My passport has about 10 or 12 pages with visas and entrance/exit stamps. But it was in pristine shape! One wouldn't have guessed it was used so much. It was!
Today, it is fading, worn, bent, and looks like it's 100 years old!
Why? Because, when in Panama, I've been told, you ought to always carry your ID with you. As a foreigner on a tourist visa it is particularly important to have your passport with you.
It is not rare, that while driving somewhere - anywhere - in Panama you turn around a curve and encounter a surprise police check-point. The first few times I was a bit worried: what do they want? How's that going to be? Especially with my very rudimentary Spanish! But, by now, I don't even think about it anymore! It happens so often. And they always just check my passport - if I am overstaying my tourist visa. Sometimes they also want to see the car papers; but that is rather rare. And much of the time they just wave me through after a glance at the passport from the distance...
Keeping the passport always in the thigh-pocket of my pants, even though it is the least strenuous pocket on my clothes, every day all day really is putting a toll on it...
But, aside of the police check-points, there is a second type of activity that requires the passport: If you want to buy a screw at the hardware store, or anything else where they are required to write you an invoice, you have to provide an ID.
That is really strange to me! I have't encountered that anywhere else in the world. Of course, I haven't been to communistic, dictator, or otherwise autocratically ruled countries. But Panama is a democratic country. And Panama is a very peaceful place - as far s I can tell! They don't even have a military - similar to Costa Rica!
Imagine, you have to proof your identity at Lowe's, Canadian Tire, or Hornbach, or similar. Even, when buying a vacuum or cleaning supplies, shoes or clothes, or any other item that is not edible or gasoline!
Secondly, the processes in some stores are a bit confusing, too.
Today at HOPSA for example, I found my bolts and nuts and washers and went to the cash register - passport in hand, of course. But, she sent me back to a rep.
He had to first enter all my items into the computer and create a "factura" - of course verifying my identity by passport control and entering the passport number. When finished entering he told me the amount I will have to pay and handed my items... not to me, but to another guy in the back! He said something to him while pointing at me, and then instructed me to go to the cash register and pay for my items.
The girl at the register asked me for the factura number - which of course I had no clue what it was! - but was able to find the one I was supposed to pay by entering my passport number into her terminal. After paying, I received 1/2 m of paper stripe with all kinds of stuff printed on it. Some of it where my items - the names so abbreviated that it was impossible for me to tell whether the listed ones where what I really had.
With that paper, plus a second strip, she sent me to the back to the guy who had my items. He, together with a colleague went over the list on my strip of paper identifying every one of the items and checking them off. Finally, I was handed all of my items and my 1/2 m of paper and I was directed that I may leave now... I think, if I had to find a way to make it even more complicated, it might take me a while!
HOPSA is not alone, though. Franklin Jurado - another hardware store - is just as complicated, albeit different...
Well, next time at HOPSA I'll be prepared and move through the positions of the maze like a pro!
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