We got our first look at Panama this week, but it was via bus rather than by sea. We had learned that our best bet for finding a needed carburetor gasket was to try the Yamaha dealer in David (2nd largest city in Panama), and since we wanted to see this inland city anyway we decided to take a shopping trip via Greyhound (well, maybe not THE Greyhound). The trip to David would be two buses with a stop at the border along the way, and would cover about 90 miles of Costa Rica and Panama.
Tuesday at 6 AM we were ready. We waited patiently for the bus to the Panama border to pick us up on the main street in Golfito. And we waited, and waited. Around 7 AM a friendly Costa Rican passed by with the words “No bus, no puente”. For those of you who struggle with Spanish this loosely translates as “You’re out of luck. The bridge washed away last night”. Something to do with the rain. Undaunted we were back in place at 6 AM the following morning, and the bridge was back in place too.
The trip to David for parts is very much like pulling into Santa Cruz harbor and then heading for San Francisco (by bus remember) to find a marine store in a large, strange city. Throw in a couple of bus changes, and then a border crossing, and try to do it all in a foreign language. The border crossing was like visiting two DMV offices (Costa Rican customs and Panama Immigration) along the way to stand in one line, find you’re in the wrong one, find another line, fill out a form, go back to the first line, etc. In addition to all of the above NO ONE spoke any English at all. Nada. Could a German tourist pull this off in CA? I doubt it. But with a lot of questions and a lot of luck we got to the border, managed to check out of Costa Rica and into Panama, and then find another bus to David.
Panama was a very pleasant surprise after Costa Rica. Good roads, clean, great buses, and the stores turned out to be the best stocked markets south of San Diego. Even the razor wire and armed guards so prevalent throughout Latin America were missing here. Panama was indeed a pleasant surprise.
Panama also had a less pleasant surprise waiting. We had arrived in the middle of a huge Independence Day parade. None of those great stores (including the parts store) would be open until after the three day Independence Day celebration. Historical note: This was the independence from Colombia in 1903 when about 10 local guys got together and offered to take over Panama so they could sell Canal rights to the US for $15 million dollars. Since there were only 10 of them they needed us to send in the troops, and since you could only reach Panama by sea from Colombia our big battleship sailing into the Colon harbor sealed the deal. But the parade was great so we decided to make this a multi-day visit to Panama.
The parade consisted of many, many, many marching bands with many, many majorettes. White go-go boots with 3 inch soles are apparently still in style in some places. There were no vehicles or floats in the parade, just the bands with drums and bugles. We watched some parade, walked in the city, watched some more parade, went to lunch, came back and watched some more parade, checked into a hotel and then caught the end of the parade. We had first seen marching bands at 10 AM and the last band was still marching at 4 PM. David is about the size of Santa Cruz so where did all the bands come from? A very impressive display.
With time (days) to kill we added the town of Boquete to our itinerary. A few years ago AARP had identified Boquete as one of the top 5 international places to retire and we had heard it was a pleasant mountain town with much cooler temperatures. An easy, hour long bus ride dropped us in the center of a very nice community with coffee bars and hiking trails, and rain. We drank coffee and watched it rain for an entire day. It was a good thing we were in such a pleasant town. When we returned to David we learned that Boquete had made the national news because of the flooding in the town that day. We heard it was a remnant of hurricane Ida but it seemed like just another rainy day to me.
At long last the stores reopened. The holiday started on a Tuesday. Stores closed Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and then just to break up the work week they opened for Friday rather than making it long holiday. But Yamaha came through for us and the Super 99 market was open so we packed our parts and our supplies onto the bus for another ride to the border and back to Golfito, Costa Rica. Overall this was a great trip and we were very impressed with Panama.
The engines both work (first time we have had both engines working since Mexico), the boat is cleaned and polished, and after a relaxing Sunday afternoon at the bar of a first class hotel watching the NFL we are ready to leave Golfito. We checked out today with immigration, customs and the port captain, and paid our bill at the marina. The sail south (and east) will cover 400 miles and we will spend all of our time at anchor for the next 3 to 4 weeks. I suspect internet access is a thing of the past so if you do not hear from us for a while just assume we will be enjoying palm lined beaches and turquoise blue waters aboard our little boat. Either that or it will still be raining. J
Tom and Andrea
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