It's my turn to write about what happened. It is helping me to deal with the anger and the loss.
We had such high hopes when we came to Panama. We wanted to live simpler, lower-cost lives. We also hoped to build something here, something that would grow over time and produce good incomes for a number of local Panamanians. We knew that no one had any fully escorted cultural immersion tours of Boquete and Bocas del Toro so we set out to develop those tours with the help of a local. It was my fault however that I chose that local unwisely. Mike never trusted this person. Nor did he think this was the right type of person who would come through for us. Nevertheless, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. I also sought to prove that we were not like many of the other expats who come here to Panama, those that come here and live behind gated walls and have nothing to do with the locals. Our other mistake was that we had a very small circle of people to draw from to build these tours. Thus, we relied on this one local instead of building this dream on our own. In hindsight my advice would be to not begin any venture in Panama, or elsewhere, until you have met a lot of people and you have a wider circle of people to draw from. I trusted this person too much and thought he was someone other than who he really was. It is most unfortunate because so many people got excited about the possibilities of what we were creating. Sadly, it wasn't meant to be.
No matter how much I worked on the tour some aspect of it failed to come together. In fact, over time more and more of the tour was beginning to fall apart and we couldn't get vendors to respond or even want to be part of the tour. I should have known then that we had a problem. But I wasn't listening and I kept plugging along trying to make things work.
What caused the final rift? When a pre-planned excursion to see a potential tour addition did not happen the local we were working with demanded that we pay for the tour. At that moment we knew that we had hit a wall. He said it was his reputation on the line. What reputation? Very few people outside of his own city even know who he is. It did not matter to him that the tour provider had not given us the information in advance that if we canceled he would still demand payment. It did not matter that this tour operator canceled our appointment time because he had a larger group book with him instead so he needed to move us. The only thing that mattered was that we had to pay because we had to save this local's reputation. We knew then, with this small incident, that the local we were working with was not someone who would put the welfare of the company first. He would never put what was best for Panama ahead of his own ego.
In our last two weeks of living here the locals who we were renting from decided that we did not even exist. They tried their best to ignore our existence. There was no more hellos' or good mornings'. They turned their heads in our presence and ignored us. This only further cemented our feelings that we were trying to help the wrong people and that it was time to go.
Do we have any unrealistic expectations about Cuernavaca? I don't think so. We have learned to take our time and to be cautious with who we trust and who earns our trust. And we have learned not to put all our eggs in one basket.
Travel is about learning, and my education continues...I hope you will join us.
I still intend to monitor the Panama forum and when I see blatant misconceptions I will respond.
Panama is a beautiful country and we are glad we gave it a chance. But life is short and there is too much to see and too many other people to meet.