Tales From the Chicken Bus

Day 88

I woke up this morning, used the far off shared bathroom and than returned to our 4 bed dorm room. I did this without losing any money and without being mugged. It was going to be a good day. Both Jordana and I elected to use her parents bathroom to shower in instead of the shared facilities. After washing up I headed up to the rooftop to meet the others for breakfast. “That’s my daughter. Daughter, DAUGHTER.” That’s all I heard from the kitchen, I knew I’d found Norm. The kitchen staff was surly to begin with, I interjected and told Norm she just doesn’t understand english, no matter how loud you say it. It Jordana and her mom were already up on the rooftop patio, where we all had a quick breakfast. Norm commented, “Its not as bad in the day light. When we got here last night I wasn’t sure.” Little did he know what happened yesterday in the daylight just down the street. Anyway, after breakfast we walked out to Avenida Balboa to catch a taxi to Panama Veijo, the old restored part of Panama. It felt strange to drive right by the spot I had been mugged just a day earlier.

We arrived at a main square in the old town which was surrounded beautifully restored buildings. The real attraction here is to just wander the cobbled streets and pop into a few colonial churches. It felt quite different to be walking around with two others travellers. Wait not just two travellers but my in laws, it was actually pretty cool to be showing them the way we travel instead of trying to describe things to them. So far I think they were enjoying it. We checked out a beautiful church, a grand colonial theatre and the Panama Canal museum. The museum was in a grand old building and looked excellent except it was completely in spanish. Hence all of us got little out of it. The U.S.A. Controlled the canal up until 1999, it made me think maybe they did the museum all in Spanish to get back at the English speaking gringos.

After a few hours of wandering the streets we stopped in a restaurant for lunch. Tasty fried fish for Norm, Jordana and I and chicken for the non fish eating Vikki. It was a beautiful patio and almost made me feel like we were in Havana. The old town has the odd street that looks like Havana but really it doesn’t come close to the Cuban capital’s beauty and grandeur. Norm and Vikki seemed to be enjoying themselves as Norm bought a baseball cap with a Panamaian flag on it. They also commented how it was nice to be doing all this without being on a tour. So far so good, and nobody has even been mugged today!

After departing the old town we headed back to the hostal to cool off in the a/c of Norm and Vikki’s room. Then we had a relaxing few hours on the patio drinking beer and wine. As night fell we wandered out to find dinner. Eventually we discovered Calle Uruguay, a trendy street with several bars and restaurants. This is the sort of place you either find good food or overpay for the atmosphere and get crap food. We lucked out and found a fabulous Spanish place with live entertainment, great food and great prices. I think the final bill was no more than $60 and that included a bottle of wine and a few beers. No to mention the complimentary sangria and desert. It was a great way to end Norm and Vikki’s first day here. Although its always a great end to the day when nobody gets mugged.

Day 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.