Day 48: Travel day to Panama City

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Once again Olly woke us up early as today as we had an 11 hour travel day to Panama City! Unfortunately so early that no breakie places were even open so we packed some muesli bars and what we thought were bananas! We met the group at 7am and make our way to the public bus stop to board a chicken bus again. We managed to get seats together this time which was good but we did not have a good start! When Ben got on the bus I noticed that there was a GIANT red ant crawling on the rim of his cap. I was sitting next to the wide open window and he was in the aisle seat. It was the largest ant I have EVER seen and I was like “OMG Ben...” and before I could get him to act rationally and remove his cap slowly to flick off the giant creature he flicked his whole hat off his head and threw it out the window!!!!! I have no idea what he was actually trying to do but seemed he freaked out a bit thinking it was a tarantula or something cos I freaked out a weeny bit and now his hat is gone!!! No one could believe what had happened and it all happened so fast! I was like “WTF!” and was so gutted for him cos I know how much he loves that hat, and he just went into silent mode and wouldnt speak! At the time I would not express how hilarious I thought it was but thankfully as the day went on he saw the funny side of it and by the next evening we were relaying the story to mum and dad over skype both in absolute hysterics! So, now we just need to find him a new hat! Anyway, that was our first bad start to the morning...

2^nd issue...eating a plantain: Last night we went to the supermarket to get things for snacks and breakie and looked for non bruised bananas for us (as I am extremely particular with my fruit! Esp bananas). We found 3 – 2 for Ben and 1 for me. Ben ate the one that wasnt attached to the other 2 in the room before leaving and enjoyed it. When I got on the bus I peeled one of the remaining 2 and instantly I started dry wretching (I know sorry yuck!). I had had one bite and my whole mouth felt as though it had been loaded with a tonne of flour. I really thought I was going to be sick out of the bus. Ben sort of scoffed at me and told me to stop being ridiculous and keep eating it as it was my breakfast! I told him he had to try it cos it was the worst banana I had ever had in my life and it took me literally 5 mins to get that bite down successfully! He tasted it and didnt complain but I saw him on sideways glance, making a face! Then I saw that his was still sitting next to him uneaten after about 20 mins and asked “oh ben you dont like the banana?!” He sheepishly said no its not nice! We later found out while the entire rest of our group laughed at us, that we had eaten a raw plantain! So you can order plantains instead of fries or potatoes with dinner over here and they are like fried and dried banana type things. We assumed they were made with bananas and the finished product was called plantains. Naive! But no...you buy actual plantains which you are not meant to eat raw at all and you cook them! They look identical to bananas in the supermarket. Guess we didnt read the labels! Live and learn hey?! We will not be repeating that mistake again!

After an hour which proved very eventful, on the chicken bus we hopped off and waiting for our next very 'plush' bus. It had sort seats, a toilet and air con. We were pleased cos we had 7 hours on this bus with only one stop. For the first half of the trip we watched 3.5 back to back hour long episodes of homeland and are really enjoying it and becoming quite addicted. When we stopped we were excited to see there was a Maccas across the road. We had 30 mins to get lunch and everyone else missed the maccas sighting and waited in line for ages for dodgy looking buffet food which we always seem to have at our bus stops, while we happily wandered over to maccas. Our food actually wasnt great but we knew we could trust we wouldnt get sick from it! We got back n the bus, finished our episode of Homeland and the computer died as if on cue! From that moment on I was so so bored! Ben lucky for him is quite happy reading on the bus so was engrossed with his book for the next 3 hours and I tried all sorts of things to amuse myself and ended up being productive and writing 2 blogs on my iphone!

At one point I needed to go to the loo so wandered down the back of the bus and tried pulling on the door to open it but it wouldnt open! The lady sitting opposite the toilet yanked it open for me (she was obviously a regular on this bus or had watched many people before me have trouble). I said thanks and then got into the loo and shut the door behind me only to find out that it was pitch black and I mean pitch!! I couldnt see a single thing not even the toilet seat. I had to feel around possible one of the more unhygienic places around to locate the toilet seat and bin to put mt toilet paper in. t was a bit scary actually and was soon made even more scary when I couldnt open the door! I unlocked it and pushed and shoved and rammed myself into the door and it would not open! I actually thought was gonna be trapped in there till Ben wondered where I was! It was shitting myself! Thankfully after about 2-3 mins of trying, the same lady must have heard me and yanked the door open fomr the outside for me! Whew! Then 10 mins later Peter came over and was like Rach OMG I just got stuck in the toilet! Haha 😊

Anyway, we finally arrived in Panama city and got taxis to our hotel which was lovely! Def the nicest we have had on our trip! We all showered and went for one of Jacobs pointless walking tours that lasts all of about 10 mins but he did take us to the waterfront which was gorgeous! We didnt have our camera but would come back later to get some pics. We then went back and had about 30 mins till we were meeting for our last group dinner. Jacob had booked a table at the Causeway over looking the canal which was nice but dark so we couldnt see much! We had the slowest service either and had all downed 2 cocktails by the time our food thankfully arrived! The food was pretty nice. We both had fresh fish again. After dinner we said bye to a few people and a smaller group of us went to have another drink at a wine bar. I had the worlds greatest pina colada and it was served by the strangest waiter. He didnt have very good english and was trying to memorise our order in his head while goin round the table of 7 people. When he got to me I said Pina Colada knowing I had said it right and he repeated what I said and then just blankly stared at me with his chin cocked forward like a chicken and everyone kind of looked at each other and laughed while he still remained that way as if in a trance! He broke out of it and did the same to Marina! Very very odd! We enjoyed hanging out with our group tonight and it will be sad tomo saying bye to people as a few we have been with for a month now!

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Comments

[Mum]

Eating raw plantain sounds REVOLTING!