Blogs from Panama City, Panamá, Panama, Central America Caribbean - page 10

We arrived to the panama shoreline and Gisbert gave us a lift to the town centre where we could get a bus into Panama city. There was a street parade going on and part of the road which the bus would go down was shut off, so we hiked a few Kms up road and hailed a bus which was heading in the right direction. It was a little under a £1! We checked into the hostel and headed to the panama canal. I turned into a geek for the next couple of hours as it was really quite facinating to see what a precicion operation the ships passing through undergo. there is only a 35 inch gap on either side so not much room to manouver at all!! Kate and i got some dinner and ... read more

When I last left off, I was waiting for my first flight. Since then, a lot has happened. I caught that flight and sat next to a nice guy who was flying home to florida. Somehow, conversations always seem to end up on politics during election season. This guy was for Obama. When I hopped off of that flight, I was hungry and really hoping for one last big fat diet coke to carry me through the next six months (you see, Panama only has Coca-Cola Light, which doesn't even hold a candle to good 'ol USA Diet Coke). Unfortunately, the Fort Lauderdale airport only has Pepsi products, so I choked down a turkey sandwhich and a diet pepsi with a coffee lid on it of $11. I waited for an hour and a half, reconnected ... read more

Panama After having spent three weeks or so in Costa Rica things began to feel repetitive and we wanted to go somewhere else for a while. If you look at a map you realise there aren't many places to choose if you wish to leave Costa Rica overland. If you then add that Emma has already visited Nicaragua and preferred to go somewhere else we were down to only one option - Panama. We entered Panama at the Sixaola/Guabito border crossing. We were told that this border crossing is the main gateway for visitors to Bocas del Toro archipelago, a popular place to go from Costa Rica. Therefore we were very surprised when the official checking our passports started asking a lot of questions and wanted us to present a valid flight ticket out of Panama. ... read more

I almost did not. It was looking like i might have ended up in Miami instead. My flight had arrived 20 minutes late and into terminal 24; i was leaving out of terminal 49. Slowed by a weighted back pack and a pair of flip flops i attempted to make a run for my plane which was deaprting in 10 minutes. Not making any headway, i stripped off the flip flops, chucked the bottle of water and ran my heart out. My years of yoga have done nothing for my cardio and I realized 7 minutes in I was completely out of shape. I was the last one to board as the door was closing. Now I was sweaty, dirty and hungry. My trip had started at 1am. We landed Panama city at 11:30 local time ... read more

After being forced to stay a night longer in Bocas del Toro we decided to make it a good night out. We still planned to get up at 5am the next morning and, together with our Norwegian co-travellers, catch the bus to Panama City. We made it a really great night out at Barco Hondido- a popular open air bar/club in Bocas with a "swimming pool". There we ran into a few people we met while travelling. After the bar closed we bought a few beer and sat down in the main square where some locals gathered to organise a spontanious live-concert, which unfortunatly got cut by the police. By that time it was 3am so we grabbed a quick bite and made a bet with the Norwegians, as we were convinced they wouldnt manage to ... read more