had the first night. Like at lunch, the meal starts with some bruschetta and bubbly in a champagne flute. It really is a gourmet restaurant.
Thursday, November 10. Reg has his breakfast buffet at the restaurant on our last day. Kate is not much for breakfast but does grab a coffee.
We had arranged with the front desk for a taxi to take us to the airport on the last morning and met a very nice driver, Miguel, with excellent English — he used the expression "cut the umbilical cord" which Kate caught. She asked where he was from, how he has such good English, and it turns out he had lived for eight years in New York City. He was able to tell us a lot about the country, it's history and customs. He also does guided tours (when we were last in Panama City we had hired a taxi to drive us around). Had we known about Miguel we might have ventured out of our hotel with him as our guide on the full day we were here. He was keen that we give him a recommendation and spread the word. So, we sent a note to the hotel afterwards:
"Hi, my wife and I had the pleasure of staying at the Gran Evenia Panama Nov 8-10 and the front desk had arranged a taxi with Miguel Angel Spino (+507 6531 0821) to take us to the airport on our last day..
I just wanted to say thank you for our time at the GEP and to recommend Miguel Taxi in future. He speaks very good English, is friendly, knowledgeable, drives safely and has a well maintained taxi. It was a pleasure to ride with him.
I would not hesitate to recommend Miguel for taxi services. I also understand that he can take passengers on day tours of the area. You should keep him in mind should guests at the GEP need a taxi service. He's very good."
We spent some time in the first class lounge at the airport (Terminal 2) and had arranged to have a wheelchair come for Kate. Again it was one of those long walks from one terminal to the other with a very fit agent walking quickly and Reg struggling to keep up.
Our flight from Panama City to Buenos Aires was uneventful. We had Netflix movies to watch (Reg watched "All Quiet on the Western Front"). We arrived in the early evening and descended a rickety flimsy outdoor boarding ramp — I was worried that it might collapse and carrying our on board luggage was a struggle.
We found a wheelchair and an agent pushed Kate through to Customs and Immigration where we had another bit of struggle. He didn't speak much English, we didn't speak much Spanish and it turns out he wanted to know where we were staying (cf. our arrival in Panama) and we didn't have the address at hand. Kate found it on her phone and we were out the door in short order where we met Gord and Leslie. They had come out to meet us on an Uber and we went back to the city on a taxi.
The Buenos Aires airport is a long way out of the city. Most airports are in built up areas, this one is out in the country with not much visible around it.
Gord and Leslie have rented an AirBnB flat on the second floor of a shop on Moreno in the Balvanera area which happens to be near the Congress (i.e., the legislative buildings). It's a huge flat with floor to ceiling glass doors overlooking the street; the living/dining room would be bigger than must suites. There's another living/TV room, two bedrooms (we're given the room with the ensuite), a kitchen and a large roof top area. There's even a locked area which we assume would have been the servant's quarters. It's probably from around the turn of the last century. The ceilings are well over 15' high and there would have been an inner courtyard at one time.
So far, all good.
