The Panama Canal is fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. We arrived in the morning, when the ships line up on the Pacific side to transverse eastward through the canal. We watched two huge boats move through the Miraflores locks, three sets of contained waterways that gradually increased the level of the boats.

As we were watching a boat enter the canal, I said to Cris, “Why didn’t they just make this a river? They could have just dug out the land, made a river, and called it a day.” An English couple standing next to us scoffed. The lady turned to me, and looking down her nose said, “That would have flooded the entire Central American land mass. It would have been complete and utter destruction. The Atlantic and Pacific are at different levels, you know.” Without thinking, I exclaimed, “How did they know that?” She and her husband exchanged looks. Oh, you simple American. “The engineers did studies before they began the work.”

I turned to Cris. “It’s a good thing I wasn’t in charge of the Canal project. I would have just started digging.” He laughed. “But honey, you would have made sure the workers had a damn good 401(k) plan….”

“Hey, do you think I need to bring my passport?”

Little did I know the answer to that simple question would determine our fate.

A pause, then, “No. I’ve never needed mine. Probably safer to leave it here.”

And with that we were off: Alex, a Panamanian citizen, Cris, an American living in Panama, and me, an American visiting Panama. As Alex navigated the narrow cobblestone streets of Casco Viejo, Cris offered, “I think the fastest way to the Causeway is through Chorillo.” Alex protested. Chorillo wasn’t safe, we should take the longer route through the better neighborhoods, we didn’t want to be in Chorillo after dark, but Cris persisted. We drove towards Chorillo.

After ten hours in transit, I was finally in Panama. I welcomed the hot, humid air that blew across my face, curling my hair into tiny brown ringlets. I was far away from email, from computers, from work, ready to relax with friends and enjoy a week of beaches, sun, and carefree living.

The car stopped, I looked up to see a policeman outside of Cris’ window. He asked for our ids, we all pulled out our wallets and passed laminated cards to him. He examined Alex’s id card, nodded and returned it. He looked at my CA driver’s license, as well as Cris’. He studied them, turned them over, then put them in his pocket. Hm. Not a good sign.

Machine-gun Spanish was exchanged. It’s been a while since I spoke Spanish on a regular basis; I understood about every fifth word. It sounded like Cris and I were being arrested, but I was sure I misunderstood. Those other four words had to be terribly important.

The policeman motioned for us to pull over on the side of the road. We did. We sat. No words were spoken. A few minutes later, the policeman came back. This time I understood. He was asking for mine and Cris’ passports. Cris explained they were at home, but we weren’t far away, so we could go back and get them. No, no, no. The policeman seemed to think he couldn’t let us out of his sight. I listened from the back seat, still happy to feel the warm, humid air coming through the window.

At some point, I realized we were being arrested. I looked at Cris. “Seriously?” He nodded. We got into the police vehicle. It was a relatively comfortable police van. I leaned back, happy to be on vacation. I figured we would be taken to the police station, fined, and released. Alex, meanwhile, had hurried back to the apartment to try to find mine and Cris’ passports. Cris asked the police man which station we were going to. “Chorillo,” he replied. The look on Cris’ face indicated that wasn’t a good answer.

As we drove the buildings became shabbier, the streets populated with more stray dogs and loose women. “Hmm,” I thought to myself.

We entered the police station. I was the only hint of estrogen to be found within miles. To our right was the sole cell, populated by about thirty young men. Around our feet scurried mutli-legged creatures, cockroaches, ants, unknown insects. A single light bulb burned overhead, hanging from a tentative rope. We walked up to the captain’s desk, me in my sandals and strappy sundress, Cris in his pink polo and plaid shorts. The men in the cell pushed up against the bars to get a closer look at us. I whispered to Cris, “I don’t know if they’re jonsing for you or for me, but I sure don’t want to find out…”

The captain asked us several questions, and wrote down our names, addresses, citizenship, and passport numbers. Well, Cris’ passport number. When he asked for mine, I responded, “No se.” He looked at me, surprised. “What do you mean, you don’t know?” “I don’t know my passport number.” Well, that raised his suspicions. Why was I in the country? When had I arrived? What did I plan to do there? Where was I staying? When I didn’t know the answers to half of his questions, he was convinced I was in Panama for illicit reasons. I truthfully didn’t care why he thought I was in Panama, as long as he didn’t put me in the cell with the thirty male specimens who continued to eye Cris and I hungrily.

I whispered to Cris, “Where is Alex with our passports?” As Cris pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, he moaned. “Arrrrrhhh. I accidentally turned my phone off.” When he turned it on, it beeped furiously at him. “Seventeen new messages…” Alex had frantically been calling us; he couldn’t find Cris’ passport. While Cris called Alex, I smiled and talked to the captain.

After what seemed like an eternity, but probably in reality wasn’t more than 45 minutes, the captain decided he was done with us. He instructed the lesser ranked police men to take us away. I looked at Cris, “Where are we going?” He motioned for me to be quiet.

Thoughts running through my head:
My apartment is a mess. I would be embarrassed for my next of kin to enter and try to find any of my important documents.
Actually, no one knows where I am. I forgot to send my contact information to anyone. It will be at least a week before anyone even thinks that anything might be awry. Or maybe longer. My parents don’t call that often.
Oh. My desk at work is a mess as well. I hope no one goes through my inbox.
I forgot to send my Grandmother her birthday card.
I forgot to rsvp to my cousin’s wedding.
This really isn’t a convenient time for me to die.

We were taken back to the police van. “They’re taking us to the tourist police station,” whispered Cris. This sounded promising. The buildings slowly became better taken care of, the streets lighter. Presidential palace guards stood at attention. We instructed the police to drive to the front of Cris’ apartment building where Alex was waiting with our passports. The policeman took them from him without words and drove Cris and I a few blocks to the tourist police station. The walls were freshly painted, a photograph of the employee of the month hung on the wall. The captain there smiled and spoke with us jovially, as if we were meeting for cocktails after work. He examined our passports, meticulously copied each piece of information, then returned our passports and licenses to us. We stood there like sentries. “That’s all. Have a good night.”

We walked into the warm air. Alex was waiting for us. Stunned, we each looked at each other. That’s all? No fine? No ticket? Just two hours of driving us from place to place? We tucked our passports safely into our pockets and headed to the Causeway for dinner, through Chorillo.

Scene: The Civic Center Farmer’s Market, Sunday morning

As I’m selecting snap peas, I hear one twenty-something baggy jeans, sideways hat, oversized tee wearing Latino vegetable vendor say to another:
“This place jus‘ ain’t RIGHT. It ain’t RIGHT, I say. Where else in America can you buy your fresh vegetables and crack at the same time. Know wha‘ I saying, man?”

Oprah airs at 4 pm local time in each of the four times zones in the US. At 1 pm Pacific, 4 pm Eastern, I called my parents in North Carolina. “Are you watching it? What’s happening?” They were indeed watching, and put the phone up close to the tv, so that I could hear, if not see, our CEO, John, describe how he left a high profile job at Microsoft to found Room to Read. He was the second of three guests detailing how one person can make a difference in the world.

As soon as his segment finished, I thanked my parents, hung up the phone, and walked over to our IT Manager’s desk. “John just finished his segment on Oprah on the East coast. How are our servers holding up?”

He tried to access our web page. It timed out and we received an error message. We both looked at each other quizzically. He ran a report. Our eight dedicated servers had crashed. Within two minutes of John’s segment’s completion. Holy O.

I love Oprah. I’ve never seen the television show, but I’ve read her magazine faithfully since its inception. It’s brilliant. It has everything — book reviews, health articles, money management tips relationship advice, fashion, interviews with interesting people — what more could you ask for, for only $3.95 a month ($2.17 if you’re a subscriber)?

Tomorrow I’ll watch the show for the first time. The founder of the organization where I work, Room to Read, is being interviewed on Oprah. The office has been abuzz with excitement the past few weeks. Her producers have warned us our website will crash. Every organization who has ever been linked to her website has. Being the person who oversees IT, I responded somewhat frantically. “Okay, we’ll go from a shared server to a dedicated server. No, to two dedicated servers. No, make that…. EIGHT dedicated servers.” I’m not sure why eight seemed like the appropriate number, but that’s what we now have. I figure we’re now in a win-win situation. If our website doesn’t crash, well, that’s a good thing. We can be the first organization that weathered the media storm of Oprah. And if it does, well, that’s a good thing, too. That will have meant website traffic increased by about 40-fold. Bring it, Oprah, bring it.

Emily asked me to do the two-person team, 24-hour, scavenger hunt bike race while I was still in Africa. It sounded intriguing; I agreed. Neither of us could have anticipated how much fun it would be.

We began the race at 3 pm on Saturday at South Park. The organizer, Mike, passed out manifests, a book of 138 items to either photograph, obtain a rubbing, collect an item, or write down answers for. Some clues were easy, others obtuse. We started downtown, snapping photos by the water, making rubbings of historical dates and sculptors, collecting business cards from businesses on certain streets, gradually moving to Fisherman’s Wharf where we played skeeball (somewhat successfully), DDR (not at all successfully), and searching for the Bushman (his day was done).

We continued searching for clues and taking photos till about 1 am, when we biked over to Emily’s house to start on the items we had classified as “home.” Find an expired passport, collect a tooth, make a stuffed animal, build a three-story house of cards. We worked until we realized the sun was rising. We looked at each other and started laughing. “Let’s get one hour of sleep then we’ll start again.”

Which we did. There was no way we could have completed all 138 items, but we didn’t realize that. Until the very last moment we were attempting to complete tasks. We didn’t do bad. We collected over 777 points. Much more than most of the teams and a little less than a few. We’re already strategizing about the next race. Bring a laptop, mapquest the route, and pivot table the hell out of the clues. We’re so coming in first next time.

“Hi guys, sorry to make you move, I’m in the window seat,” I said to the two young twenty somethings sitting in 42B and C. They eagerly got up and allowed me in. I settled into my seat, iPod at the ready, watching the stream of passengers behind me file past to find their seats. As soon as I started the music, 42B started talking to me. I pushed pause, took one ear plug out and listened.

“I was here for both – business and holiday,” I explained, “I was in Pretoria and Lusaka, Zambia, for work, then took 5 days to visit Kruger.” His eyes lit up. “We’re from Phalaborwa, right outside of the Kruger gate. How’d you find it?” “Just lovely. I was right outside Orphen gate, on a private game reserve, but went into Kruger for three days.”

We talked of the park, the state of affairs in South Africa, their plans to do a work/holiday in Scotland for 6 months, their jobs in South Africa, and other mundane small talk. 42C tapped the tv monitor in the seatback in front of him. “What’s this for?” I looked at him, somewhat surprised. “Well, once the flight is in progress, there will be in flight entertainment. There are about 50 movies to choose from, tv shows, music, and video games.” 42B piped in, “Are the movies any good? Or all they all old?” “No, they’re recent releases.” 42C added, “But how do we get the sound?” I looked at them with utter surprise. “Have you ever flown before?” They both beamed, “No, this is our first flight.” I explained that the flight attendants would pass out headphones and showed them where to plug them in. They asked a myriad of questions: Could they play their PS2 in the air? Would they be allowed to walk around? What else was on the plan? What kind of food would be served? Was it really true we would be served unlimited alcohol? Could they keep the pillow and blanket? What about the headphones? It was quite endearing.

They marveled the whole flight at things I’ve grown to take for granted: the receding landscape as we climbed higher in the sky, the fact that we were flying above the clouds, the machinations of the wing as we ascended then descended. They complained about the things I’ve grown to take for granted: the lack of leg room (42B insisted he would *never* fly economy again), the quality of the food (“can you believe how watery the eggs were?”), how thirsty one gets while flying (they couldn’t get over my foresight as I shared my bottled water with them), how uncomfortable it is to try to sleep on an overnight flight. Their names were Baul and Jacou. They apologized for their stilted English, explaining Afrikaans was their home language, astonished I didn’t pick up Afrikaans during my trip (“It’s such an easy language…”)

The 11 hour trip passed remarkably quickly. I remembered setting out on my own adventures at 22, first to California, then unexpectedly to Kuwait and Egypt, not knowing what to expect, but knowing I’d find adventure. I laughed almost constantly, each of their questions reminding me of my own bright eyed, bushy tailed 22-year old self.

Once at Heathrow, they followed me to connecting flights, again asking me questions and commenting continuously as we walked through Heathrow. As we prepared to go through security, I mentioned to Baul he needed to take off his jewelry and belt. “My belt? How’s I supposed to keep me pants from falling down then?” I laughed. “It’s only for a few steps.” “Yeah, but there’s thousands of people here. It’d be quite embarr’sin.”

We all needed boarding passes once we made it though security. As we were all flying British Airways to our respective destinations, I motioned for them to follow me to the BA queue. I explained they needed a new boarding pass that would identify their seat assignments on their next flight. We waited in the line until the next available agent signaled she was available. I walked towards her; at the counter I realized the two of them were right on my heels. I laughed once again and explained they needed to wait for the next agent since we weren’t on the same flight. They returned to the queue, waiting eagerly for the next available agent.

Boarding passes in hands, I explained it was time for us to part ways. They were heading to UK departures, I was to go downstairs for international. Jakou enthusiastically and with genuine sincerity said, “Maybe we’ll be on the same flight back from Scotland. We can tell you all about our time there.” I laughed. “That would be quite a coincidence. Good luck and have a great time. It was such a pleasure meeting the both of you.”

After a sunrise bush drive and walk, it was time to say good-bye to Kruger and head back to Jo’burg. An unexpected sadness washed over me. I wasn’t ready to leave this beautiful place. I wanted to stay longer and explore other areas. I wanted to learn more about the animals, about the vegetation that made this such a special place. I wasn’t ready to return to civilization.

King Charles picked me up after breakfast to take me to Maholoholo, the injured animal conservation site. Derrick, our guide, showed us injured birds and animals, explained how they were injured, what their chances for rehabilitation and being released into the wild were, and how each animal plays a part in a delicate ecosystem that works perfectly when all players are in place.

As an English woman and I cooed over a cute tiny bunny hopping freely around, he laughed and said, “Don’t get too attached to her,” then glanced at the vultures’ cage next to which we were standing. Oh.

We entered the vultures’ cage; they eyed us suspiciously. Derrick explained, first in English, then in Afrikaans, about the different species of vultures. He then asked who would like to feed them. I do, I do! He placed the gauntlet on my arm and instructed me to hold tight to a piece of raw meat. As a watched a slew of massive vultures fight to light upon my arm, he mentioned I shouldn’t look directly at the vultures; they might mistake my dark eyes for food. Holy crap.

We continued on to the lion and leopard areas – what beautiful, massive animals. There were a few Italian tourists in our group who didn’t understand English, especially the verbal and written instructions not to pet the animals. I watched with anticipated horror as one of the women started to reach out through the fence to pet the lion. Holy crap. Did she not realize these were injured wild, WILD, animals? They may look cute, but they eat her body weight equivalent of raw meat each day. That’s just crazy. Fortunately a translator arrived to explain to “KEEP YOUR HANDS AWAY FROM THE ANIMALS!”

As we were leaving, a baby rhino came charging across the yard, playfully bumping into objects in its path. Over went a solid picnic table, over went a chair, a tree budged. He came closer to our group, nothing separating us. Derrick explained that baby rhinos need constant attention and he was lonely. He instructed us to pet him, just not on the face. The Italians went straight for the horn. I got my camera ready, figuring the tabloids would pay good money for the pictures to accompany their headlines, “TASTES GREAT, LESS FILLING – ITALIAN TOURISTS MAULED AT MOHOLOHOLO.”

Remember how I wondered why anyone would choose to experience Kruger in the enclosure of an air-conditioned, dark tinted window bus? I discovered the answer today. Minutes into our drive, dark rainclouds appeared overhead, opening up suddenly and dumping torrents of water wherever we seemed to drive. Much like an umbrella is useless in a raging storm, the limited plastic “windows” that were rolled down to protect us from the elements were useless as rain whipped in between the seams. Even sopping wet, the day was delightful. We saw multitudes of vultures; our driver, Elvis, dramatically stopped the vehicle, slowly explaining that where there were vultures, there were dead animals, and where there were dead animals there were lions.

LIONS!

After six or so repetitions of this mantra, I thought to myself, “yeah, right,” when Peter, the Irishman sitting next to me, pointed and quietly said, “There he is.” And there, not 10 feet from us, was a lion, sitting serenely in the grass. I couldn’t believe it. Elvis drove closer, the lion walked a few steps away and settled next to his lioness. I was ecstatic to see a lion – such a majestic animal! The huge mane, the velvety fur, the sleepy eyes, yet also respectfully fear inspiring.

As I snapped pictures, one after the other, I thought, “Hm. What are you supposed to do if a lion attacks? He’s pretty close. I really can’t run. How can I appear as un-meatlike as possible?” It wasn’t necessary, as he contentedly just stared at us and we stared back for quite a long time.