Panama City!

Arrived here not a happy chappy! The bus trip was fine, but the bus was bumpy and the driver was speeding, so our lunch packet with carefully made sarmies, snacks and juice slid away never to be seen again. To make things worse, when we eventually did stop at the lunch stop, 4 other buses arrived and the queue was so long we got to the front of the queue as the bus pulled away. Rob gets madly grumpy when he’s hungry and we were both starving on a shitty bus with every tom, dick and harry listening to their repetitive latino music on their cellphones. Seriously people, haven’t you heard of earphones?!

Got to Panama and a super friendly policeman helped us into a taxi. We stayed at Mamallena Hostel, cheap nice and clean. We met some Dutch guys there and they were so excited we could speak some Afrikaans to them they fed us drinks and our shitty day turned into a jolly night!

Next day – shopping. My lens is smashed so we went to the big shopping centre, apparently Panama is cheap for electronics due to the canal bringing in all the imports. Robbie bought me an amazing lens, we got pepperspray, an excellent torch because I lost the one Dad gave me, and other supplies. That afternoon it poured with rain so we couldn’t visit the canal.

We were getting itchy feet to get to Colombia. South America is huge and we have been spending more time that expected in Central America. So, we woke up super early and got onto the oldest train in Central America – the Panama Canal Train. It’s gorgeous but has a sinister history as over 17,000 people died building it. It follows the Panama Canal, so we got a chance to see the massive cargo ships going through the locks. The Train was gorgeous and the scenery was stunning – birds everywhere, butterflies and even some terrapins.

The Panama Canal Train, going alongside the canal through stunning scenery.

 We got to Colon, which is a super dodgy town. It looked like the stereotypically dangerous ghetto you see in movies. Eish! We got a chicken bus to a town called Puerto Lindo where we could find a sailing boat to Colombia. We are keen to get to Colombia, so apparently looking for boats at the docks are your best bet.