After the wonderful, relaxing and tropical day at star beach we switched hostels from sweet and quiet Coconut Hostel to the busy and chaotic Heike Hostel. Besides La Rocca Hostel in Buenos Aires (which comes as a close second) this was by far the busiest and rowdiest hostel of this trip so far. We could barely move around because there were so many people, also we got the last two beds in two seperate dorm rooms each full of eight others. We had bought dinner to cook but as soon as we checked in, the receptionist warned us that the kitchen was closing in five minutes because everyone was going out for Thanksgiving dinner. So Tyson ran downstairs to frantically prepare our food. Five minutes later a woman who was supposed to locking up the kitchen told us we had to leave. I will reluctantly admit that I lost it a bit on her saying that we had paid for access to a kitchen, we were not told prior to payment that the kitchen would not be open and that this sucked. She did not hide her frustration as she repeated that she had to eat her thanksgiving dinner. So I dramatically replied Fine! (while grabbing our food) we will just not eat tonight then! The rest of our stay she was very appologetic and kind to us. She waited patiently two more minutes while we finished cooking and it all ended peacefully. The next problem came when she locked all the doors of the hostel while we were still inside so we could not get out. Luckily we still had to eat, shower and settle in so after all of this the staff came back and were able to release us back into society. However the adventure still did not end here. Tyson and I proceeded to head to bed in our seperate rooms and I fell asleep quite quickly in my packed room. In the middle of the night I heard a deafening bang and suspected that one of the bunks had broken but I was corrected when I noticed a guy slumped into a ball next to my bed. He cursed and moaned but seemed to fall asleep in that position and I began to realize that alcohol may be a factor in the story. I tried to fall back asleep but it was difficult since he would sometimes swing his arm onto my bed or make indistinct sounds. I am not sure what time it was when he began puking his guts out onto himself repeatedly. At this point I was less than impressed with my roomate and snuck into the next room with Tyson. We had foreshadowed a problem so we had swapped room keys earlier in the evening. The next morning I was informed that this same gentleman proceed to urinate all over the room and had to have the assistance of two other friends to find his way into a bed to sleep off the toxins.
I did not sleep that night because I was worried that this guy was going to choke on his own vomit or if perhaps he was not intoxicated but rather had a concussion from falling. And then I wondered if I would have to do mouth to mouth on him because that would be gross. I mean, I suppose it would be my duty to try to save someone's life if they were choking and needed help but he had just puked!!! So I stayed awake reflecting on these less than pleasant thoughts. I realize now that if in fact any of my fears were true (which they were not) he would have croaked during the time I was debating it in my head.
The world of backpackers appears to be very small because we keep running into the same people in different countries which is not an easy thing to do because there are hundreds of hostels to chose from in each city. For example in Heike we ran into a group of travellers we had befriended in Ocean Inn Hostel in Rio. This has happened to us several times where we run into a couple that we recognize and it turns out that we had met them a few cities ago at a mutual tourist joint.
The next morning we woke up early and ate many many pancakes soaked with syrup. We also guzzled delicious local coffee and left for the day. We negotiated a with taxi boat driver to take us to a different island called Basimentos but instead of taking us right to the beach he could take us to the closest point for a discounted rate. How hard could it be to walk to the beach from there? Well pretty hard apparently! The first hour and a half of our journey was not too bad, we hiked in the jungle and on a beautiful beach called Wizard's beach. The sand was thin, white and warm on our feet. We were glad that we had opted for the option that included all of this. That was until we reached the muddy, stinky, insect and bug infested part. It will be hard to paint a picture of the disaster we caught ourselves in but I shall try. We started up the path that was muddied with a clay/poo type substance. We carefully manuevered in an effort not to get any mud onto our feet. Well that effort was short lived because this stuff was like quick sand. Before long we were knee deep in it trying to escape from large horse flies that were repeatedly biting us every few seconds. By the time we got to the beach we were covered in mud from head to toe in addition to feeling psychologically scarred with the knowledge that the "mud" was probably poo.
We spent the day on Red Frog beach, played in the waves and enjoyed the sunshine. I attempted to dread the frizzies out of my hair but my efforts were useless as usual. The water was warm and wonderful and many of the people we had met in the area showed up to the beach to hang out too. We also saw some sloths doing what sloths do which was pretty neat. We seriously considered taking a different taxi boat back to Bocas but we had promised our other driver that we would meet him in the place we were dropped off. He had even confirmed with us many times and insisted we promise him we would be there. So being the loyal people that we claim to be, we made the same trek back however we were quite late getting back because we stopped to take pictures of all the red frogs. The driver was exactly where he said he was going to be and had waited for us. So after he drove us back we ended up tipping him nearly the difference we had saved from not going straight from the beach...figures.
We rushed to grab our bags from storage and caught the ferry back to the mainland where we took a taxi to the bus station barely making the cut off for ticket sales. Here we anxiously waited while they fixed one mechanical problem after another before riding the delayed bus through David to Panama city. Along the way, the air conditioning on the bus failed so it became very hot and stuffy. So much so that a larger gentleman on the bus started screaming for air. It was fixed on the next stop and the rest of the ride went smoothly.
We got to Panama city at five in the morning with no where to go. As luck would have it a man and his young son who were sailing around the world asked us if we needed a place to crash for a few hours because they had rented a large room at a hostel. We gratefully accepted and took a cab to the hostel. The cab who had originally told us the trip would cost eight dollars dropped us off and asked for $32 saying he meant eight dollars each. Of course we refused to play the dumb tourist role (for once) and paid eight even and walked away. We slept in the room for a few hours and used the WIFI to plan our next move. Every hostel in the country appeared full, so we wrote down the address of one that looked good, strapped on our bags, thanked the sailors and began the ten km walk in scorching heat to our possible accomadation. It felt like we dropped more calories on this walk than we had consumed in the last month! We finally got there and lied about a reservation. It worked. It was a clean hostel in a convenient location with a decent number of other nice travellers.
After settling in and using the cold shower (when I complained I was scolded and told that cold water is better for you) we head out to explore our new little area of the world. Panama city is very distinctly split into an old part and a new part. The new part is very similar to New York city with modern and beautiful skyscrapers, millions of taxis, monstrous billboards, advertising TV screens, people in suits everywhere and an overwhelming number of American restaurants and stores. The old section looks like you would expect a third world central american country to look like with broken old buildings without windows, cats and dogs everywhere, covered in litter and people staring at us wondering what we are doing there. In the new part they have modern metro busses with air conditioning, clean floors and peace and quiet. The busses that Panama is famous for are the old chicken busses with graffiti all over the outside, blaring music blasting from the speakers, an interior lined with feather boas, leather and playboy stickers. The latter is the bus we rode even though they both cost a quarter each. The locals kept directing us to the nice metros and clean shopping areas but we kept being attracted to the chicken busses and dirty outdoor markets. The area we were staying in was in the middle of the change, basically we were on the border of the new side. So there were many tourists there in the day but you had to be very careful where you walked at night. We had a map that was labelled "safety" and "DANGER" although there were guards and cops everywhere redirecting us out of the dangerous areas. The first day we walked around the and saw the beautiful buildings and tourist shops. We also walked by an area that was blocked off and closely guarded. We began chatting with one of the guards who took a minute to warm up to us but we charmed him and he even invited us into the blocked area which turned out to be the president's home and office. The home was painted white and had a beautiful view of the city. There were also gorgeous large birds fenced off that he owns. The president's family also owns all the major grocery stores in the country among many other businesses. The guard also told us about all the foreign investments in the area from Mel Gibson and Madonna purchasing property here to the Trump hotels popping up. Panama city is booming with business right now and there are more jobs than people. There also have an intensive campaign going on with unbeatable incentives to get pension earners to move here. There are tourist discounts everywhere and the list of benefits for foreigners is lengthy. Property had gone from $200 a square meter on average in the city to $2000 in the last few years. In the rural areas property has also increased in value from $50 a square meter to $300.
Panama has three independance days, one to celebrate seperation from Spain, one from Columbia and lastly from the US. However the currency here is still US$. There are also two sets of police, one set dressed in black are only to protect the president. These guys work on land and water and air. There are also those who are dressed in green who are national police that work to protect the citizens and tourists of the country. There are also military present as well as private security hired by businesses and individuals. Panama has a major problem with kidnappings. The kidnappings occur for ransom and are often not reported due to fear and threats. There was one recent and very unfortanate case that was reported and became very public. Five children from the same family were kidnapped and held for 100k ransom. The family tried to come up with the money but could only come up with 40k before the deadline and all five children were killed in a brutal fashion. They were buried alive under concrete. Of course this type of dramatic event is rare and the criminal is now in prison but it was a very sad day for the country and the world.
After we visited the president's mansion we sat at the park (with ice cream of course) and watched some kids play a variation of baseball without any equipment but a ball. They had no gloves and used a stick as a bat, they only had two imaginary bases and all other baseball rules applied. It was neat because the kids were all ages and they played for hours, it was a nice change to the video games and laptops I am used to seeing young people engulfed with.
We also went to a fish market that was jam packed with people. We could not understand anything of what was being sold but we had to try it since everyone else was hoarding it like gold. It is called ceviche and its different types of seafood in lemon juice with spices, diced onions and peppers served with crackers. We tried the fish and the shrimp varieties which I enjoyed but Tyson preferred to snack on a snowcone instead. He had a couple of bad fish experiences in Peru that have not yet healed. The people selling snow cones walk around with a cart and a huge block of ice and syrups. They shave off the ice into a thin cone and load it with syrup for forty cents.
In Panama city the minimum wage earns you $250-$400 per month which many people make. This is an afforable amount to live off of in Panama if you know your way around (apparently). A receptionist at the hostel just bought a brand new house with a yard this year. It is very nice and modern place with a decent amount of space. It cost her $600 down and a mortgage of $70 per month.
We had to make it back to the hostel before dark because of the possibility of getting caught up in the "danger" areas. That night we met some wierd people at the hostel and hung out, hand washed laundry, caught up on skype and chilled. The next morning we attempted to head out to the Baha'i temple. We walked to the "Coca Cola" cafe bus station (a different one than that in San Jose) and tried to communicate in Spanish but after hours of trying that (amongst some distractions in clothing stores) we just ended us at a hindu temple with a distant view of the Bahai one in the mountains far away. Frustrated, hot and caught up in a severe downpour we walked back down the hill from the hindu temple paid another quarter each and tried again. This time we ended up a twenty minute walk from the temple which was quite acceptable considering our morning. We ignored the warnings to hire a taxi and walked up the steep mountain for our first view of the beautiful building. There were many tourists there who said they appreciated the peaceful nature of the building and visited often. We walked around the gardens and went inside for a long while. There are nine doors to the building as there are in all seven Bahai temples to represent welcoming. Panama was chosen as the site for this temple because Abdul Baha (son of the founder of the faith) said that Panama was to become an important country in the future contributing to more unified world by uniting the oceans.The temple is being restored, a commitee has been set up to prepare for the work as the dome top and structure of the building are difficult to work with.
At the temple we met other Bahai's who invited us to the holy day celebration. It is the ascension of Abdul Baha (son of the founder of the faith) so there is a prayer said at the time he passed away which is 1am. The meeting was to begin at 11pm and end around 3am but we were warned that it would not be safe for us to travel back to our hostel due to its location (Casco Viejo). They invited us to sleep at the temple instead. So we head back to the hostel to grab our bags. We had already paid for the night at the hostel so we tried to convince them to give us a refund which was difficult due to the language barrier. We finally agreed to transfer the paid night to the next night so that we could go back to the temple. By this time it was already dark and heading out with our huge backpacks was not the brightest idea so we left them in storage and carried our smaller night bags with us. We are lucky we did this because the trip to the temple was extremely dodgy and confusing all around. Many people first told us we could not get there by chicken bus or any bus. So we took a bus that said it was going to cinco de mayo which is a busier bus station with more busses but we stayed on this bus until its final stop in response to the advice from the people on the bus. While they were correct in that it got us closer to the temple it also put us smack in the middle of the equivalent to the Bronx, New York. We walked around with our tails between our legs trying to kill some time since the temple would not be open until 11pm. We began to walk what we thought would be a ten minute stroll to the temple but we were stopped by a concerned security guard who cautioned us against walking around the area due to thieves. He told his friends (another guard and an army guy) of our situation and a kind stranger gave us a ride to the temple gates (in the back of a truck) which in reality was a good 25 minute drive away. We thanked the driver and his family (who were all in the truck as well) and waited at the gates until someone opened them at 10:15pm.
This is where we met many new friends, all lovely people who welcomed us and made us feel at home. The meeting was lovely, we watched a video of the 41 conferences from last year and prayed near the temple. Then we had refreshments and said the Tablet of Visitation inside the temple. Soon after that everyone started leaving and we passed out quickly for the night. At 8am we woke up to knocking at the door and someone lead us to a huge delicious breakfast with ham omelettes, Panamanian fried bread, many types of fruit, cheese, deli meats, juices and coffee. We enjoyed breakfast with many of the volunteers who run the temple as well as some of the members of the National Assembly. It was very special. We were then invited to a picnic near a river by one of the families there. Even though we were dressed in the same clothes as the night before and did not have much supplies we accepted and drove with them to another city. The home was beautiful on three acres by the river and set up perfectly for a backyard barbeque with friends. We ate steaks, chicken, sausages, rice, salads, snacks, drinks and desserts until we couldn't see straight. Then we played Koosh ball and other board games that are native to Panama. The people we met were awesome and even invited us out to a movie for Wednesday night which we could not make because we were leaving back to San Jose. All in all we had a very nice time (despite the mosquito bites who again are very fond of our OFF) and were driven all the way back to our hostel which is very far from where we were.
Once back to the hostel we checked our mail which included an invitation from a couchsurfing request that we were invited to go stay with someone. There was a different guy at the reception this time who still did not speak English but somehow agreed to return our money for the night and we caught a cab to our new home for two nights. The couchsurfing host insisted that we should not pay anything over two dollars for the cab ride but of course we were charged four dollars because of the tourists-don't-know-anything tax. The couchsurfing apartment was nothing short of a brand new downtown high rise extravagance. We were on the twentieth floor with a full view of the city lights, air conditioning, washer/dryer, hot shower, internet, cable and all the perks that come with the high price he was likely paying. We had our own room and a brand new bed that we unwrapped ourselves. Our host was very kind and generous and made us feel right at home. It was a luxury to do laundry in an actual machine, have air conditioning not in the form of an old clunky fan, and cook in pots that did not have old food caked to the bottom. Overall it was a refreshing experience and we benefitted from the kindness and generosity of our host. The best part of the experience may have been the Raisin Bran cereal that included yogurt clusters, dried cranberries and almond slivers in addition to the usual raisins and bran. It was a memorable breakfast especially because we had to use his whole milk instead of our usual one percent stuff. Our host even leant us an extra cell phone that we used during our stay and offered to drive us around which we respectfully declined after hearing his horrific driving stories.
"If we are not happy and joyous in this season for what season shall we wait"
