Panama Sucks Yeah

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Bocas del Toro

We arrived in Panama City and got a collectivo to the domestic airport. We had a couple of hours to spare, and the guy recommended we go to the mall instead of waiting in the teensy airport with the army boys. The mall was big and American. There were oversized, massive animal statues everywhere. If it wasnt for all the polyester fluorescent clothes and lack of any cotton, you may have been disorientated. We went on another search for almohadas de viaje (travel pillows). We have been severely putting hate on anyone we see on buses with travel pillows. Sleeping on a bus is just not enjoyable waking up every 5 minutes or so because your head is snapping forward or to the side. We found a luggage store that had them...but they had none in stock. We cruised around looking at all the things we couldnt buy, ate some Quizno´s and headed back to the airport.

The plane to Bocas del Toro is teeny, and they charge you for any luggage over 35 lbs. The guy had weighed our gear, and our backpacks were sweet, but the surfboards put it over. So she decided to charge us $20 for the boards and then their extra weight as well, double charging us. She wouldnt look us in the eye when we pointed this out. Gotta love it. On the flight over we got mini bottles of red wine and toasted to our last stop on the magical Carribean. Next thing, I look over and Michael´s glass is in his lap, red wine and ice everywhere on his white shorts. I think he forgot to use the little indent on the tray. We arrived on the island and headed to a hotel. We cruised around for a bit before dinner...and were not too impressed. It was nothing like the white sand, crystal clear blue water of Belize and Honduras. It was more full of rubbish washed up on shore and we even saw a few diapers and unmentionables. Michaels friend had told him Bocas was beautiful, but then he remembered he´d actually said it was a good party place and all he did was drink, which might have helped with the beautiful part.

We woke up the next day and went to breakfast, where we met a Pomme guy who had been living ther for 15 yrs. He said he owned a restaurant, and was the chef there as well. What he really meant was that some guy owned it for him and he still had to leave the country every 3 months to renew his tourist visa or pay someonelse to do it for him. He was a super itchy, scratchy twitchy guy who proceeded to tell us that lotsa times bricks of coke washed up on shore of the islands. If there were any missing, the police would go full force til they found them all. He found one once. He´d had it for a couple days and ended it throwing it back to sea before it wrecked him.

Afterwards, we headed to the closest beach. The buses were broken and it was about $15 for a taxi to the beach. So we walked to one, found the spot with the least rubbish, waded in for a swim, attempted to hacky sack on the beach and started walking back. But every step we took feltl like there were little pins jabbing into our feet. You couldnt see anything, but you couldnt walk. It finally went away and we walked home, just about the time we decided to leave the next morning. The best thing about Bocas was the plantains we bought from a cart in the street, theyre sliced up and mashed flatter and then fried and hers were taaasty. We got the ferry the next morning to get the bus to David. There was this skinny old guy, almost 70 I´d say, with a jean jacket vest and long white-yellow-gold hair. He never told us his name, but he said he used to be in a band and played with Deep Purple and now he´s building a hotel in Panama for other bands to come stay at. It seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, and he said he might be dead by the time it was finished.

After a 4 hour bus ride over the mountains, we arrived in David and stayed at the Purple House. Its owned by an American lady who used to be in the Peace Core and she wanted to start up a hostel. Its freaking purple. Bright purple. The house, the fence, the furniture, the sheets the plates, forks, knives, paintings, lamps, fans, Everything. She loves it, she even had a purple Coke bottle. And free nail polish. She seemed shocked that I chose the yellow, but she was glad someone finally had. We booked our rental car, stayed one night and got a cab to the rental place. We planned to drive from David to Santa Catalina, cruise around to check out any surf spots around there, and then drop it off in Panama City. It was quoted at $350 on the internet. We also visited the super mega grocery store and bought our staples of cereal, granola bars, nuts and boxed wine, cause we knew we´d have lots of space in the car.

We arrived at the rental place, where the lady slowly, trying to pass over it quickly, explained to us that with insurance, etc, the total came to $875. We slowly got our point across that we could not afford that, attempted to pack our groceries in our backpacks, and got a cab to the bus station, spending $10 to find out we could not afford the car.

After watching Lord of the Rings in Portuguese, we arrived in a small town where we changed buses to Santa Catalina and got dropped off at the place Michael had stayed last time. They had a dog that looked like a small lion. Two German girls had been annoyingly walking just right next to us the whole way up the road, we tried to walk behind or in front, but we couldnt shake em. The fisherman came by in their truck and gave us a ride the rest of the way, but the Germans were scared of the big dog and didnt want to get out of the car. They were all full up, but there was a guy there from near LA that has been living there for ages and had a house to stay in. We´d have it to ourselves, with balconies, kitchen, computer, way better than the other place.

Santa Catalina

So Casa Kenia was where we spent 10 days of rainy season in Santa Crowdalina. The first couple days were super crowded in the surf and it was super shit. As the rain started and the surf went to crap, people left. We were stoked to have the internet, cause Javier had the tower 5 ft from the house, but apparently it worked 2 days out of the last month. But we did catch up on the best blog ever. Apparently we were getting the remains of some hurricanes over Cuba, and it rained 75%!o(MISSING)f the day. And played solitare non-stop. It was like Groundhog Day - wake up, have some breakfast, read, read some more, stretch, play cards, debate whether to have rice and beans-tuna-eggs for lunch, play backgammon, finish your book, walk to the river and back, say hello to the cows, make dinner, sleep. There was one store across the road from us, but it didnt have many fruits or veggies, just onion, tomato and carrot. We bought king prawns from the fisherman one night, they were fat and as long as your palm.

Michael went surfing one morning to Punta Roca, which was apparently a 20-ish minute walk away, thru some yards and fields. I woke up later and started walking down the beach, got a bit further, and from all the rain, the path was alllll mud, about a foot deep and puddly. I had to cross over to the other side to open the gate so I tried to step quickly over it, but my thong got sucked in and I had to keep my foot in it or I would lose its spot, I finally wrangled it free. By the time I got thru the gate, I was covered in mud up to my shins and all over my hands, and judging by the smell and the cows on the other side, Im pretty sure it consisted of more than mud. I never did find Punta Roca, I needed to go around one more headland. But I did find a little boy and girl who had the beach to themselves every day and someone had carved them little speedboats out of washed up foam. They attached a string and would drag them around in the water. Pretty sweet playground. Except for the scary gringa on the hill watching them.

Javier was super nice, he took us to his house at Punta Roca, which you have to get to by boat, or walk at low tide. He has water but no power. He built the place himself and lived there for 4 yrs, 1 yr with his wife and her boy. He´s planted all sorts of fruits and nuts and had a nice kitchen bungalow with thatch roof, which he took off maybe 6 months ago...he thinks a proper roof would be better. You have to bring all the supplies in by boat and then carry them the rest of the way up the path to his land. He had a 4 yr old boy Santiago, who loved his skateboard and would cruise around the streets on it. We were pretty sure he knew more Espanol than we did. Apparently when Santiago was born he was upside down and the cord was wrapped around his neck. Kenia would have had her baby by now, but Javier was content to have it in Santa Catalina and deliver it himself...Kenia wasnt having any of that. And Javier had bought a car for his friend, he was super stoked that it had áll the bells and whistles´- power windows, AC, even a windshield wiper on the back window. He hasnt really been able to see the fancy shit they have in the US since he left 10 or more years ago.

But Javier was telling us how that part of Panama is on the major route of cocaine from Columbia upwards. Guys take little but fast speedboats, drive all night and dock in the morning, stay the day and continue at night. Javier does trips to Cebaco, an island that is all national park, he knows all about the wildlife, crocs and plants. He also knows that once some tourists were in a speedboat not far from the island, and a helicopter came racing up, shooting at another coke boat. He was out one day and they found a kilo as well. He was with 2 guys from New York and the captain, and the captain wanted nothing to do with it, nor the NY guys, and they split it open and poured it to sea...

The highlight of our 10 days of house arrest would probably be kicking a Gatorade bottle about a mile from the river back to the house. Yeah, I know, skills.

Casco Viejo and Panama City

Javier´s daughter and mother in law were on the same bus as us to Panama City. Gabrielle is about 12, and halfway thru the trip I asked her if she wanted to use my Ipod. So they got off the bus a bit earlier than us, and she blatantly tried to walk off the bus with it, headphones still in her ears. I had to tap her and demand it back. Michael should have given her his, cause he left it on the bus anyway. We took a cab to Casco Viejo, and passed the super slums of Panama City. I was not liking the looks of things, but Casco Viejo is all being redone and they have cops everywhere to try and keep it safe. Theres a red zone youre not supposed to go to, but other than that its apparently fine. The streets are lined with old terrace buildings that are either falling to shit or have just been renovated and theres big square and circle holes everywhere in the sidewalks. And groups of old and young chics playing Bingo on the streest with beans. We stayed one night there, went to a massive old warehouse-studio club but couldnt stay awake long enough for it to get busy. The next day after breakfast of pancakes that tasted like chemicals, we were walking around taking photos, and the bicycle cops in the street told us maybe we shouldnt do that cause while we´re holding up our cameras for the perfect shot, someone might come up and just grab it. And they also told us Aussies had good swimmers. We left that day to stay in Panama City.

We got to the hostel in Panama City and found this Swiss guy we had met at the Purple House, a super tall funny little fucker. When we saw him in David, 2 weeks earlier, he had been planning to go to Costa Rica the next week. He had already been in Panama for 6 weeks. We went to this park and walked around, poked our fingers at some turtles, saw some monkeys and climbed up the top to see the city. We also realized our friend from El Salvador was there, so we gathered the troops for a night out, the likes of which we hadnt seen since Michaels bday. There was a local guy there to fix the kitchen sink, and it ended up that his name was Louis and it was his birthday, so we headed out with him. We went to a couple clubs that were full of snobby girls and guys buying expensive drinks. On the way home we passed a group of girls out on a hen´s night, and one of the girls had a big penis pinata. Some of the other girls were carrying around dildos, and when the were walking up to a club, two of the girls fell...and one ended up with a dildo in her mouth. True story. We walked around the casino after that, went to a restaurant and decided we didnt need to eat and went home. I think it was the first time we´ve been up past 2am the whole trip.

Rodgy, the Swiss guy, had made some ¨Swiss Sunday Bread´the night before. There had been some discussion of not adding enough yeast, but I think it was forgotten. We had some for breakfast, or tried to. It was so heavy and hard to chew, you had to do a couple chews, rest, massage your jaw, regroup and chew again. And there was also a group of Americans that had just arrived the night before. One guy could NOT understand why no one knew what he was saying when he spoke English to them. He insisted that Panama City was an American colony and that everyone should know English...why are the menus in Spanish? We left Rodgy, who had to stay one more day cause he was getting his clothes washed and they werent open on Sundays, and flew to Guayaquil. Still not sure he made it to Costa Rica.

I guess Panama probably doesnt suck as much when it is not rainy season and if you dont expect Bocas del Toro to be the gem of the Carribean...but we wont be going back.

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Comments

[anonymous]

Yeah it sucks
I'm Panamanian myself, and I hate this country expensive computers... shitty stuff, lot of robbers... poor tourists. Shitty education, NO software engineering development at all. I'm good for software, but here it doesn't work at all, so I'm going to Canada to study there. This country sucks balls and maybe isn't because the people from slums. But the Government, they steal money, they don't fix the streets, they don't worry about education, progress nor security. This country sucks balls. I'm glad to read you're safe from this trip, if Government were good; I'm sure you would have enjoyed this trip. PS: The United States citizen was right, we had a mini colony when the treaty from 1904 was present, in the Panama Canal Zone, they had their own laws here and stuff. We were supposed to speak English... but well.