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I hunkered down with Enrique, close because the music pounded through us. Bursts of raucous excess sallied about the bar. Every table was littered with the debris of partially full bottles of rum and beer: half eaten pollo frito, chuletas de cerdo, pescado bones and...

I was not an avid racegoer. The track although adequate, seemed a little shabby. In the blaze of heat, it appeared bare and unadorned, save for the odd grass strip and a few stunted trees. Grandstands for those who wished only to bet or be caught up in the euphoria of...

I continued to pester Enrique until he agreed to take me to the horse races. In any case, it was to his advantage- the bets on our behalf would come out of my pocket. We met at restaurant Coca Cola. Mythical and affordable, the colonial building had stood since 1875....

The Cuban I’d seen him fight the Cuban. He was coming off two losses, but they had been sensational wars. The boxing scribes judged them Panama’s best fights of the year, and in a place like Panama where great fighters were as common as bright light, that meant...

Agua and Water. Agua couldn’t read or write, but he had organized his intellect in such a way that when he performed tasks it put me in mind of a chef laying a plate: everything had a system, precision was imperative, and the result had to leave him with an aesthetic...

I had been training at the squat, red and yellow boxing gymnasium in Panama-city for years. The house of stoush that stood on the edge of improving anarchy, had become my second home on each of my irregular trips to the small Central American country. A solid...