Panama: Day 4 - Weekend off!

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Sailing Across the Pacific Ocean (Part 6)

Minnie and I are taking the next few days off working on the boat and are going to tour around Panama and stay at some hostels. They are only $10 a night here, incredible! We are thinking of heading to Boquete and doing some jungle hikes there.

We took a taxi around 4:30 from the marina and got dropped off in Colon to catch a bus to Panama City. The taxi driver stopped on the way by a river because he saw a huge crocodile there on the way to get us and figured we could get some pictures. The crocodile was gone though.

We arrived in Colon after 20 minutes or so in the cab. It is a very poor and run-down area, very sketchy. We got on our bus as quickly as possible and were off to Panama City.

Panama Bus Terminal

It was an hour and a half ride to Panama City, and our bus to David wasn't until midnight (we were taking the 'overnight' bus to David, which went from 12am to 6am). So we had a few hours to kill in Panama City and figured we'd just go to a restaurant or bar until it was time to leave. However, this quick stop in Panama City turned out to be quite the night. There was huge art festival/party in the park where we got dropped off.

Booze tents everywhere,

a fashion show,

communal art walls where you can just grab a brush and paint whatever you want,

I'm so creative.

a live rock band, etc.

It was a ton of fun and we didn't even want to leave when 12:00 started approaching!

Luckily, we taxied back to the bus terminal with time to spare, because it was kind of complicated getting on a bus, especially with a language barrier. You're not done once you've bought your ticket, you must also then buy a metro CARD for $0.25. I am not sure the logic behind that, but being unable to understand what people were telling us, it was hard to decipher why we weren't allowed on the bus. Someone eventually just gave up and let me through on their metro card, haha, probably felt sorry for me.

You have to pay to use the bathrooms at the bus terminal! (Roller Coaster Tycoon anyone?)

We slept for most of the bus ride to David, only to be woken at 3am at some food stop in the middle of nowhere. The food quality was questionable, but we were really hungry so we ate anyway. I ordered the cold chicken finger (note not plural, I only received one) and fries. Minnie ordered the leftover prison meat on a bed of microwaved minute-rice.

Here are some other miscellaneous shots from the art festival:

Panama: Day 3 - Bus Ride to Colon

We took a free shuttle to Colon (pronounced "cologne", not "colon") today that the marina offers. The city seemed a lot more safe than what people were leading me to believe. I couldn't understand the names of any of the stores though.

We did some grocery shopping. I couldn't believe how cheap rum was.

Tony the Tiger isn't so friendly in Panama.

They're grrrrrreat! YOU GOT THAT M$&%# F%&#*#@??!!!!

I may not have seen any sloths or jaguars yet, but I did spot one of the rarest creatures possible today.

A species long thought to be extinct.

Panama: Day 2 - Monkeys!

I got up nice and early this morning, and hit the gym before going on a run alone through the jungle.

I wasn't totally comfortable at first, it'd be kind of difficult running from a jaguar when you are already tired. I ended up not seeing much animal-wise though. I did see a really bright blue butterfly (Blue Verio?) and some yellow canary-looking bird.

I also saw a huge group of buzzards (I think) near the marina fighting over a what looked like a chunk of meat. I didn't go to close.

The morning was spent filling some unused screw holes in the transom with epoxy. We still have to fix the weather stripping back there, but need to wait 12 hours for the epoxy to totally harden in place. It was not easy getting the epoxy off my hands afterwards.

I went for a walk to the lesser-travelled abandoned military jail again, this time with Gary and Jan. We saw a TON of monkeys, fairly close this time too. It must be some sort of monkey territory, because this is the only place I have seen monkeys so far (And I've seen them both times I was there). Maybe it's a monkey prison?

Here is a better shot of that big-ass spider I saw yesterday. Same guy, same place.

I didn't know bamboo grew here, I always thought of it as an Asian thing.

It seems that the US military base is still somewhat in use. I guess they land here from time to time? This view had an eerie Vietnam-feel to it.

Panama: Day 1 - Jungle Walk

We found a disaster in our transom shortly after arriving. The transom bilge pump was broken, and the weather stripping wasn't installed correctly, so it was full of water. In addition, an oil bottle had leaked, so the transom and everything stowed within was just full of oily soup. The morning/afternoon was spent cleaning all that up and installing a new bilge pump.

Later in the afternoon though, Minnie and I went for a fun hike through the jungle! There was some insanely thick tall grass that I would never venture into for the life of me.

We saw some leaf-cutter ants that had an incredible system going that had workers cutting leafs into near-perfect circles, then a huge ant-highway that went all the way back to the nest. They had totally cleared out all pieces of foliage along their highway. It was incredible.

We found some remnants of the old US military base that was located here.

We also found some abandoned old barracks/jails from the base that had been partially re-taken by the jungle. It was incredibly spooky and reminded me of a deserted Jurassic Park with all the broken fencing and jungle noises in the background.

Not a good shot, but this spider was the size of your hand. (look dead centre of picture, then go slightly up and to the right)

Minnie braving it up some old stairs.

The trees here were really unique.

We ended up seeing some monkeys swinging in the trees, but I didn't bother taking any pictures of them as my GoPro does not zoom and there is no way it would have picked them up. I do have some video though. Other cool sightings include bats and those huge South American rodents as seen on Kenny vs. Spenny, I don't remember what they are called.

It only got creepier as the sun started to go down.

Isla Mujeres to Panama: Day 7 - Arrival!

Sailing Across the Pacific Ocean (Part 5)

We had dolphins swim up alongside our boat again today! There were about 6 of them and they didn't stay for long this time, but I immediately threw the waterproof case on my camera and shoved my hand under water and got a really good shot of them swimming! (coming soon to my youtube channel www.youtube.com/donjobs)

Panama came into view around 3:00pm today. There were a ton of huge cargo ships anchored as they waited to pass through. I found out it costs these guys a few hundred thousand to go through. It is costing our sailboat about $1000.

The fog started coming in as we arrived and made everything look really creepy. The cargo boats looked like huge ghost ships.

The docking went really smoothly. We are at a really nice marina with a pool and a GYM! Yay!!

Minnie was really excited to be ashore finally.

And obviously we had our arrival celebratory rum punches at the bar.