Yep, Thats a Knife!
Thursday, January 31st, 2008Day 87
Why must all overnight buses be chilled like ice boxes? If you have travelled and taken an overnight bus you know what I mean. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world the majority of overnight bus trips are frigid. We were warned by locals, we were even warned by the porter at the bus station. The bus will be “muy frio”. We thought we were prepared with our sweaters, socks and sarongs for cover, but when we saw the Panamanians boarding the bus wearing winter jackets I knew we were in trouble. Do you know how odd it looks to see someone wear a big puffy coat in 35 degree weather?
We arrived at Panama City’s airport like Albrook bus terminal around 6am. Even though we had very comfortable seats neither of us slept much. The bus was easily the coldest we have ever been on. Bone chilling cold, it has never felt so good to walk into 30 degree heat and humidity at 6am. We easily grabbed a taxi and made our way through the empty early morning streets of Panama to the Hostal Balboa Bay. We had booked Jordana’s parents a double room and we were going to stay in a dorm since it was much cheaper. The hostal was an OK place, although for $44 the double was overpriced for what it was. Also our dorm room was a small room with windows all around and glass doors. No privacy here and the bathroom was in another dorm room, just stupid. We couldn’t complain much since its carnival we were lucky to get a decent room.
After some terrible breakfast at a so called Greek restaurant we headed back to the Hostal for some rest. I don’t nap so I was just going to work on the blog while Jordana napped. We used Jordana’s parents room as it had a/c and a nice big bathroom. After about an hour I got bored and went to wake Jordana up and go explore the city. She wasn’t having any of it so I told her I was off to snap a few pictures of the skyline. Panama City has been compared to Miami, although people joke more English is spoken in Panama. The skyline that has been built and that is constantly expanding along Balboa Bay is impressive, its huge. Mostly very expensive condos and a few office buildings, the city and country for that matter is booming.
I walked about 200 meters down our street to Balboa Avenue, the waterfront avenue that has a large pedestrian walk along the sea wall. I wanted to get a good shot of the skyline from a park that juts into the bay here. The park was closed for construction so I walked no more than 5 minutes more and snapped my 2 pictures. Up ahead I saw a bus stop with a few people and two guys who had just run across the road. I turned back for the walk to the hostal. 30 seconds later I heard someone running behind me and then, “Camera! Camera! Camera!” I think it was the third camera yell that I saw and felt the point of a knife put to my stomach from the short guy on my right. On my left was a tall man who mumbled something, not sure what language. “OK, OK.” I said as I pulled the camera from my pocket. The tall guy took it and they rushed off across the street. I was in a bit of shock when I heard screeching tires and then looked to see the short guy rolling as he got hit by a car. I just stood there unsure of what to do, he just popped up and continued to run. That’s when it donned on me what happened, all our pictures from christmas day till now, the majority of Central America gone! I then began to yell, “the memory card! tarjeta!! I will give you $100 for it!!!” They were long gone.
After all the dangerous cities we had been to this happens here in Panama City at 1:30pm on a major street. Panama City is one of if not the safest Central American capital. I walked back to the hostal pissed off. This is my first mugging. Its a strange feeling to have a knife pulled on you and put to your stomach. However I can honestly say it happened so fast that I was and still am calm about it, really strange. It was as if nothing happened. I returned to the hostal and just stood there thinking about all our pictures that had been lost. I love to take photos, we both do and we had some incredible shots on that memory card. Shots of us climbing waterfalls in El Salavador, hiking cloud forests in Honduras and best of all some fantastic shots of howler monkeys on Ometepe. Everything gone. Jordana woke up and I just stared at her speechless, I broke the news and she was of course more concerned that I was OK. It was a frustrating feeling, I kept thinking that I should have done something.
Soon enough we were joking about the camera, trying as painful as it was to forget about the loss of photos. We walked to downtown Panama City, went into a camera store and bought the exact same camera that we just had stolen. Only difference was it was silver and the stolen one was blue. It made me feel a bit better, almost as if we just lost the memory card or something. Still I was a bit more on edge every time we passed by a suspect looking person.
We had a great vegetarian dinner that night and then walked back to the Hostal to wait for Jordana’s parents (Norm and Vikki) to arrive. Their flight due to arrive at 11:30pm and with Tocumen Airport 35km away they wouldn’t be here till well after midnight. We had gone out and bought some beer, wine and snacks for their arrival. Sort of a welcome drink, just like the kind you get at a resort. You see Norm and Vikki haven’t ever done the independent travel thing, so we tried to make it as comfortable as possible. Were they going to OK with a bit of roughing it? We sat in the common area watching some terrible made for tv American movie about a boy with AIDS. I guess it could have been good but riveting it wasn’t. Finally close to 1am a white SUV taxi pulled up, the in laws have arrived.
It was fabulous to see them after almost 3 months. Although it didn’t feel that long. I’m not sure what they thought of the place, it was dark and late. We sat in their room for close to an hour talking and having a drink. We didn’t mention what had happen to me earlier that day, could you imagine there reaction? “Hi mom, dad. Welcome, oh by the way Michael was robbed at knife point today”. Nope, that story will have to wait. We were all exhausted from long days and headed off to bed. Tomorrow the sun would rise again and hopefully our luck would change with it.
Michael Coroneos