Panama

So the flight to Panama City was quick and painless (we even got a small lunch, which was handy as we'd used up all our Colombian money buying the cheapest snacks we could find from a street seller outside the airport in Cartagena).

But there were huge queues for getting through immigration once we arrived, which is always annoying (although amazingly on this trip, after 17 countries, it was the first time we had major queues). In fairness they had a lot of immigation staff, and the passport check itself was very quick, so I think it must have been a case of a lot of aircraft arriving at the same time.

But after that and getting our bags, there was another queue to get through security. When we asked at information for how to get a bus to the centre I really started to get annoyed. The girl there basically refused to tell us, instead telling us, repeatedly, that we must get a taxi as it was now dark and far too dangerous to get the bus. We asked again at another information desk, and were told the same thing, and so I got really annoyed! We had a quick look outside the terminal for the bus stop anyway, but it wasn't obvious, and so in total fustration I finally relented and just got a taxi.

Most taxis here are collectivos, where 4 or more people share a single taxi. So we agreed our price with the driver and got into the people carrier with 3 other people. They were all business men, and 2 of them were clearly confused by the 'collectivo' situation, as one of them thought he was getting a personal taxi, but he stayed put anyway. He paid significantly more than he should have too, so he really got ripped off.

Anyway, we got dropped off at a hostel recommended in the guidebooks, and it turned out to be fine (Hostel Colon). It was in the old part of town, and in it's hayday must have been a beautiful large old building with nice Spanish tiling, but now it's all quite run down really. The whole old town is undergoing extensive renovations as Panama's economy booms (the new town is chock-a-block with massive sktscrapers).

So the next day we got up early to get to the Panama Canal. We strolled to where the guidebook said we could get a bus, a major junction, but it was all mad confusing. Asking a local guy (always a dodgey thing to do), we ended up going to the main bus terminal and having to get a connecting bus. It menat we got delayed, but at least we could checkoutbusoptions for our onward destinationin Panama.

When we arrived at the canal we were just in time to see the last of the morning ships passing through the locks (they pass in the morning from 9am-11am, and then again from 3pm-5pm). So to see the ships passing properly we needed to hang around for the whole afternoon. I didn't mind as the museum and video were both quite good, explaining the history and how the whole system works, and the massive $5billion expansion plans.

When the ships started passing through again we got to see a tanker, a cruise ship (the Rotterdam) and a huge container ship - 3 of the 4 main types of ships (the 4th type being grain ships). For me the most impressive thing was the scale of the ships themselves - the cruise ship was paying $140,000US, $120US for each passenger, just to pass through the canal. But the whole setup is all very impressive too, although strangely quite and relaxed looking. It all seems to operate like any canal lock system (such as those on the Shannon), and seems equally slow but just on a much larger scale. There seemed to be very few people needed to operate the whole thing.

The next day we explored the old town properly. It was all much nicer during the day of course, not as intimidating as when we'd arriving at night. When all the renovation is complete it should be a really nice place (right now it reminded me of Havana with all the lovely old buildings crumbling to pieces). There are already quite a few nice restaurants about, and we had a lovely lunch before heading up to the new town to have a wander. The traffic was terrible though, so we didn't have much time before heading back to the hostel.

As we approached the restaurant we'd been to the night before (the Coca-Cola Cafe, a famous cafeteria place full of colourful locals and good cheap grub), we noticed the main door was closed and a group of people had gathered around looking at something. It turned out that someone had been shot about an hour earlier in a robbery. We could see the body on the ground and the police and ambulance people milling about. It turned out the cafe was open, so we went in another door and just had our dinner, occasionally looking out the window at the scene of the shooting like most of the locals, who seemed to be fairly used to this kind of thing. Then it was around the corner back to our hostel for the night - apparently our neighbourhood is quite dangerous!

Next morning it was time to move on and hopefully get to a place called Boquete towards Costa Rica.