So I quit my job and came to Panama... why not?!
It was a strange feeling checking into the airport to start this trip. I had been feeling scared about coming here - partly because I read all about the bad things that can happen to you here, partly because I was traveling with very vague plans and partly because I am traveling on my own. But, checking into the airport I suddenly remembered the feeling of freedom that comes from traveling without knowing exactly where you are going or what you are doing. Is good!
The first stop was Panama City. To sum up the city, which I knew very little about, it has many hints of foreign influences (due to trade and the canal) but it is still very Latin American. My first morning out I was reintroduced to driving in this part of the world, by a taxi driver who was big on swerving between cars - not to get anywhere sooner but just for the thrill of fitting between the smallest gaps possible at high speeds. I saw another taxi with a 'Michael Jordan' sticker on his windscreen at eye level. What the?
Getting around, I am never really sure if a bus is taking me to the right place - thanks to my poor Spanish. Locals are always very very helpful, but often that is not enough to get around my poor Spanish. I was standing at a bus ¨terminal¨ (they call it a terminal but actually it was just a block or two with lots of buses going past) looking lost, when an oldish guy asked me where I was going. He said that my bus wouldn´t stop where I was waiting and pointed me towards another street. I said thanks, but he proceeded to walk with me and hop on a bus with me and escort me to another bus terminal and put me on the correct bus. He went out of his way by about half an hour and paid 2 bus fares to help me get where I was going.
I have met some great people in hostels too and about once a day get invited to travel with other people. I was even invited to catch a boat to Columbia with a group of Swiss people I met in a taxi. Two days ago I met an 82 year old backpacker. She's been doing it every year since she retired and really is backpacking: catching buses with the locals, hiking, staying in dorms and turning up in cities without a hostel reservation. Yesterday I met a guy who found he had to work longer and longer hours and couldn't spend enough time with his 10 and 13 year old. So he quit and took his wife and kids traveling to Panama and is looking at a job here in organic farming. Today I met an American guy who didn't like the ethnocentricity and materialism of living in America so trained as a scuba instructor so he could travel... and has been in central america for the following 21 years.
I've seen some cool birds, monkeys, leafcutter ants (the ones that cut down leaves and carry them home) and some spiders in the wild... and some vines that were perfect for some tarzan action. In the zoo I've seen tucans, very playful capachin monkeys (one lunged at me because I was too close to the cage) and a ridiculously large owl (aka a harpy eagle).
I hiked the Quetzales trail today (it's in the mountains in the west of Panama) but didn't see any Quetzales birds. Possibly because we got lost where the trail disappeared under the remains on a big landslide and spent most of the time on the wrong trail.
There was an earthquake here last week, but not much damage.
