Attempted mugging #1:
Today we took the truck to a friend of a friend in Panama that owns a shop. He was part of the local Land Rover club until they dissolved. He has a couple of Range Rover Classics and loves Defenders. After draining the fluid and seeing all the metal on the drain plug magnet and filter, we are looking to get a transmission shipped in from Ashcroft in the UK. This adds time and expense, but there aren't a whole lot of options right now.
TRF Service, Panama
We decided to walk the 10-12km back from the auto shop instead of paying a taxi. We had made it through about 9 of those kilometers and it was about dusk. Still plenty of light but most cars headlights were on. The best I can tell by looking at maps, we were on either Ave. Nacional or 20A Norte, in between Curundu and Calidonia. The street was a one way, three or four lane road with a fair amount of traffic. You wouldn't want to have to cross the street, but it wasn't bumper to bumper either. We were on the sidewalk on the right hand side of the street with a ~5ft concrete wall on our right. Not many people were walking but there was a bus stop that we could see maybe 100meters up the road and there were a handful of people around it. I heard some noise behind me and turned around to see someone running up behind me. He looked like he was angled to run past me on the street side so I pushed over a little bit and turned back forward. We always try to maintain awareness of our surroundings and even though this made me a little nervous, he would have no accomplices if he tried to attack and we could take one guy without a problem. A split second later, I heard another noise and turned around to see someone jump off the wall behind me with a huge stick and simultaneously, I felt the guy running grab a hold of my backpack, which contained a large amount of electronics including my laptop. I had the chest strap buckled and all the side straps cinched down, so it would be some work for them to get into it. As the guy grabbed me, I swung around to face him and his accomplice. At this point, I called for Shawn and he turned around, yelled, and starting running towards me. As he did, two more guys jumped over the wall behind him. So now we are surrounded by four guys, two of which are trying to get into my pockets and hold me from fighting. The second two quickly reached Shawn and grabbed him. I held my attackers off with my left hand and reached for my knife with the right. I don't think they were expecting us to put up such a big fight and at this point, they backed away to about arms length, but still holding me and grabbing for pockets. One guy grabbed my hand around my knife so I couldn't get it open and the second guy, still holding my backpack so I couldn't run away pulled out his knife. I grabbed his hand in the same manner and the three of us just kind of spun in a circle while holding each other's hands. I was trying to keep focus on both guys and at one point, we had wiggled close to the wall. I spun around to look at one and skinned the side of my head on the wall. At the same time, Shawn is busy with the two guys on him. The larger guy is holding his shirt and trying to reach into his pockets. Shawn reached for his back pocket to try and protect his stuff and the smaller guy seems like he thinks that Shawn is reaching for a knife, so the attacker quickly turns away and acts like he has a knife. As this happens, Shawn's hand is freed up for a second to actually reach for his knife, and as he pulls it out, one of the guys wrenches it out of his hand. No real punches or other big hits are thrown and after probably 30 seconds of struggle, they all start to back off and retreat over the wall. In the scuffle, one of my sandals fell off and the guy took it as he ran off. All total, we are now short one broken pocketknife, one sandal, 50 Costa Rican Colones ($0.10USD), and one ripped shirt.
This happened quickly, and if it was just the four guys, we would have fought back harder. We both delayed in pulling knives and I had plenty of time to open mine before they grabbed it. Neither of us threw a punch, even though we could have. Over the wall, we could see quite a few people, most likely friends and family of those attacking us. If we do take out an assailant either by knife or fist, how many more people will be jumping over that wall? We made it out without any damage besides a scrape on the head and elevated heart rates and we are lucky for that.
