Let's keep it simple

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Hello, its Thursday in Panama, and all is still....well the traffic is ....a traffic jam of sorts has stopped everything for the moment ...makes it easy to cross the street and fortunately we're not going anywhere...this is becoming one of our longest stops and mainly due to ongoing delays in getting the bikes on a boat/plane to Venezuela...but we are only a phone call away from knowing our density.
Yesterday we rode out to the Mirafiores locks and waited for a ship to go thru'...and we waited, and we waited, its not a fast process...they reckon they get so many squillion ships per year thru the locks but it wasn't happening yeterday, in fact, I think we have a new measurement for slowness, like watching concrete set or watching the grass grow, now it will be 'like watching ships pass thru the panama canal locks. 'and they charged us $8 for the pleasure of standing and watching for an hour!..I reckon it would be cheaper to sail thru than walk thru'.
But maybe a bit harsh, just bad timing on our part, and to consider its been operating for a hundred years or so, man, it must have been quite something back when it first opened up!....and the display inside was pretty speccy, including one part where you stand at the mock bridge of a ship and get fast tracked thru the locks in a stimulator, part of the captains' training day?
Then on to the most dangerous and most warned off part of Panama, the apporopriately named Colon city (sorry, I think I used that the other day)...the other end of the canal....and it lived up to its reputation..pretty scary....rough streets, rough looking people, 4 and 5 storey rundown buildings line the streets with run down, derelict types hanging off the balconies, waiting for something to happen, or waiting for someone to drop something, or waiting for three gringos on big BMWs to fall into their evil traps...there seemed to be some nice old buildings but I couldn't be sure....... However, we found the Panama Yacht Club and had a beer in the most classic, port bar you could imagine, shady seafaring types making shady deals with drug and gun runners, scruffy looking types waiting to get shanghaied, your classic sea-port bar tender who looked like he'd jump the bar with half an oar and sort out any trouble...along with his giant balck-as-pitch off-sider.....the odd old bloke with a peg-leg, eye-patch and parrot on shoulder would not be out of place...and on the wall near the dunny...a huge, elaborately framed, 100 year-old, glazed ad for Foster's Lager, unbelievable!
Then to the Zona Libre, a mega suburb, fortressed, passport entry only, free trade zone...absolute chaos, huge stores with real and knock-off brands of everything you could imagine... constant frenetic action, guys running around with loads of stuff, trucks endlessly, manouvering with their container loads, it all seemed so pointless and random but no doubt most of them knew what they were doing..we we're there to find a freight agent and somehow did...still sort of dodgey but they are our No.2 option at the moment, getting our own 20'container and chucking the bikes in.
One little aside...it seems to be fairly universal but why do they pack soo many paper napkins in those metal dispensers on restaurant tables, I figure the stuffers reckon the more they get in the less often they need to refill but its exactly not right. because when they're that tight you always pull out 3 or 4 instead of the one!
Another puzzle to mull over is 'Just what is the culture of a place? In Panama, and the other places, there's a rural scene, then in the cities there's the slums and the glitz ends of town, the beggars, the school kids,
the huge shopping malls are universally indistinguishable, both by content and customers, the small towns, the beaches...one thing about Panama that stands out, there seems to be no discrimination by race or colour, much like Cuba, but thats got me side tracked....Gawd, I felt a little philosophising coming on...must be time for a little lie-down!
Welcome aboard to all these new bloggers, I hope you can cope with all this....and Hi to all you regulars, thanks for sticking with me, let me know what you're all up to....
I'm not putting up any photos for the time being as Grant has plenty on his site
http:homepage.mac.com/gforbes3 and Ted's www.tedgrambeau.com
enjoy!

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