Shah's Haven

It's beautiful but lonely

From the patio of the pale stucco house, a Panamanian gunboat can be seen cruising the richly blue-green waters. Guards armed with pistols and submachine guns patrol the driveway, and a German shepherd attack dog trots around the unfenced grounds. Perched on a cliff 50 yds. from the bay, the house itself is a modest dwelling, consisting of only six rooms. But for the latest occupant of the building, owned by former Panamanian Ambassador to the U.S. Gabriel Lewis Galindo, it is a much needed haven. "Such surroundings, such hospitality, are not going to be easy to match," said Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi last week about his new sanctuary. "I feel like home."

Home now for the deposed Shah is Contadora, an island a little more than a mile square lying 20 miles off Panama in the Pacific Ocean. Part of a necklace of 226 other islands called Las Perlas (The Pearls), Contadora earned its name --Spanish for counter--during the 16th century when it was used by the Spaniards as a place to count their catch from the surrounding pearl-rich waters. In the 1920s, a mysterious disease killed off the oyster beds, and for decades Contadora remained just another of the obscure--if beautiful--islands that speckle the Gulf of Panama. Then, in the late 1960s, the motorboat of the wealthy Lewis conked out near the island, and he came away with blueprints dancing in his eyes. For $30,000 he bought the island, and development was under way.

Today Contadora is Panama's star resort, with a government-owned casino and 210-room hotel (average room price: $70 a day). About 80 weekend homes owned mostly by wealthy Panamanians dot the beaches and hills. Palm, papaya and banana trees shade the island, and peacocks and deer roam freely. Temperatures climb to a torrid 95DEG during the day, but drop to a breezy 70DEG in the evening. The resort is just now entering its busy season, with the hotel booked solid through April. And, understandably, the tourists worry about the island's most famous guest. "People are concerned about their own safety," says Tour Operator Andrew Hunter. "They are asking, 'Will it be safe for us?'"

The Shah's own security staff of eight has already been beefed up by at least 50 members of Panama's guardia. So far, the Shah has ventured out rarely, but when he goes out for the simplest of reasons, so goes the entourage: when he walked his Great Dane on the island's main beach last week, ten security men walked with hun and a red sedan filled with more guards drove behind. It is a measure of the Shah's exile that in those circumstances any place can feel like home. qed

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