Back in the city again... we spent the last couple of days driving. We drove across the isthmus from Panama City on the Pacific coast, to the region of Colon on the Caribbean. The driving was just exhausting. I don´t know the exact kilometers, but it´s not that far - maybe 80-100 km. The roads are terrible though, and as a result it takes forever. There were so many potholes and crazy stuff going on all around us. You have to be on your toes at all times. After two days of driving here I was just completely burnt out and last night I slept like the living dead.
We visited Portobelo (in the Colon province), a famed city for the yearly religious procession that occurs to visit the relatively small catholic church there to see the black Jesus. From what I was told, people make this pilgrimage with others lashing them and pouring hot wax on them the whole way. Personally, I think the walk there (from all over the country) in the intense heat of this place would be taxing enough without having people physically abuse you along the way. I guess I´m not all that masochistic. There are some old Spanish ruins of a fortress built to defend the Caribbean coast there. It´s very nice. But there is also a lot of poverty everywhere you go here, and Portobelo was no exception. It´s hard to see the way people live here. There are a lot of slums and it´s not very safe in a lot of places. In Portobelo we stayed at a bed & breakfast owned by a couple from France. It was built on a steep hill overlooking the sea. There was one main house and 2 small cabins. We stayed in one of the cabins. They were so nice, and our view was breathtaking. Unfortunately I did not sleep well at all because I was worried all night that the monkeys might break in, and every single noise on the tin roof startled me. The power went out (as is typical in that province - they lose power all the time) so we had no fan and it was swelteringly hot. But I should reinforce that the place was really, really nice. I realized that the rainforest is so noisy... there are a million animal sounds at night. Not like at home where you hear some crickets, frogs and that´s about it when you are out in the wilderness. In the rainforest (which we were surrounded by out there) there is a whole new shift at night - during the day it-s humans and other animals that make all of the noise, at night there are just as many to take our places.
The next morning we drove to the city of Colon. This is the ´free trade zone´on the Caribbean entrance to the Panama Canal. The city is very dangerous, so we only skirted it in the car with our doors locked. The reason for heading there was to visit the canal locks at the Caribbean sea at Gatun Lake. The lake is man-made, as is the whole of the canal. We watched a few ships pass through and were lucky enough to see an example of the largest ship that is allowed to pass which carries 5000 containers. It was from Holland. The ships have to pay tariffs to pass. The tariffs are based on the load of the ship, as well as its size. This ship was the heaviest load and the longest allowed. They had to pay $195,000 to cross the canal. The ships are pulled through the locks by these little engines on tracks using long cables. I have tons of pictures, so you´ll see. There are plans to widen the canal locks to accomodate larger ships which carry up to 8000 containers. I think they said the construction was to start in the next year. We were tired after the visit and so we headed back on the precarious drive back to Panama city which took several hours.
A few things to mention that I hadn´t in my last post... everyone here drives. Very few people walk. Nobody bikes (too dangerous with the traffic and too hot). Even those who cannot afford a car have one as they buy on credit. The taxis are ultra cheap - $1 to go most places, $1.25 if you are 2 people, $1.50 for further drives. So like us coming here to the internet cafe (only a couple of blocks from Lisa´s apt), we walked, but will likely take a cab home because it´s just too hot. They really like everything American - skyscrapers, products, fashion, etc., but they seem to have this love-hate relationship... everywhere we go we seem to get discriminated against because we´re ´white gringos´(americans). It´s kind of annoying. I got pretty pissed about it when returning the rental car this morning. They think anyone who is white is American. And you don´t get that wonderful big eyed smile when they find out you are Canadian. You are a foreigner, and you are white. That´s it. But otherwise, most people here can be pretty nice. I´ve had some really good fish here, but haven´t had much in the way of traditional food (really just rice and beans - and lots of meat). Like I said, loving to emulate American pop culture, they are into the fast food and what-not like crazy. Luckily Lisa has found several healthy restaurants that don´t fry every single thing and who actually don´t scoff at the sight of a vegetable. I´ve eaten some really great fruit here - the little bananas, the regular bananas, local oranges, mangoes are in season (must buy some), avocadoes are in season (ditto), and I´ve eaten a ton of coconut. It´s so good here! I even got to drink the coconut milk out of the fruit itself at the B&B two days ago. Yum!
Today we will relax in town a bit, and the plan is to fly to the archipelago of San Blas in the Caribbean tomorrow.
Ciao!
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