Panama or Bust

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My unplanned assault on Panama City ended up being an exclamation point of sorts at the end of a long journey. It was my intention to enter Panama and bed down somewhere a couple of hours from the border so that I could make a run for the canal the next day but I ended up calling an audible in a desperate bid to end this thing sooner rather than later.

The day started out strangely. I picked up a couple who were hitchiking at the turnoff for Dominical as I was driving out. He was an expat from Hawaii who had come to Costa Rica 15 years ago to escape the high cost of living. She was his Costa Rican wife. They were going to Golfito which meant that I would be able to get them very close to where they lived without going out of my way. The fun thing about hitchikers is that they tend to be crackpots. I won't say that this guy was one but I did learn during the course of our jouney that he was an ardent communist, a 9-11 conspiracy theorist, a believer in Mormon scripture (in spite of being opposed to religion generally as any good communist should), and a Rainbow. He told me that he and some friends were working on an idea to create a place in Costa Rica where Rainbows could go in the winter when it was too cold elsewhere and that he and his wife were returning from a scouting mission when I happened along.

I hit the Panamanian border about 30 minutes after I dispatched the Commie-Mormon-Rainbows. The border circus seemed like it was not quite so bad this time because one helper handled both sides of the transaction. There were a bunch of people waiting for shuttle buses to take them from the border to David where they could arrange regular bus transport to elsewhere in Panama so I volunteered the services of the Scion to take one person for free since I was going there anyway.

The crackpot I got this time was a chemical engineer from Costa Rica who had business to attend to in Panama City. He was born and educated in Mexico but he had worked in the United States so he spoke good English. We tried speaking Spanish sometimes, and he said that I wasn´t so bad at it when I tried, but I think that he just didn't want to risk getting put out of the car. In the hour or so that it took us to drive to David, we started kicking around the idea that I could drive straight through to Panama City and stay at an accomodation that his nephew in Panama City would arrange. I'm not sure if I signed on to this idea in spite of it being crazy or because of it being crazy. It's all the same to me now because the marbles are all gone.

It was a long drive and it was dark for at least half of it. I'm not sure how many hours I spent behind the wheel but I know it was a lot. Crossing the Panama Canal was almost anti-climactic because it was dark and because I was tired but I let out a cheer just the same because it was a victory of sorts and I fairly earned it. But the day was not done yet. I had to do a bit of late-night driving in the city to get where we were going. It's insane the way they drive in Panama City. I thought I was going to die and that's before an arrangement was made for me to follow a taxi to my hotel. This cabbie drove like a madman! He made little or no effot to accomodate the vehicle that was supposed to be following along behind him. He ran at full speeed and changed lanes in an instant without signaling. It seemed like he was trying to ditch me as I flew along 10 feet behind him determined not to get lost in a strange city so late at night. This went on for 20 extremely stressful minutes before we got to my hotel. It was after 11 PM when the Scion landed. What a long strange trip it's been. And it's only halfway done...

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