Why Panama is becoming Central America’s hottest getaway

His name is Fernando, and he is the most interesting man in the world.

Well, maybe just in Panama, but still, the mere mention of his first name — which isn’t exactly uncommon in this part of the globe — and everyone instantly knows who you’re talking about. He’s kind of a big deal.

You wouldn’t know it by his humble lunching habits: This particular afternoon, fully business card-christened Fernando Cardoze GdeP is sitting at a picnic table by himself, so not to bother us or anyone else (not that he would’ve).

He’s straight going to town on some pineapple slices jam-packed in a Tupperware bowl, manically plastic fork-skewering them like a son of a gun.

We’ve just day-tripped to the Playa Cacique at the footsteps of the Mar y Oro hotel, one of only few lodging ops on the remote, sparsely populated (mostly those who have, have dough) Isla Contadora, the star of the Archipiélago de las Perlas, some 30 miles and change off the Pacific gulf coast of the Central American nation.

Oh, and by the way, he flew our group of four here on his R66 Turbine Marine helicopter.

The spry, cap-loving fiftysomething — who’s flown the likes of Melinda Gates and other VIPs to megayachts and other ridiculous places rich people have helipads — is the chief pilot and owner of Panama Air Adventures. He’s been privately piloting his big beautiful birds since 1996.

With a resting “at ease” posture the most manly military men manage to peacock at an “a-ten-hut,” Fernando is never without a smile, a joke, a hot Libertarian take about something or other and has nothing but praise for America and its denizens. “You guys love and respect freedom,” he fondly reminds us. He also talks about the Pentagon always having Panama’s back; us Yanks did skipper the Canal Zone from 1903 until 1979, picking up where the French flopped (womp, womp) and then handing the waterway into sole custody of the country in 1999.

Fernando’s also an avid animal lover, always careful to steer clear of fellow fliers like ducks that his chopper’s blades would otherwise giddily prepare into a terrine of mousse foie gras.

He’s been entertaining us the entire day, taking us over and around Panama City, its bustling canal (supply chain shortage, be damned) and zig-zagging and snaking our way just mere feet above the Chagres River between rain forests and mountains like an X-wing through the Death Star’s trenches. All the while he’s chatting us up about this ship from China here, that native village over there, over our miked-up earphones (until he’s in “solitude mode” when he’s chatting with air traffic control — don’t even get him started on some of those guys/gals).

Fernando, as well as Copa Airlines (which is Latin America’s “most punctual airline” every Panamanian likes to inform you of — a title won a lot easier during COVID, given that many of its competitors in the region croaked, but still — has teamed up with Panama City’s massive and exclusive Santa Maria country club, a quick nine miles from the airport.

Santa Maria is a sprawling, 700-acre affluent private community with million-dollar homes, a 72-par, 18-hole Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course (you can even land a whirlybird on the fourth hole) and, of course, (considered separate from the community) the samely named 182-room Santa Maria, a Luxury Collection Hotel & Golf Resort, a Marriott outpost.

Morgan tha God Freeman has even stayed and played here — and just as Andy told Red in “Shawshank:” “They say [the Pacific] has no memory. That’s where I want to live the rest of my life. A warm place with no memory.” If you’re not exactly a scratch golfer, warmth and amnesia are the perfect combo, hard wink!

Santa Maria is the only true resort located in the heart of Panama City and pretty much the opposite of, both in spirit and style, any more urban-like hotel you’d find downtown (Panama City, Panama, resembles Miami more so than does Panama City, Florida, just for reference). Oh, and sadly a dead whale washed ashore and, despite the city’s beloved feral cats’ delight, the smell wasn’t awesome. So stick to the “sticks.”