Final desitation in Central America...The trip to Panama

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I left the last Blog saying that we had a stupidly long bus journey ahead of us to our final country Panama. This wasn’t a lie, and has been our longest journey to date on this trip. It consisted of a bus from Manuel Antonio, to Quepos, then another bus change to get from Quepos back to San Jose. In San Jose, we jumped in a cab back to the Tica bus station, and then proceeded to wait (our bus to Panama wasn’t for another 3 and half hours). Once we finally boarded the bus bound to Panama it was 11.30 in the evening, and we already felt that we had done a fair stint of travelling! We finally got going at around 12pm, an hour later than scheduled, and we were due to arrive at our destination, Panama City, at 4pm the next day, if everything went according to plan….

As you know already, buses have rarely been our friends on this trip so far, and this one was to be no different. We were actually on quite a nice new bus this time, however again, the driver decided that we must have all been sweltering on there, and blasted the Air Con constantly all through the night. You would have thought that everyone having there hoodies and blankets covering them, as well as the constant shivering and chattering of teeth would have been a sign to turn it down a tad, however this never materialised, and we suffered the entire 16 hours on this bus with all but icicles hanging from our faces. Unfortunately though, this wasn’t the last of our woes. In the middle of the night whilst most people were sound asleep, the bus suddenly made a crazy clanging noise like it had hit a pothole or an animal or something, and then proceeded to skid along the road for a while. Pretty scary stuff being woken up by that! After this, the driver pulled over, pulled out some tools, and got to work on the bus at the side of the road. What he was doing was anybody’s guess, but within an hour or so, he was done, the bus was fixed, and we were on the move again. We never did find out what happened, and to be honest, I think we would rather keep it that way!

So, 4pm the next day hit, and true to the schedule, we were arriving in Panama City. Some good catch up work from the driver it seemed! Whilst staring out of the window of the bus, Panama stood out to us like none of the previous capitals had so far. Sure they were all busy cities with traffic issues, just as Panama was, but the feel of the city, the Skyline, and the commercial centres just seemed a world apart from what we had seen so far, even including San Jose. It just looked so modern, like what I assume Hong Kong, or other large Asian cities look like with Skyscrapers and Billboards everywhere.

So, we hopped off the bus into the ridiculously huge bus terminal at Albrook, and set out to grab a taxi to our hotel / apartment in Cangrejo. We asked the first taxi driver we saw how much to our hotel, and he didn’t know where it was. Good start. After that, he tried to get us to go to a hotel that he did know the where-a- bouts of, so he could no doubt make some commission on the side. This didn’t wash with us though, and we persevered with getting to our preferred hotel. When he asked another taxi driver where our hotel was, and got the answer, he decided the fare would be $20! We knew for a fact this wasn’t the correct fare, and told him not to worry as it was too expensive to which he got in a bit of a strop and mumbled something no doubt obscene in Spanish and shuffled off. Not to be beaten, we tried another taxi, who knew the area, and who charged us $5…. Result. We took this as a win against the Taxi thieves of Central America, and with a spring in our step lobbed the bags in his boot, and with a smirk of victory, we were on our way to City Suites, Cangrejo.

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Comments

[Home and Away]

Buses
So if buses are so bad is their a cheap reliable faster alternative to traveling through Central America? If you had to do it again, what would you do differently?

[SculforandJupp]

Buses
To be honest, the buses that we used were better quality than the local ones more often than not, and therefore it's pretty much unavoidable. We do moan on here a lot about the buses, however it's all become part of the experience, and we have learned to take things in our stride, and actually embrace it! The only thing I would change was the amount of time that we had to get around Central America and Mexico, as we gave ourselves 2 months, and it wasnt nearly long enough, hence being on so many buses, so often. So, our only advise would be to stay as long as you can in order to see more of the countries of Central America, and/or pick the places you really want to see, and spend more time there. After looking at your travelling resume though, Im sure you figured this out already!! Good luck, and let us know if we can help you with anything on your travels Regards Mike and Donna