Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Day 129 - 134 (July 21 - 26) Panama City...again

Day 129 - 134 (July 21 - 26) Panama City...again
Thinking back on these six days, I am not really sure what I did for the first part. To get back to Panama it was another pair of buses (diablo rojo from Boquete to David - ~$2 and Express from David to Panama ~$15). All in all about 10 hours, so I was pretty spent by the time I got back to Ramon's.

To digress -
diablos rojos are the local term
for the buses in Panama. There is no public transport per se, people buy a bus and a route. The buses come in different shapes and sizes but one thing is constant, they are generally customized... There are little 20-30 passenger ones and then the old converted school buses - some still with the district visible on the side. The school buses tend to be al decked out - lights, special paint jobs, fancy stereos - like a discotheque on wheels! (I didn't get many real good photos so some of these are from the web).

My cousin Laura, who currently lives in Miami, was in town for about four days. I had never met her before, only talking to her via email. I met up with on Saturday and we
went down to Casco Viejo for a drink or two. It was good to finally met her and all. Sunday I went with her and one of her friends out to Isla Grande on the Caribbean coast near Colon. It was one of the
places I went to 9 years ago on my first visit. Its a cool little island with decent snorkeling and good times. However it rained most of the day so we sat on a dock and had a beer and some lunch. That night she had a few of her friends over to have dinner before she had to go back to the US.

Monday I was going to try and get the overnight bus ($23) from Panama City to Bocas del Toro, but once I got to the bus station, I found out that the bus was sold out. I could either take the bus to David and get another bus to Bocas or get a flight. So I went back to the apartment and booked flight into Bocas (~$100). for Tuesday afternoon.

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