dare2go

Panama (& the Panama Canal)


Typical Comic Airbrush Art on a bus in Panama City

Continuation from < Page 1 < !

Panama City will stay in our memory with the unpleasant experience of slipping over during pouring rain in a mess of spilled, stale cooking oil on the pavement outside a fast food restaurant at a service station. I was heading back to the truck, after using the bathroom and buying cigarettes for Juergen, when the rain started to come down very heavily - I didn't notice the mess and took one step and then fell. Juergen jumped out of the truck to help and fell after two steps in my direction. Our clothes were saturated in this foul smelling stuff and totally ruined. It would take us at least two hot showers before we could get the smell out of our skin and hair. The restaurant didn't want to do anything for us, and the police who came by were somewhat embarrassed that they couldn't do anything. They advised that we could take it to a magistrate but of course that would all take time that we didn't really have. Juergen fell rather hard on his coccyx, and it is still causing him some pain almost 2 weeks later. I fell on one knee, and that is still blue and purple.
We were very lucky that we weren't more seriously hurt and, as we stood there trying to get some sort of compensation for our clothing from the restaurant management, we watched a number of people barely avoiding the same fate. It was disappointing to leave our ruined clothes behind, but it was slightly alleviated by the fact that we had just that morning found a 'reject' shop where we had both managed to buy some new clothes at very cheap prices. They didn't replace the ones we left behind since both of us were wearing favourite T-shirts and Juergen's shorts were new.
One thing I really wanted to see was the Panama Canal and I wasn't disappointed. It is truly an engineering wonder that this canal was cut through the mountains. Now, with a series of locks, huge ships are lifted up on one end and lowered again at the other to be able to cut through between the North and South American continents. We spent several hours at Miraflores, waiting for the first ship of the afternoon to come down the canal - in the morning they go up the canal, but we were too late to see any of them go through the locks. We had seen them further up the canal where we had breakfast near to where we had parked and slept. First we saw a couple of yachts and tourist boats pass through the locks and then a Panamax container ship. These ships are built to the maximum size that can pass through the locks - with a mere 2 feet clearance on either side. That is really not much considering the size of the ship. It was certainly an amazing sight to see. Unfortunately this visit will also stay in my memory as the place I lost one of my favourite earrings. I had bought them in Jerome, Arizona as a memento of the old copper mining town turned artists' centre.
After seeing the canal in action we headed west again - towards Costa Rica. We made it to the trailer park in Santa Clara and decided to spend a couple of days there. It was certainly not as pleasant as the beach balneario since it is almost next to the highway, but the camper battery needed a boost from mains power and they had really good Wifi available. I managed to make contact with my family and organise some things for my trip back to Australia. The second day there it rained all day, which wasn't a problem until we were ready to leave next morning, and our wheels would do nothing but spin on the grass. Before we got completely bogged the owner came out with his pickup and some rope to pull us out. After a bent bumper bar and broken rope, he was successful and we were on our way.
Our goal was Boquete, which sounded like a really nice, forested place in the mountains. Late in the afternoon it became apparent that we weren't going to make it that day. I searched our list of places other travellers have camped and found coordinates for Playa Las Lajas. It was a bit of a drive from the Pan-American and the road was pretty bad, but we made it well before dark - always our aim, although we're not always successful. While looking around for a place to park, we talked to a German guy who pointed us in the direction of a place up the beach where he had seen some other travellers parked - in a Landrover. It turned out to be Gill, Paul and Eliot and we were very pleased to meet up with them again.
It was Christmas Eve and we had planned to drive on the next day - we don't usually take a lot of notice of Christmas. But we decided to stay and spend the time with them. Christmas is really for kids and Eliot made the day something special. He was so excited about all the presents Father Christmas had brought him and wanted everyone to play with them - on his terms, naturally. The water pistols were especially good fun for the adults. Luckily Father Christmas was clever enough to provide two of them!!!
Boquete was a bit of a disappointment. It is a nice enough town and the temperature is very pleasant this time of year because of the altitude, but it is another of those towns you find in Mexico and Central America, that is more Gringo than native these days. We went to a hotel known to have parking for campers and the woman wanted $15 just for us to park for the night - no other facilities. We then tried the tourist office for suggestions. It was just closing and I asked the woman on her way out for somewhere we could camp. She sent us to Mono Bajo - sounded like it was just out of town. After heading in the wrong direction, because she didn't seem to know her left from her right, we found the right direction and drove and drove, up and up a narrow, winding and very steep road, right to the back entrance to the Volcan Baru National Park. Despite her assurances to the contrary, there was absolutely no even vaguely level place for us to camp. There were also police and army personnel everywhere because there had been a plane crash nearby. So, at almost dark, we had to drive and drive, down and down, until we found a level place next to a river, which we had noticed on the way up. And the positive point in this day was a local man stopping by and pointing out his house so that if we 'had any problems' we could come to him.
Now we just wanted to check out the Caribbean coast and then cross back into Costa Rica. We had been told that there was a road through Caldera which would take us to the highway that runs north to the coast, and that it was 'new and very good'. Obviously the Dutch who told us about it had never driven further than Caldera! Soon after it turned into a rocky road which took us several hours to traverse at very low speed, and mostly uphill. When we finally reached the highway the views were definitely worth it. The scenery was lovely - very green, tropical rainforest with enormous cycads, tree ferns and palms, amongst other things - but coming down out to the mountains our park brake got jammed and from then on until we got it repaired the next day the truck had to work very hard and used a lot of fuel.
We spent the night on the coast at a small village called Punta Robalo, about 6 km from the main road. The locals were a little shy but very curious. Finally one family found the courage to come to the back of the camper and I invited one of them inside to look. The young girl was fascinated and kept saying that it was beautiful.
We drove on fairly early and got the brake fixed in Changuinola, just before the border. As when we had arrived, and experienced many times along the way, we left Panama in an absolute downpour. The border is a river and the crossing is a very narrow bridge converted from an old railway bridge. We had crossed a similar one just before Changuinola and neither of them felt very secure to me. But we survived to tell the story.


 
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