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Published: June 23rd 2011
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After a almost a week spent mainly sitting on our arses we were ready to face the remainder of Central America. At times, Central America was something to work up to. Let's be honest though – we hadn't exactly been doing it tough.
Given the location of our hostel – on the corner of the-middle-of-nowhere and way-to-buggery – we had made an arrangement with our mate the minibus driver. He was going to pick us up at 8am and get us to the 9.30am boat. That gave us enough time for a bit of brekky, and we awoke well rested with time to spare.
By ten to 8 our friend hadn't showed. Not a big deal in Nicaragua, appointment times being somewhat rubbery.
Concern began to grow when, by quarter past, there was no sign of the white Hiace. There wasn't that many boats to the mainland, so we made the call to ask the lady at the hostel if she knew a way we could back to town. She duly made a call to a friend of hers, obviously waking interrupting his sleep, and cajoled him into to picking us up.
Crisis averted, I sat back
on the stool at the counter, relieved, and glanced at the clock on the wall. It took more than a few moments to register - it seemed to say that the time was a touch earlier than it should be. And not within the realms of margin of error, either – we're talking a full hour.
“Um, una pregunta?” I enquired, quietly, “Que hora es, ahorita?”.
She looked at me, somewhat quizzically – I was, after all, looking at the clock as I asked.
“Son siete y cuarenta.” came the reply. Right, twenty minutes to eight.
Shit.
Obviously we'd stuffed it. Daylight saving or something, and we'd missed the change. And, sure enough not ten minutes later, the Hiace rocked up, our friend grinning a “buenos dias” as he roared up in a cloud of dust. As we apologised to the lady for making her friend get out of bed or whatever, we piled into the car.
I asked ol' mate what the time was – he checked his watch and confirmed that we were an hour out, and we adjusted our watches. In plenty of time we were dropped off at the wharf
to await the 9am to the mainland.
Which subsequently appeared at 10.
Or not, actually, as it was on time. It eventuated that some strange confluence of events meant that two unrelated people on Ometepe had their clocks out by an hour – and noone else. Weird.
Even now I wonder if they keep missing their favourite tv shows, and don't understand why their friends never show up to coffee on time.
The bus to Costa Rica, however, was on time. A reasonably comfortable trip – we only heard the horrible “papa americano” song about 20 times. This song (disappointingly an Australian group is responsible) had been ubiquitous throughout our time since Mexico. This time, however, the words had been changed by a Nicargauan group. The chorus now said “f### Costa Rica”, followed by a few other anti-Costaricense profanties. The Nicaraguans still hold a (justifiable) grudge against Costa Rica for supporting Americans during the Contra period.
We arrived in San José, and, yeah, we knew the way.
It looked all right – a step up from the other Central American capitals. The razor wire and shotgun salesmen weren't making as much profit here. That role
was taken by the usual suspects – KFC, Maccas, Pizza Hut. In fact we found our hostel due to it's proximity to the local KFC.
The hostel was pretty good, if a little overpriced. It had been the house of José Figueres Ferrer. This bloke was the president that, following a short, bloody civil war, abolished the military and gave the vote to women, illiterate people and black immigrants. Of course, he also kowtowed to the Americans and banned the Communist party, but, overall, he seemed like a good bloke. And he certainly had a nice house – the Hostel Toruma.
We had a bit of a look around San José, but, if I'm honest, it was just a bit too neat. A bit too Americanised – and with prices to match. There wasn't all that much to hold our interest. Still, we were only there as a stopover, and only in the city – by all accounts the good stuff is in the countryside.
The overnight bus the Panamá promised much – smells, noises and not a lot of sleep. As the lucky recipients of the two seats at the very back of the bus, right
next to the toilets, we didn't anticipate a very comfortable trip. And we weren't disappointed. The toilet started to smell the first person used it, and we were woken at stupid o'clock for the Panamá border formalities. These were more of a hassled than they should have been – not since LA had I wanted to yell “we're not interested in staying in your stinking f*^&*en country! We're Australian!”.
The Panamanians weren't letting anyone in who couldn't show a ticket out. The sort of gringos catching a cheap overnight bus were not the sort to plan that far ahead, and that included us. A couple of American girls in front of us were forced to buy a ticket on the spot form our bus driver (he refunded it as soon as we were back on the bus). Luckily, I had more Spanish than them and managed to convince the border buy that we had a ticket to Colombia without actually showing him anything.
For our arrival in Panamá City we had a hostel in mind, but the bus was due to arrive or 5.30 or 6 am. We rang the hotel and they said that 6am would be
okay to check in. We arrived at 3 in the morning. Of course we did.
So we sat there, in the giant Panamá City bus station, and watched, and waited. Actually, it was interesting. We watched the city awake, sitting there in the eatery bit, still, watching, waiting, as multitudes of different people came and went. First the early risers; bakers, cops, taxi drivers, Canal workers. Then the later workers; bankies, shop assistants, postal workers. Then, finally, the public servants and office types. By this time we were pretty close to asleep on the laminex tables, so we found a cab and went to the Residencial Texas.
On checking in we had reached that weird, strangely wired, overtired stage, like the gambler too tired to sleep. Flicked on the cable telly. Channel 2 – Discovery Kids. Boring. Channel 1 – hardcore p0rn. I worried for the kid looking for Mr Squiggle.
Panamá City itself was thoroughly modern, and mostly unappealing in that rich, shiny way, like an overtanned Gold Coast socialite. We were hungry, though, so we tried to find something to eat. What we found was a very flash shopping centre, newly constructed. It was an
environmentally aware place - a commercial monstrosity, airconditioned in the tropical sunshine – with escalators that only switched on when you stepped on them to reduce the carbon footprint. Goodness! That's going to make a difference! The only thing open with food seemed to be the brand new Hard Rock Café Panamá City.
We grabbed a table and ordered some food and beer. We had picked an auspicious day, we were informed by the waiter. Not only were all the contestants of Miss Panamá having lunch here today, but so were the board of Miss Panamá. Dad and I pretended to be oblivious to the contestants as we ate our lunch. Another Australian tourist made no such attempt - he brazenly got a photo with all of the contestants.
The main thing to do in Panamá City is, of course, to see the canal. So we did. And it turned out to be worth the trip. Built at a time when electricity wasn't all that reliable, and only new, the place runs mainly using gravity, and the engineering involved really was impressive.
The economics, too, are impressive. The Miraflores Locks pull in 1.4 million dollars a day
– every boat pays $100,000 to $300,000 to go through the locks. And when we were there we could see construction for another set of locks. Expected to be completed in 2017, this will double the income.
But, every person in Panamá we met was grumpy. I'm not sure if this was cultural, but there seemed to be a direct relationship between the prosperity of a country and their level of happiness. The poorer countries in Central America, the poorer people really, had been far more welcoming and friendly than the richer folk.
In any event, it was time to see a new continent.
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