Panama
PANAMA | Saturday, 4 July 2009 | Views [215] | Comments [6]
So after delaying my reintroduction to the blog for a month now I finally plucked up the energy and gathered some lingering thoughts in my mind about what to write and came to a nice little internet cafe in a small town in Panama. After writing for about 35 minutes suddenly the page went funny and then closed. Aghhhhhhhhhhh im so angry that now im only going to put dot points of highlights so far. Mother be warned of numerous spelling mistakes and bad punctuation.
1. PLane ride where I got to watch three movies in a row without feeling guilty, that happens very seldom these days and I cant wait for the flight home.
2. San Jose, none really. Expensive and dangerous at night. However one shining light was meeting up with Tanya Kamowitz an old high school friend from INdonesia who I haven't seen in over 10 years. Wicked night which involved gossiping about old school mates...deaths, disasters, friends, fights, marriages, divorces, contacts and the whole shooting match. Tanya...you are awesome!
3. Puerto Viejo de Salamanica where we were charged 14 dollars for a tent in a refugee style hostel and then 12 dollars for two hammocks. clearly no highlight hmmmmm however Beth did manage to break the world record hammock sleep of 14 hours.
4. The border crossing into Panama across an old rickety bridge. good times.
Panama
1) seeing the famous (but by no means rare) red frog in Bocos Del Toro
2) Snorkelling off a point in Bocas and seeing three Stingrays.
3) Killing a stingray with a spear gun in honour of steve...very tasty
4) Learning how to cook coconut rice and beans taught by a Panamanian Hustler who had spent too much time in Vegas, "not too much coco andrew, you don't want to get the shits"
5) not sleeping in a hammock
6) Epic walks through the wildlife park watching lines of ants carry stuff 18 times their size, chatting with the toucans in the trees was fun too and of course trying to kill every mosquito that has ever lived.
Boqute... a small town south of the islands of bocos del toro and overrun by American expats who have retired there and bought up all the land with the sweet views. Regardless a great little spot and of course cause of the gringo invasion a very safe town. We choose this spot to do some much needed Spanish lessons. highlights include.
1) Using my brain again
2) 4 hrs of intensive Spanish a day and then 3 hours of study afterwards and still no idea
3) Going to the animal/bird sanctuary and playing with the local anteater and pretending to be pirates with birds on our shoulders.
4) Wicked walks in mountain fresh air.
5) two dollar meals of rice, beans, salad and chicken
6) A cold Bolboa Beer at the end of the day when you really have earned it hahaha
7) Getting a free upgrade in our pension because we were taking Spanish lessons, unfortunately the room we moved to had a tv with cable and so my studying dropped 3 fold hmmmm.
Panama City
1) Seeing the ticket guy on our bus cut sick at the mysterious person who took a dump in the bus toilet and stank out the bus for the 10 hr journey. translation...its not my job to clean out your kaka! very amusing, but even funnier when the mystery person went and did it again haha "if you are sick go to a hospital, if you cant hold on tell me and i will stop the bus"
It is interesting that in a foreign city the things that are the most intimidating when you first arrive are often the most useful and cheapest thing. This was the case with the local buses, affectionately known as the 'red devils.' These buses are spray painted with all sorts of crazy colours and most referring to some sort of western pop culture or sporting team. Big classic portraits of Harry Potter go zooming around the corner at top speeds, while the Barcelona Football team logo idly waits for the bus to be completely full before pulling away at frantic speeds. This was the welcome committee at the massive bus terminal in Panama city, 400 million crazy coloured buses hooting and horning and yelling at us to get on, no matter the destination. Although pissing down with fat rain we resisted the temptation to grab a cab and bags in hand jumped on a bus that we hoped would get us to the old town. It didn't, however did save us a couple of bucks on the taxi ride which eventually got us there! These buses were brilliant and at 25 cents a pop, saved us heaps of money and provided us with hours of thrilling entertainment.
3) Right, Casco Viejo. the old town. A suburd that back in the day during the construction of the panama canal would have been off the Hizzle! Massive beautiful old colonial houses that today are nothing but decayed old buildings that still resemble features of its old class. Some people cleverly have seized the opportunity and slowly these once amazing buildings at great cost are getting sweet face lifts. The Barrio is rocking though, full of life, history and cheap rice and beans.
4) Panama Canal. I could go on for hours about this marvellous and incredible act of human genius and engineering! It is astounding! Luckily for me, Beth read a 300 pg historical book about it and filled me in with all the necessary details that make this achievement even more special.
fast facts include.
average fee 30,000 us, most paid ever 200,000 us, least 36 cents by an american dude who swam the 80km in 1938
14,000 vessels pass thru the canal each year
a absolute shed load of lives were lost trying to build this thing, took over 30 years and caused a lot of head aches! If you have a spare 40 hours try reading 'A path between the seas'
Right, although expensive the train from PC to Colon was unreal. Followed the canal all the way up.
Colon. 6 bucks a night for a room with a broken bed was a bargain. Some cool old Spanish forts, some great history lessons from Beth about pirates and savages and some exceptionally good cheap fish would sum up Colon nicely.
Chitre. What is labelled in the LP as 'the interior' Chitre is a great little town that is still bery much dominated by the tradions and customs of the Spanish. Nothing much goes on here, shops, markets, shoe shiners eh gov and a plethora of cheap eateries. Beth and I were luckily enough however to be there during a couple of big Catholic celebrations. In the town next to us they were celebrating Corpus Christi and by the time we had got there, by the looks of things had been celebrating hard! So one sunday arvo we joined in the last of these C.C shenanigans and downed numerous cheap cold beers while music and dancing and straight rum drinking was going on all around! No religion involved really just a good excuse to get plastered and have a good time. Big groups of people line the streets with eski's full of rum and beer and food stalls everywhere selling meat and meat with meat in it and maybe some meat rice.
The highlight of the night was when i was wrestled to the ground by a group of scary hairy Panamanian women! At the time we had no idea what was happening, Beth just laughed and I just yelled 'no inteindo no inteindo' meaning i don't understand. Later we found out that on that Sunday it is tradition for women to wrestle men to the ground...i wasn't convinced though.
San Juan festival a few days later brought the same hilarity and joy. A sleepy town that erupts in pure brazen activities and drunkenness. The Afternoon sees men riding around the town on there huge stallions trying to out do each other with chest beating unlike monkeys in a forest and swiging rum straight from the bottle. Perched on the side with a couple of cold ones, we were entertained for hours until we were invited into the local pool hall for some cheap rum and sketchy conversations in Spanish with a few locals. Hours went by and amazingly we still spoke, me more so with my hands and facial gestures. After missing much of the festival we had come to see but no wanting to offend our new found friends we finally left only to find that the machismo had spilled out onto the streets from a bar down the road and the police had tear gassed them whooooooo. Obviously we ran to see what was happening, coughed a little, high fived, bought a beer from the guy who was still selling beers amongst the confusion (with a bandana around his mouth of course) and sat down at a nearby restaurant only to be serenaded by the local mobile Dj with English love songs. ANDDD IIIIIII WILL ALWAYS LOOOOOVVVEEEEE YOUUUUUU. What a cracking night!
And so a few more Panamanian wicked little towns later and more memories still we have arrived back into the comfort of Tanyas house in Costa Rica. On Sunday we head to Nicaragua for a month or so and then no one knows?? This political unrest in Honduras is very uncalled for and terrible timing on their behalf but we'll see what happens there. rightio lastly.
Things learnt so far.
.Contrary to some studies, watching latin american dubbed television does not help with learning Spanish.
.If you dont know any Spanish, getting drunk does not miracoulsly make you fluent. It does however allow you to say the words you do know louder.
.Eating bananas, white bread and white rice everyday will clog you up something chronic.
.1 in 2 photos on a digital camera is either crap or pointless.
. If you write to the lonely planet recommending a place or hostel you get 30% off a product from their website.
. If you chose to go on a long journey make sure your head is in a good place. The amount of day dreaming that occurs on long buses in astounding! Negative day dreams are horrible and so to avoid these have a plethora of 'im going to be a super star one day' day dreams up your sleeve.
Things to learn.
.Spanish
.How to ride a horse down a main street with a full plastic cup of rum and coke and not spill a drop. Mad balance skills!
Recommended reads
The mosqito coast by Paul Thearoux
Children of Cain. Violence and the Violent in Latin America by Tina Rosenburg.
till the next exciting adventure
good times and great classic hits xxx
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