Riot! Riot!
Day 101
Jordana and I slept in today till about 10am, enjoying our cool a/c room and taking advantage of the cable tv to find out what was happening in the world courtesy of CNN. Norm and Vikki departed at 6am and we didn’t hear a knock on the door if there was one but we were deep in sleep. On the Spanish CNN I caught a news segment that seemed familiar. Familiar buildings and familiar street names. Yep, that’s Panama City and unless this was old footage a riot was on in the city. It was almost if once we returned our rental car and Norm and Vikki left the real adventure for us had begun again. Once again our luck in Panama continues, although I have never been in a riot before so I guess maybe there was an experience to be had in this?
The riot was construction workers battling police. Apparently 2 days prior the construction union here held a protest over working conditions. With the huge building boom in Panama workers rights have seem to been put on the back burner in favour of quick development. So what happen was during this protest Police shot and killed 2 protesters. This obviously pissed off the workers and they have now started this riot. The main area of trouble was about 20 minute walk from us so it seemed safe to at least walk to our new accommodation. We walked out had breakfast and then walked 10 minutes to the hostel, so far so good. I couldn’t say the same for our room. It was so small all that it had was a bunk bed, you couldn’t fit anything else in the room. No windows and the so called a/c was really just a hole in the wall with a fan wedged in it that sucked the a/c cooled air from the dorm room next to us. Well at least it was cheap.
The big plus of the Voyager hostel was the neighbourhood it was in. The main street Via Argentina was lined with great bars, restaurants and a beautiful park. The street was also covered by huge trees offering plenty of shade, a rare thing in Panama City. We found a cool cafe and stopped in for coffee and the biggest maybe best chocolate chip cookie I have ever had. Decisions, tough ones had to be made. Sailings to Colombia just weren’t happening and of the rare ones we had heard about it sounded like hell. Huge swells and sick passengers and of course the 2 boats we were told capsized. It was one thing if the sea was a bit rough but even if we could find a boat it just didn’t sound safe. So in case you are wondering why we are so intent on taking a boat I will explain.
The Panamerican Highway isn’t really one highway but a series of them. From Alaska through Canada, the U.S.A., Mexico, Central America, South America and then ending at the tip of Argentina. Several roads combine to form the Panamerican, over 33,000km of road. That road is unbroken except for a few hundred kilometres between Panama and Colombia, the Darien Gap. The Darien Gap is a large area of primary rain forest, thick impenetrable jungle, mountains, heat and worse of all drug runners and FARC guerrillas. Not to mention the other right-wing paramilitaries in Colombia. So this is where the Panamerican ends, only to restart again in Colombia. Some tourists have tried to cross on foot and most who have attempted it have been kidnapped or just never heard from again. Every time we mention to someone that we plan on going to Colombia from Panama they always say, “but surely not through the Darien?!” So now you know why the boat to Cartagena, Colombia is such a big deal for us. My dream, our trip of overlanding to the tip of South America is in doubt all because of rough seas. Over coffee we decided to wait one more day before looking at flights to Cartagena, Colombia.
That evening after dinner we stopped by the park near the hostel. A band had setup under a small band shell and about 100 people gathered around on blankets with candles. It was a beautiful scene and quite different from the usual Panama City nightlife scene of huge, overpriced clubs. The band was pretty good as well. It felt like a warm summer night at home sitting in a city park, I think it made us both miss home a bit. I fell asleep that night hoping somehow we would find a way to Colombia without flying, when would we ever get the chance to overland from Toronto to the tip of South America again? I always hate when people say it but it may have been true this time, this really did seem like a once in a lifetime chance.
Tags: Panama
Michael Coroneos
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