Advertisement
Published: March 11th 2012
It’s amazing the better technology is the more I miss home. Perhaps its because I have been on the road for so long but I remember the first few years travelling I didn’t miss home at all. In fact I would have only phoned a couple of times, never sent a postcard.
But now with Skype and Facebook things are a bit harder when it comes to Christmas. There is more of a connection with home. It is nice hearing from the family, but back in the day a phone call to say Merry Christmas would suffice. Now you log on to facebook and see everyone wishing a Merry Christmas to family and photos of them and their relatives. It is hard after 18 months on the road.
It could have been that I was exhausted from 18 months, or the rain that had dampened my spirits on the Panama Archipelago Bocas del Toro but this would be the loneliest Christmas I’ve ever had. Gone was the desire to talk to people; gone was the desire to explore something new. For the first time in a long time and definitely for JP5 I wanted a
bit of home.
I realised this soon after landing in Panama City after it took 18 hours to fly from LA… Incredible! I was exhausted and slept every minute bar around 30 mins of my two flights (via Miami) to get here. As my American Airlines flight descended through the clouds Panama City revealed itself. To be honest I wasn’t expecting what I saw. Sure it had marshland and some hills in the background. But at the waterfront were skyscrapers everywhere. It felt a bit like a tropical version of Qatar in the Arabian Peninsula.
There were a few reasons as to why I came to Central America. One, was to travel one of the last regions of the world I hadn’t seen. I figured that I needed to do it now because if I went back home to Australia I would have gone through the same sequence I have done for the past 8 years. Gone back home, work a year and travel again. I want to give settling down a real go next time I’m back. If it doesn’t work out, “Hey at least I gave it a shot!”
Central America for me is the last real region of the world that is more than a 10-hour flight from Sydney so I figure those last regions of east Asia and the Pacific islands I can do with holidays built up with work. This is hypothetically speaking that I “settle down” so that meant Central America is the last region to hold me back from an effort to “settle down.” I know myself and this out of all my travels had to be done now.
So when I walked around yet another developing world capital city and yet another Spanish or Portuguese influenced city I realised. “You know what I’m over this! Maybe this was a bad move.” I kind of feel forced into it. I’m sure I’ll get over this feeling but the weather didn’t help.
As I handed over my passport I was about to embark on my last real chance (if I ‘settle down’) to really and truly grasp another language. “Ola como esta?” Most of my basics are still there. One of the most embarrassing things with my travels is when someone asks how many countries I’ve been to. And
than ask how many languages do I know? I reply back - Currently at - “113 countries… I’m starting to perfect English…” or along those lines.
The other motivation is that at last thedribbleman will be backpacking with his sister and sisters newly announced fiancée, David. Not the boyfriend anymore that has featured in previous Journey’s such as 2, 4 and mid episodes of 5.
So with them on board in 6 weeks time its time to really impress and I don’t want to impress with just the basics I want to be at conversation stage again like what I was in South America at the end of JP3. Time will tell…
I envisage that I won’t be as off the beaten track as in the past. The main reason is because I am working full time in 4 months and I am completely exhausted. So apart from seeing some volcanos and zip lining through the forests. I will be spending time at the beach maybe getting a dive masters certificate or start sailing as a crewmember.
But first I was in Panama and had not really researched
much. I met 3 Finnish girls who wanted to do what I wanted to do and we got a taxi to see Panama City in a day.
Panama city is broken into a few section El Cangrejo is the new business district, which has hectic traffic. And the old town San Filipe are the main ones. You couldn’t get as far different feel with the two. Whilst El Cangrejo is plastered with a busy lifestyle of a normal city with a red light district street, major supermarkets chains, series of restaurants but all surrounded by a construction type feel like nothing has truly been completed yet.
The hectic feel is compounded by the cars going the wrong way all the time weaving in and out of the correct line to progress. It seems like they are moving from some debris when actually it’s the car in front who is also stuck behind the car in front of it. Constantly creating worse traffic.
The old city is calmer yet seen better days. It is so typical of an ex-Spanish or Portuguese old town in the Americas or Africa. Abandoned of basic updates
for so long the locals have moved onto newer places downtown. The place has eerie ghost town feel at times depending on which street you ride up. The only thing that keeps it going is tourism.
Sadly like with a lot of these almost derelict old towns the only way it will improve is if some Westerner comes in and renovates to make it a restaurant or hotel, guesthouse or hostel. There was one hostel but it sells out pretty quickly. That’s the ideal place to stay in because the city really is not much.
The taxi driver spoke a bit of English, which was good and bad at the same time. To learn Spanish it’s better to be stuck in the deep end. Forcing you to bring out the words you didn’t think you remembered. I was exhausted from the US road trip so didn’t explore as much as I wanted to especially of the Panama Canal. The old town visit was only an hour at the most finishing with the Plaza de Franco, which looks back at downtown Panama City and the skyscrapers aligning Avenida Balboa.
Around the corner
another viewpoint sees the Amador Causeway move off in the misty distance. The Causeway was our 2
nd destination. It runs 6km out into a bay linking 3 tiny islands Naos, Perico and Flamenco.
To come here with no knowledge of the history would make this place seem quite boring. But with a little bit of a read up it becomes a small quirky destination rarely seen in the world.
The French started the bold feat of cutting through an isthmus of land from the Pacific to the Atlantic but found it too hard and the project was abandoned until USA can in.
The deal that a Canal Zone was built up with part of the Panama land becoming de facto sovereign territory of the states from 1903 to 1979. Driving through that zone (now reclaimed by Panama) it has a different feel to the chaotic city across the bay. Along Avenuda de Los Martires a sculpture honours the 21 Panamanians killed by the US military during riots of 1964.
There is so much more to see here but with my lack of energy and need to relax at
a beach. I missed places like Portobello and Colon, which is closed to the 3
rd of 3 locks Gatun Lock. What it provides though is the rare treat of buying duty free outside a ferry terminal or airport.
I didn’t want to do it but I saw a bottle of Bacardi black label for $8 so I just had to buy it. That was on the islands connected to the causeway, which is close to the Miraflores Lock of the Panama Canal.
I won’t bore you with all the details but unless you see a documentary on the building of this place or you are an architect buff all it is, is a sight of big ships passing through a narrow passage and really the video presentation (which costs extra) is pretty lame.
An artificial lake was made and filled in which is quite large and goes on for 50 miles covering 3 locks. Boats are scheduled to come in one way so out on the calm ocean the ships going the other way wait. I viewed them coming from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
The Miraflores Lock
(Pacific entrance) is the most common one to see they have a viewing area that is busy with a lot of photos being taken paparazzi style in desperation to get a photo of a ship that’s towering over them. These narrow locks are 110 ft wide and 1000 ft long. Each lock has two lanes making it possible for two to come in or out at the same time.
It’s a subtle transition as the boat is raised or lowered by chambers. It’s a slow process as the boat waits for the next chamber to fill up and theirs to recede. Than once they are level a lever is flicked and the ship passes to the next chamber. That is going to the Pacific side, the opposite coming in from the Pacific.
It’s interesting seeing a massive ship getting tamed as it lowers to the next level. It also is a far easier way to travel instead of going around Cape Horn. It is expensive though costing up to $150 000 for a commercial ship to pass through. It saves two weeks travel time.
Recently the nation went through a referendum
on whether they should spend money on upgrading the canal to keep ahead of its potential competitors. The nation voted yes. So the nation will take the hit for decades to come for the overall benefit of the nation. But there are some issues like competition from the Suez Canal, Egypt. The possibility in the future of an Arctic passage if the Arctic melts away. Still there was a sense of pride in the canal. There were a lot of sacrifices in building the canal especially during the French run where mosquitos were the big killers.
I had a few options after Panama City and the main one was to go into the Darien Gap. The densely forested land that splits Central America with South America. It is one of the last true wildernesses in the world and a haven for drug cartels. I wasn’t planning on going all the way in. Instead just the outskirts but with persistent rain I decided to head north to Bocas del Toro Archipelago and hope for a ray of sunshine for Christmas.
To get there it takes around 14 hours from Panama City. At the start of
this blog entry and actually in a few other blog entries recently I’ve mentioned I was tired. I have never slept so much on transport as I have at this point. I was awake for about 1 hour of the ride to David, which was 10 hours.
The only bit I was awake for was when we passed Pedro Miguel Lock the 2
nd of the locks on the Panama Canal and toward the end when it was dark. So I didn’t see a thing of the countryside.
The next day I fell asleep again for the next 4 hours to Bocas. The brief periods I was awake I could hardly see a thing as we weaved around the mountains of the cloud forests. But I figured I will have a cloud forest at some other time and didn’t stop.
Bocas is about an hour from the mainland by water taxi that costs $4. It originally was a surfer’s hangout but over the past few years’ tourism has increased. The two days I was in Panama City other tourist were freaking out that it was booked out.
Knowing how
these places work just because hostelworld or hostelbookers and others on the Internet say there’s no availability there is always extra rooms around, especially if you come a few days earlier than the big day. I could have tried the hostels but the thought of having to hang around surfers was too much.
I needed some space; I had just spent two months with the same person pretty much every moment of everyday. Although we didn’t have any problems for a generally private person (apart from typing up nearly everything that I have done for the past 4 and a half years of travel.) I do like a bit of alone time.
It’s a gamble because you don’t get the info as easily on where the parties at. But that was okay I wasn’t sure if I wanted to party it up anyway. I was way behind on this blog. With the states being so entertaining I was like 12 stories behind so I was on a mission to plough through as many stories as possible so that was my first few days here as the rain pissed down.
You know
typing out these blogs are not easy it is almost a job whilst you travel. But it is a good job to do when the worst thing over the past 6 months is an ordinary lonely Christmas.
Because of the rain it dampened my spirits but that could be because I was in desperate need of a recharge. So in the end I didn’t see much of the place. The one fine day I asked to go to the most popular beach but that was a $6 return boat ride than another $6 or so as an entry fee to the beach… I didn’t go.
Most of the mini markets here were owned by Chinese. It’s what’s so frustrating about these developing countries they don’t show the initiative and some foreigner comes in and makes a killing. Than they complain because westerners are profiting. I’ll let the photos do the talking from here. Slightly recharged, Costa Rica was next and it was time to make the most of the final 4 months of JP5.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.32s; Tpl: 0.02s; cc: 28; qc: 106; dbt: 0.1396s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.5mb
Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
Blogging is hard...
but your readers appreciate it.