Day 84 - is this where clothes come to die?

Well immigration lady finally got bored of her magazine and decided she ought to get on with stamping the passports of the ever growing line of would-be border crossers. A cursory glance at mine and, would you believe it - a smile, and I was on my way. That particular border crossing from Costa Rica to Panama is one of the more interesting I’ve taken actually - a rickety old wooden bridge, with barely enough width to get a truck through, suffices as the no-man’s-land crossing point for any kind of traffic heading across to Panama on this eastern side. So I traipsed across the ancient bridge, squeezing past what few vehicles there were and wincing with every creek the timber made under their weight. Panama immigration was done in seconds and with another nice stamp in the passport I wandered into the 9th country of the trip and the waiting arms of the inevitable taxi touts, money changers and random vendors (the strangest so far - some guy trying to sell used barber’s hair clippers - not necessarily the first purchase that it would occur to me to make on arriving in a new country).

So after some heavy negotiating with a shady mini-cab tout, myself and a couple of others who happened to be heading in the same direction were on our way to Changuinola, to catch a water taxi that would take us out through the ancient Snyder Canal and across the short stretch of sea to the islands of the Bocas del Toro archipelago.

And Bocas is where I ended up staying for a few days - on the rather unfortunately named Isla Colon (thankfully named for its discovery by Christopher Columbus rather than any particular anatomical reasons) where the buildings are all built on stilts out into the sea and you pretty much have to get in a boat to go anywhere. The islands had been a bit oversold by my guidebook - I think describing them as the “new Galapagos” could go down in history as one of the biggest misdescriptions a guide has ever made as I saw virtually no wildlife other than some dolphins. But I was in real need of a few days staying put in one place and doing nothing, so quite frankly it was fine as Bocas is the perfect place to do just that.

My days were spent checking out the nearby islands and inevitably their various beaches, which on every occasion involved a trek though a jungle that, thanks to the rainy season, slippery paths and me only having flipflops, would result in me arriving covered head to toe in mud. Or, once I realised that was just too much effort, whiling the day away in a hammock at the Aqua Lounge hostel. Bocas also came with an instant social life - I spent my evenings at Mondo Taitu, one of the best party hostels I’ve visited (with $0.50 beers at happy hour), met a load of great people and also managed to meet up with Lou (who I’d met in Canada last year and who happened to be on holiday in Costa Rica with her friend Alex) for a couple of nights out.

After a few days being a waster though I was keen to head on and so, trying to ready myself for city life again, I headed direct to Panama City.

And Panama City is a really interesting place. No doubt due to its location as the crossing point between South and Central America and as a gateway between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans (and by that gateway having been forged and subsequently run for so long by the USA) it has become a complete melting pot of styles, cultures and other influences. But it’s also a city full of contrasts - old and new, rich and poor, clean and dirty all thrown into the mix together. Oh and it’s stinkingly humid and hot.

So my first afternoon trying to see the city was spent negotiating the busy and smoggy midtown section where I seemed to immediately get trapped in my worst nightmare… no matter where I turned or what street I went down all I came to were massive stores selling nothing but shoes and clothes. And this wasn’t the good stuff. This wasn’t finest tweeds put together by Panama’s finest tailor. This wasn’t even George at Asda. This was proper “made by bleeding-fingered Chinese kids” tat. But as I didn’t seem to be able to escape it and because the stores were all so nicely air-conditioned that I could put up with the neon lighting and tinny music just to escape the heat, oh and because it was just so god-darned cheep, I spent $10 and headed back with enough clothes to fill my already full backpack. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon agonising over what to throw away to make room.

The next day did prove to be a little more successful in terms of actually seeing the city - after checking my map, avoiding the clothing district and realising that Panama’s planners despise pedestrians (there is not one pedestrian crossing in sight), I managed to get to the old section of modern Panama. Old Modern Panama (as I call it) or Casco Viejo (as the locals do) was created in 1673 after Pirate Henry Morgan ransacked Old Old Panama (which now lies in ruins 7km away from where the city is today). Its actually a really compact historical centre and of all the cities I’ve visited over the years it must be one of the few that seems to have just the right amount of interesting buildings close enough together to keep my attention for the couple of hours it takes to see it all.

After that I walked the entire length of Panama Bay, from the poorer end, round to Modern Panama and its very American skyscraper apartment buildings, landscaped financial centre and numerous shopping malls. This was a side of Panama I didn’t expect - I knew US influence was heavy but I really didn’t expect to find, what could almost pass for a North American city, bolted on to a typical Central American city. That being said, after almost 3 months away, it was fascinating to watch the suits and their families driving the couple of hundred yards from their air-conditioned, security gated apartments to their air conditioned security gated offices and malls in their air conditioned secure SUV’s and to wonder when I’m going to feel ready to try and get back to all that. Not today I think. Anyway after gawking at that and having it feel very alien, the ironic highlight of that afternoon was finding the one thing that I’ve really, really missed most over the last few months… 8 screens, state of the art Dolby Digital sound, oodles of leg room and only $4 a go. I almost wept.

So yesterday was my last day in Panama and after getting my hair cut disastrously by a half-blind Panamanian barber (scowl), I’d saved the biggest and best to last - a trip to see the achievement that really put this country on the map: the Panama Canal. Now I had figured that mankind having been trying to build this canal since 1527 (with the US only achieving it in 1914 thanks to its money, diplomacy and the lives and time given by countless souls) and probably more importantly the fact that it now brings in over $1bn a year to Panama, would mean that they’d be running the damn thing all day, every day. But no - as I bought my ticket to enter the viewing area, everyone was turning away as the last ship of the morning had just passed through. So, determined to see something, I went round and round the museum for 3 hours learning more about the history, workings and future of the Canal than I ever thought possible, until they’d all had their lunch break and the ships coming the other way had arrived. And then I finally got to see the impressive sight of the gigantic tankers and liners slowly, painfully slowly, moving into position and then inching into the locks with only centimetres to spare either side before being gently dropped down and moving on out to sea.

And now you find me at the airport - 10 weeks meandering down through Central America at an end. It’s strange for me to think now that this trip through Central America only happened because it fitted in nicely with the rest of my travel plans. If it weren’t for that I would have missed it and could easily have stayed behind my desk a little longer. And that would have been a great pity because its been fantastic and I’ve learnt an incredible amount. Geographically it’s not a particularly large area but the huge variation in the people, cultures, prosperity, politics, history, wildlife and nature of the various countries mean that you could spend far, far longer than I have here and still be surprised. I’d also have missed out on the fun of meeting and getting to know a great number of great people and sharing various bits of the road and its adventures with them. A couple of days travelling in a strange place with someone and you can feel like you’ve known them for a lifetime. Then you move on and despite promises of staying in touch you pretty much know you’ll be lucky to see them again. But hey there’s always Facebook to give us hope!

But sad that I am that my time in Central America has come to an end I’m feeling upbeat because I’m sure that I’ll be back to some of it in the future. Also the adventures aren’t quite over yet… stay tuned, for in about 2 hours time I’m going to be landing in Colombia and meeting up with my good buddy and old partner in crime James for a few months seeing what trouble we can get into in South America... I just hope he hasn’t brought his Colonel Mustard suit.



Panama Slideshow

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