The rain came to Bocas del Toro, pounding hard and relentless. I knew it was time to travel, I just wasn’t quite sure where. I felt like I should be heading toward Panama City but I didn’t quite have a real grasp on the distance and the suffering involved in completing the journey there.
I got on a boat out of Bocas in the morning made it back to Almirante and onto a shuttle bus to the city of David. I have had some really positive experiences on the Toyota Coaster shuttles up to this point. This bus driver seemed to have an agenda of rage and forced a very loud medley of accordion music on us. I was frightened at first that I might lose my mind, but after hours of mind numbing ear splitting music I moved inside my body and found my happy place.
Once you disembark the shuttle bus you are immediately bombarded by cab drivers trying to convince you of the necessity of their services. The only way I have found to combat this overwhelming pressure is to apply specific pressure right back.
First things first;
“Is your cab the best?”
“Oh yes best.. very best..muy bien driver.. best yes yes”
“well do you have after market rims or a turbo or something, this guy over here says he is the best?”
“yes very nice tires good silver tires big good”
“not tires rims man, you have spinners on your cab or what?”
“yes reeems, and tires are very good, come on, vamos, hurry”
“What’s the hurry this guy says he has a pick up truck”
“No truck is muy carro, mi taxi is Buenos”
“What kind of car is it?”
“ yuanday, is a yuanday”
“Yuanday?? What the F is Yon-day?… Oh Hyundai?. Uh no thanks I am going with the truck, this guy promised to play Bachata music and he says he has lots of tassels whatever that means”
“No, he is peligro, no safe in truck, mi coche is muy bieno”
“lo ciento, bro try the other gringos they look like hyundai people”
If you weed through the mass you can really get into a nice ride. This truck did in fact have plenty of tassels and a brightly painted dashboard. Plus I alleviated the accordion poison in my brain with some sweet bachata music.
In the city of David there were no more buses leaving to Panama City that night and I was forced to hole up in the Purple House Hostel. Yeah its one of those places you walk into and say “Dear Barbara”. It had all purple walls purple dishes, purple beds, purple floors, and a purple dog to go with it.
A morning spent in the bus station with an half assed American breakfast got me ready for the long jaunt down the road on a sweet Mercedes Benz coach supposedly going direct to P City.
Just outside Santiago the sweet motor coach experienced a catastrophic failure. The driver and a few other mechanical individuals decided to get out and try to correct the problem.
I am not much of a mechanic, but when the captian explained to me that they would fix the bus here and continue on, I knew we were in for a long long possibly 2 day wait. The port side shackle had exploded letting the leaf springs swing like machetes ripping the air bag and the air brake (S Cam) . There was no possible way this thing was getting even the parts within the day.
I felt as if this was a subliminal message to me not to go to the polluted city of Panama so I jumped the next overcrowded taxi back to Santiago. This city of Santiago is a banana boom town with few attractions save a child being attacked by birds and a girl bungee jumping from the side of a hotel.
From the bus station in Santiago, I purchased what I thought was a direct ticket to San Jose Costa Rica. It turned out to be directly to the border of Costa Rica where I was stranded once again. I rode a variety of old coaches dilapidated school buses called rojo diablos (red devils) to complete the 10 hour journey to San Jose.
San Jose back to Tamarindo was another never ending bus extravaganza which almost killed everyone onboard of heat exhaustion during a 30 minute wait in a construction zone. There is no way to move around the bus, all 60 seats are occupied and the aisle accomidates 20 standing passengers. I witnessed the bus attendant travel from bow to stern once but it looked very dangerous and I wasn’t about to risk life and limb to escape the heat, so I just sat and sweated it out.
2 Comments
April 14, 2008 at 5:30 pm
“I moved inside my body and found my happy place.”
That sounds slightly dangerous. Those buses with no a/c must have a wondrous bouquet of aromas. I just got back from nascar in PHX , yee ha baby, shake and bake!!!
April 15, 2008 at 4:09 am
i wonder if tassle making is big business? or do you think they all make their own….hmmm…curious.
glad you made it safely (physically, maybe not emotionally)