Considering ourselves as organized and structured people we have never thought about missing a flight because of our own stupidity. Well somehow we managed to be both sure that our flight to Sao Paulo leaves at 1AM on November 26th. Although thinking that it is strange to return the car a day before the flight, we walked to the beach and spend the night in a real nice hotel next to the airport. (http://www.jdvhotels.com/hotels/losangeles/custom_hotel).
We did already book a flight out of Sao Paulo and hotels. Our plan was to check-in in the afternoon but somehow Sonam had a strange feeling regarding the hotel reservation in the morning and we started to check our schedules…Half awake we discovered that we missed our flight as well as our booked connection in Sao Paulo. Really bad luck, also knowing that our US visa was expiring on that day and that we have to leave the country. So we rushed to the airport and tried to find the Copa office. The office turned out to be a closet but with a very friendly staff. After explaining and waiting she booked us on the next flight to Panama. The only thing was that the next available connecting flight would not leave before the 28th. Fine with us, especially as we did not have to pay for the rescheduling (apparently we did already pay the highest fee and she nearly laughed at us for paying so much in her opinion). Never been to Panama before and just the name sounds already promising, so off we go!
Panama is next to the Equator and has the according climate. Warm, tropic, and humid. Panama’s rain season lasts nine months, during three other three it rains a little bit less.
Panama City has become a modern, rising city with tons of new buildings. Apparently most these nice sky scrappers are empty but the flats are sold to rich Europeans, parking their money. The city has a nice public transport system and is now building a metro. The whole country benefits from its geographical joker, the Panama Canal. It does not only bring all kinds of goods to Panama it also brings tourists and more important, ships paying tolls to pass the canal. Since the afternoon of December 31st 1999 the Panama Canal is owned by Panama. Before it was owned and managed by the US. The US operated to cover the costs, but not to generate profit. Guess what? One of the first things the Panamanians did was to change the toll system. Now a vessel has to pay between 300 and 4000K to pass the 80km long Panama Canal. This sounds like a lot but it is still up to 10 times less than detour the canal. To pass the whole canal with the different locks it takes 8-10 hours. Currently they are building third looks to have space for bigger vessels and more capacity.
The construction of the canal brought people from all over the world to Panama and many stayed. Accordingly the population is very mixed. Not all of them live in the sky scrappers, the majority of these people lives simple, more traditional way. Part of that is to use a very typical means of transportation, the buses. Next to the new, cooled busses there are the diabolor rojos. Old American school busses pimped and now used as sort of a parallel and complementary transport system. Neither timetables nor numbers exists but they have little signs with their final destination and the bus guard yells their route.
You cannot be in Panama without visiting the Canal. There is a standard „hop on and off bus“ like in many other cities. This bus is the most convenient way to discover the whole city hassle free. But it costs 30USD per person, which is a lot in Panama. You have nice meal in a decent restaurant for 10USD. We went with the public buses and it cost us less than two dollars.
Miraflores is the main tourist lock and there is also a museum, a restaurant and sightseeing platforms. We were lucky that right after we arrived one of the biggest possible ships passed the lock. Maximum 2 feet between the ship and the sides of the lock. Since it is so tight, there are extra Canal captains, meaning that not the ship’s captain steers the big vessels through the canal but those specially trained ones. Apparently this is the only time the captain hands over the commando to an outsider during his trip.
The museum shows the history of the canal and how exhausting and genial it was to build it. The first attempt was made by the French and they lost over 20’000 men. The men died not only during the construction but also because of malaria and yellow fever. To avoid such a loss again the US did not only construct the canal but also set up also an infrastructure in Panama, like canalization and pawned roads, to minimize the diseases.
Since it was so easy to get there by bus we also wanted to go back by it. Arriving at the station we noticed that there were tons of people waiting. It seemed that there was no bus since quite a while. Finally one bus came and it was impressing to see how many people fit into a bus. Nevertheless we decided to miss the opportunity to hang on a mirror outside the bus and waited for the next bus. Before a bus could come we were could share a taxi with a local girl to the bus station, for the local price.
Regarding the hotels, all big chains are represented but cost accordingly. We stayed at the Autographa Lodge, a bed and breakfast. Nice rooms, great breakfast and a friendly host, taking care of whatever you need.
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