Panama

Lost and Found Hostel, Chiriqui
The border crossing into Panama was relatively painless but it still took a couple of hours of running around. Thank goodness there weren’t any lines. Our first stop after the border was a mall outside of David. We wanted to stock up on groceries but the supermercado was closed, so we ended up checking out some other stores to take advantage of the air conditioning for some much needed cooling off. Karen bought a few things and then found the deal of a lifetime...a pair of Teva sandals for four dollars, yah. It was strangely nice to be in a mall again, but we were soon off as we were on our way to the Lost and Found hostel north of David. We’d arranged to meet up with our shipping container buddy Maxim who was volunteering there. The hostel was located up in the cloud forest with nothing else around for miles so we made another stop at a grocery store and were impressed by the selection and prices of the food and alcohol, 35 cent BEERS and 2 dollar bottles of wine! What a relief after the prices in Costa Rica. After a long winding drive up into the mountains we finally reached cooler air and the base of the 15 minute hike straight up to the hostel. Hmmm, maybe we should have thought about that part before we went grocery shopping. We took our first load up and ran into Max. It was good to see a familiar face! Then we found out that the hostel was having the busiest night in their history, but luckily they managed to find us a bed. Unfortunately we had to go back down to the van so we could park it in a safe place and hike a second load of luggage and food back up the steep trail. The hostel was amazing!! It’s located near the top of the continental divide in the cloud forest with views of the valley and the country’s highest volcano. They have wild animals visiting night and day and humming birds that will fly right up to you. They even have a pet Kinkajou a “vegetarian monkey raccoon” that loves to be cuddled and bite Pete’s nose. Behind the hostel is a national park with a series of hiking trails that bring you up and then down to a secluded river with swimming holes and waterfalls. On our second day there we did a treasure hunt which involved hiking, swimming, river crossings and of course riddle solving. In the end we succeeded in finding the illusive one eyed monkey. Up until this point we’d been lucky enough not to share a room with other people, but because the hostel was so busy we were thrust into our first crowded dorm room. The first night we were kept up by a group in the lounge drinking and playing cards late into the night followed by the duelling snorers in our room. The second night there were a few less people in the dorm so we moved to the corner bed with a nice fat mattress. After hiking all day and having little sleep the night before we passed out early with ease and were sleeping soundly until we were woken up to some guy choking and spitting on the floor. We then heard him getting up and the sound of water running, Karen immediately sat up and asked him “Are you peeing? Are you peeing on the floor”? She jumped up, hit the lights, and told him to “get out”. He was standing with one leg up on a vacant bed (where we had slept the night before) over a puddle of piss denying what he had just done. Karen yelled at him to get out numerous times before he finally left the room. A little while later he came back and we then suffered through three drunken people’s snoring for a few more hours until we finally gave up and went to sleep on a concrete bench with the mosquitos. What an experience! The next night we were a little nervous, but the guy promised not to drink again and we ended up having a great night’s sleep. All in all the hostel was a great experience. Pete won a foosball tournament, we cooked up some amazing meals (good thing we hiked up all that food after all), met some great people and were able to hike around in the jungle. We spent three nights there and then left in a convoy with Max and another friend Itay to hit up another mountain hostel.

La Qhia, Santa Fe
We didn’t think anything could top the Lost and Found hostel until we showed up at La Qhia. The Argentinian-Belgian owners have created a beautiful and artistic getaway in a place where the climate is perfect. The four of us spent our nights cooking and playing dice and our days lounging around and going for hikes. One day we hiked up this insanely steep road and then scrambled our way to the windy summit of Cerro Tute. It was a great 6 hour hike that seemed to be up both ways. Not sure about Max’s ability as a guide, just kidding! We ended up spending 4 nights here as we were able to camp out and we were avoiding leaving this perfect climate for steamy and busy Panama City.

Panama City
We were hoping to ship on Saturday so finally on Monday we admitted to ourselves that it was time to get going and the four of us got up and convoyed out early Monday morning. It was a strange feeling passing over the Bridge of the Americas knowing that we were about to encounter one of the biggest road blocks on our trip and then be in South America. Neither of us could believe it was already happening and that we’d made it this far!! Somehow we managed to navigate the one way city streets without losing Max and ended up at our hostel where we had a 3 bed dorm for 4 people. It was really tight, but at least we all knew each other. The hostel was packed full of backpackers who seemed to sit around drinking, watching movies, and blaring music from their lap tops all day, not our scene but it was a place to sleep. After three nights Itay left and we got tired of the hostel so we moved down the street to a seemingly nice clean hotel with A/C and a T.V. for the same price of the hostel. We were enjoying our stay until one night at four in the morning an argument broke out across the hall from our room. We think a prostitute stole $2,000.00 off some guy, he was yelling, she was crying, doors were slamming until finally the police showed up and quieted it down. Definitely a bizarre experience. Our stay in Panama City was a bit longer than we would have liked due to the shipping process (see the section on shipping for more details) but we made the best of our time there. We seemed to keep getting sucked into air conditioned malls so most of our time was spent shopping (mostly for new sandals for Max), eating at the food courts, and finding a killer sandal deal for Pete. We also took advantage of the ability to go to a movie theatre and went to see Avatar in 3D. Awesome film! One day we ventured out to see the Canal, which was interesting but definitely not the highlight of Panama City. We also explored Casco Viejo, the old city, which is an interesting mix of rebuilt colonial buildings and decrepit ruins side by side. There is only a block or two separating the presidential palace from one of the worst ghettos in Panama City. Max wanted to take us to some cafes but he kept going in the wrong direction, we were first turned back by the police who said it was a “zona roja“ (meaning you would be lucky to survive your visit there), then we were turned around two other times by locals once again telling us how dangerous it was in that neighbourhood , finally we stopped following Max and found a nice cafe for happy hour. Finally the day came when Patience was off for Colombia and we could follow suit.

Goodbye Central America!!!

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