Across Panama

Hello friends! Panama City is a dirty and noisy city, it is always hot and humid here and you can smell all kinds of smells, but never good ones. But it is still an interesting city, everywhere you hear Latin American sounds. There are so many taxis here, it feels like 50% of the traffic consists of taxis, and they all honk as if each one wants to be the loudest. We've been honked at a few times already, I guess that's what every tourist experiences here, especially since we look like typical tourists. The locals are all a bit bigger, from what I've noticed the cuisine here is very greasy and people like to eat a lot.

Today is all about the Panama Canal, we're going with a private guide named Eduardo, he tells us about his city and the Panama Canal. He's throwing numbers around that could have come from the construction of the Great Wall of China, everything is just gigantic, especially the view from the Miraflores Locks, seeing an ocean liner being transported through them. We move on and Eduardo shows us more of his city, including a yacht harbor with a shopping center, apparently for the wealthy tourists.

Later in the day, we want to book a tour to the San Blas Islands, we already know the hotel price is a whopping 199 Euros. My good friend and loyal travel companion Rayk wants to hear the offer from our taxi driver George, so we meet in a restaurant with local cuisine that he recommended. The negotiations are long and tough, he doesn't reveal the prices right away, then he mentions 700 dollars and Rayk and I look at each other and say no. Eventually, we end up at 500 dollars, his offer is supposed to be individual and includes full board, but not in San Blas, in another place that is not so crowded yet. I say let's skip it, but Rayk wants to accept the offer. In the end, we agree on a day tour for 240 dollars. We set off the next day and pass by a place called Portobelo with an old fortress ruin, apparently where Christopher Columbus landed in 1502. When we stop, someone takes us to an island by the water, the place is nice but not San Blas like I've seen in the pictures on the internet, and they're still building here, probably for tourism. In conclusion, the locals here try everything to get the tourists' money out of their pockets. We decide to invest one more day of our limited time and book San Blas through the hotel for the next day.

The next day, we're picked up at 5:30 by a small man with a baseball cap and a big SUV with modern equipment, the car looks really expensive. We load all our equipment into the car and drive to another hotel, where a young woman gets in. We continue driving and stop at a supermarket, the driver says something in Spanish and the woman responds, then the driver gets out and we wait. The woman asks us in English where we're from, we answer and ask her where she's from, she says she's from Belgium. Then the driver comes back and we continue our journey, after about 2 hours we arrive at a kind of harbor, there's a lot of activity here, a fleet of SUVs and boats transport the tourists back and forth. A perfectly organized system for tourism. We take our equipment out of the car, then the things are brought to a boat in a wheelbarrow and loaded there, and then we set off. I see many islands on the horizon, I'm fascinated, I see islands with palm trees and golden beaches, with turquoise water in front... I must be in paradise. We approach an island that is completely covered with huts... a Kuna village, we stop and get off, a young Kuna man in shorts and a t-shirt welcomes us and proudly shows us his village, I am totally captivated by the atmosphere here, children play, some women wear colorful traditional clothing. The Kuna man introduces himself as Neigi, if I understood correctly, he shows us his house, a hospital, and a post office, then the tour is over and we are taken to 'our' island, where Rayk, the Belgian woman named Valerie, and I will spend the next 2 days. Time seems to stand still here, you can hear the palms in the wind, the waves crashing, and there are hammocks hanging everywhere between the palms. I grab a snorkel set and want to dive into the waves, when a Kuna calls out to me and points in 2 different directions, probably indicating the best snorkeling spots, then another Kuna runs past me with snorkeling gear and signals me to follow him. We arrive at a canoe, I get in and we pick up Valerie along the way. We go to a spot where there are huge starfish and shells, the Kuna dives down and brings up a big starfish and a huge shell and puts them in our hands. Then we paddle to another spot, he points down and we see a manta ray buried in the sand, as well as 2 passing turtles and plenty of different schools of fish, then we head back to the island. When we arrive, we have our first meal here, you can choose between squid or regular fish, freshly caught and served with coconut-flavored rice... very delicious. The following time flies by, we start talking to Valerie and she tells us that she is an elementary school teacher and will soon be working in Bocas del Toro for 6 weeks, her boyfriend works in Africa. We had a great time together, we lay in hammocks right by the water, Reggae music playing the whole time, and we saw a beautiful sunset, in the evenings we sat together, talked, and laughed. I watched the locals as they went about their work, fishing or loading coconuts. I once read that every tourist is assigned to a Kuna family and their island, there were 3 of us on the island... a little Robinson Crusoe feeling. Unfortunately, we also have our first losses to mourn, I left my power adapter in the hotel, the only way to charge my camera, and I left my dry bag with my action camera, flip-flops, and sunscreen in the car. One of the Kuna made a phone call and organized the dry bag for the next day, so at least the things were not lost. The next day, we took a trip to another island and then it was time to go back to the hotel, our hosts said goodbye to us and one of the Kuna men asked me if I would come back, I answered 'I don't know'. Unfortunately, there is also a waste problem here, just like in Panama in general, plastic waste is becoming more and more of a problem and it won't spare this paradise.

Our next destination was Bocas del Toro, an archipelago in northeastern Panama. It took us 11 hours to get there by night bus, booking was complicated because the lady didn't understand English. The bus ride itself was very exhausting and I could hardly sleep, the air conditioning was set very cold and I caught a cold. When we arrived at the bus station in Almirante, taxis were already waiting for the arriving travelers, they took us to the harbor for one dollar and from there the water taxi cost three dollars. A boy named Habiba supported us here, he took us to a hotel and organized everything else. Everything went so smoothly, you could assume that everything had already been booked in advance, everything here is perfectly tailored to tourism and nothing is left to chance. Bocas Town is very relaxed compared to Panama City, almost everyone here rides a bicycle. For the rest of the day, we took a recommended boat tour to a dolphin bay, a swimming stop, a monkey island, and 15 minutes of snorkeling, the boat itself was fast, I felt like I was on a speedboat in Miami Vice. In the evening, we went to a pirate restaurant with beautiful decor to fuel up for the next day, the departure to San Jose in Costa Rica.