In high-rising heat, Bernal Jr. grabs a coconut and, with a few swift whacks on a stake in the sand, removes its husk.
Bernal laughs and tosses it onto a pile of others, to wait.
Three lobstermen, lean and lanky, beaten by sun and sea, idle on a shade-stroked platform.
It begins like this, things so strongly defined by tropical terrain. But even a brief encounter on this trip across Panama, long a place cut through quickly, finds foreigners and their money coming to stay in the Central American nation.
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