After the flight and the change of hostels I ended up sharing a night in a place where my room had no lockers and thus I slept the whole night fully clothed and clutching my wallet and camera in one hand while my passport was safely tucked up in my hidden pocket, while my other room mates chatted away about the Mayan Calendars, Aliens, Conspiracies, 9-11 and that in the year 2012 the entire world will shift to an alternate dimension and we will all find ourselves in a place where we are ready for a higher state of conciousness.
Next morning I woke up a little later than all the rest of my room mates and as I had to check out by 10:00 I figured I had just enough time to sort out a few things before heading out to my original hostel where I could start my city tour proper of Panama City.
Before I could go I just had enough time to call my bank back in the UK to ask why my cards were being declined and it turned out that not only had I used up my overdraft ( which meant that I am even further off budget than I earlier feared ) but as I had not used my credit card abroad before they needed me to call and confirm that the transactions were genuine and not fraudulent - pity they didn't call me up to tell me this before hand.
During the conversation I told the guy on the other end that I was travelling around the world and it turns out that he was a traveller too, and so despite this being my mobile phone bill, he rabbitted on for about 10 minutes on gossip and stories he had, which was kind of cool for the first few minutes but as I was paying for this quickly became an unneccessary expense.
Once that was done I had to grab a taxi to my other hostel long enough to drop off my luggage, however my non speaking hostel owner, the rain and the taxi drivers of the city had other ideas, as at first the hostel owner wanted me to get into a taxi driven by a couple of local guys ( not going to happen ) then there were no taxis for love nor money and I ended up spending an hour in a shelter occupied by an excitable security guard who thought that if he spoke fast enough and often enough I would somehow learn enough Spanish to talk to him before long.
Needless to say, it didn't happen and I ended up just getting confused, frustrated and finally iritated before he finally managed to find me a single taxi driver willing to take me, but by this time the rain had drenched my appetite for this city and as I had not had any phone calls from my friends to say that we should meet up I decided to move on while I still had any money left, as I wasn't sure when the money from my 3 month term deposit account would finally come through.
The taxi driver didn't speak any English either, but I managed to explain enough in Spanish that I needed a bus to David City and I think that he said that the direct road to there was flooded, but he could take me to a nearby bus stop where the roads were clear from. This sounded good, til I asked how much and he said that it would be US $26 to reach the city, at which point I just laughed, said it wasn't possible and then asked to go to my original hostel.
The fact that I laughed I think got to him more than the refusal to go along with his instant money making scheme, and in less than a minute later he clicked his fingers and said that if I got on at a place just down the road I could catch a bus from there to a nearer town past all the flooding and this sounded much more promising and all this for only US $2, which was more within my price budget.
He dropped me off at a bus stop and I had to ask directions from the other locals standing around before jumping on a bus, corssing my fingers and hoping that the direction I was going in was the one I needed. The bus must have stopped about twenty times before it got anywhere near where I needed, then the passenger in front of me urged me to get off here and change buses to get one that goes to someplace nearer where I could then catch the rapid bus that goes all the way to David City.
Thus it was that it was on my third bus trip in the morning that I found myself on a intercity bus bound for the west of Panama and still my cellphone was not ringing and so I guessed that my friends from Panama City had given up on my visit due to the horrid weather.
What amused me was that local buses here all give out different coloured poker chips depending on where you got on and where you needed, and at the other end you gave back the chip and paid either 25 cents, 50 cents or the maxiumum was a dollar.
Of course the intercity bus, which was on a bigger air conditioned bus with movies, costed more like US $12:50 and took around 7 hours to go from Panama City to David City, including a half hour stop over in the middle where everyone else hopped out to get something to eat while I took the opportunity alone to change my socks and shoes to my spare dry pair that I had in the rucksack.
I arrived in David just a little after 7:15pm and managed to catch a taxi for just US $2 that took me right to the door, which was cool as although the weather was drier here, it was still cloudy and looked like it was threatening to rain at any moment.
I checked in, said hi to the New Yorker who owns and ran the place before I went out to get a bite to eat, and as I had not tried a McDonalds in a few weeks it was nice to taste something familar. I was very impressed with the choice of menu, and in the end had a McNifica chef special burger and fries, with apple crumble and ice cream for desert, and all for around US $7. One of the best I had tried in ages, but the ketchup could do with a little modification, as it was a bit too rich for my pallate.
Back in the hostel there was a friendly group of Euroeans, a mix of Swedish, French, Suisse and Icelandic and together we watched a couple of movies most of us headed on over to catch a concert of Samy and Sandra, one of Panama's top three bands. I guess it is a different culture, and of course not understanding the lyrics didn't help, but to me it was a lot of fun to watch everyone get up and dance the way they did, but nothing for me musically.
The entrance was US $6 for men, women getting in half price, and all drinks were 50 cents each, but even this was good value when you considered that the concert was a last minute rush event and half of all the proceeds were meant to be given to the victims of the floods that the extra heavy and long rain season had created.
The night was made complete by plenty of local guys coming and trying to pull one or all of the girls in the group, despite the language difficulty, and it was only after the novelty had worn off and the girls were all getting very pissed off with it before I fully stepped in and as politely as I could I told them to get lost and that we, as a group, were not interested in anything they had to say or offer.
I have to say though, that the concert security staff not only spoke Engish, but came up and made sure that I was aware that this was not a entirely safe place with all the drink and locals going by, that pickpockets were always a danger and if any of the locals gave us any grief then I should contact them immediately and they would sort it out for us.
The walk back to the hostel was refreshing, from the humidity of the day, and as it was a clear night we all had hopes that the morning would be dry and that we could all do some sight seing in the morning, there was even talk of some of us going White Water Rafting, however the torrential rain that started up around 2am and rained and rained and rained soon put pay to all but the most determined and modest travel plan.
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