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The Journey to Panama
The journey to Panama has been given a separate entry even thought we spent the night on a bus. This was decided as Panama City would become far too long for anyone to maintain concentration!
To Costa Rica
We set off from our Hostel at 4:50am being preceded by two other travelers. They had woken up the hostel staff (a 12 year old girl) to open the door. When we emerged requiring the same treatment the girl had vanished. We searched and made loud banging and rustling noises until a sleepy kulak arrived. We grabbed some food and coffee at the bus station and set off promptly at 6am.
The bus passed through a few towns in Nicaragua and we were pleased when one of our favourite characters returned into the soap opera drama of our lives. You’ve guessed it, it was Betty. She still carried the same twelve bags of luggage but was unfortunately without lifesaving equipment.
At the border, on the Nicaraguan side, we left the bus kulaks to do all the work whilst we badgered the money changers. Charlie didn’t trust their grisled features so we entered the bank in inappropriate attire. Charlie was slightly better attired in flip-flops but Lisa walked around with bare feet. Lisa only had about 1 dollar worth of money to change, and angered a money changer when insisting on changing the Cordobas to a one dollar note. We spoke a little to Betty in this time but she didn’t provide us with any amusement so we went into the Duty Free and stared at chocolate, real chocolate….. We received our passports back and thought that was it but we had only one stamp for exit and no needed to repeat the process for entry into Costa Rica.
At the Costa Rican side the officials were much more annoying and there was a huge queue. We waited about 30 minutes and then had to drag our bags off the bus, only to have them waved back on the bus. Could this have been a little bit of magic from the British Passport?
San Jose
We arrived in San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, for an enforced stop of 8 hours. We endeavoured to find a veggie restaurant, which was listed in LP but as usual the restaurant no longer existed, so we relocated to a 5 star hotel to prevent sadness. Whilst walking around the plazas we found a lot of kulaks in suits and automatically felt safe, even though they looked a little out of place. We racked up a large bill here on food, dessert and Sauvignon Blanc. What a lovely way to relax between long journeys. We camped for 8 hours at the hotel and laughed as a camera crew set up next to our table. The luxury of this hotel almost made us want to give up our spendthrift ways and indulge in an expensive granja style holiday. Lisa even managed to sing "Do you know the way to San Jose?", whilst being in San Jose, which she thought was great but Charlie disagreed.
This was our only stop in Costa Rica, it was a nice place but expansive and full of American tourists pronouncing the word Coasta Rica, which was enough to make Lisa very angry and not want to see the lovely wildlife! Another mis-pronunciation which could not be ignored was Sauvignon Blanc… The kulaks were obviously not schooled in French as Blanc became Blank. This just would not do… so we headed for Panama.
On The Bus To Panama
Having left the lovely hotel terrace, we arrived at the bus terminal to check in for our 10pm bus. We get to the ticket office and are told that we don´t have nay seats on the next bus because we didn´t reconfirm our tickets. No one told us to do this! However, an hour later, the man at the ticket office responds to Lisa´s smiles by telling us he has found us two seats on the bus, and sends his regards to the Queen. Kulak!
At 2am we are woken up and everyone gets off the bus. We assume that we are at the border crossing between Costa Rica and Panama, but it turns out it is just a needless snack stop at an all night café. After half an hour, we all traipse back onto the bus.
We finally reach the Panama border at 4am. Only trouble is that it is closed between 4-6am. So if we hadn´t had the 2am snax attax stop, we probably could have made it. 2 hours are spent here in a hideous greasy spoon, trying to avoid the monotonous attempts of some American granjads to get us to join their conversation. About politics. American politics. Just shut up. We don´t care. It´s 4am.
We finally cross the border, having failed to mmet any of the Panama government requirements in order for us to enter the country, such as an onward ticket and proof of funds. British passports are worth theuir weight in gold, as we were just waved through. All the passengers had to unload their bags from the bus and open them for a bag inspection. However, once the guard saw our British passports, we didn´t even have to open our bags. Yea!
During the overnight trip, the AC on the bus was on full blast and we were so cold we could hardly sleep. However, during the day, the AC broke, so we all sweltered to death.
One the bus we have DVDs played to us. The kulak in charge was not very skilled at his job. The 1st film played was Titanic, which was in English, with English subtitles, so the Spanish passengers could not understand anything. Ha ha! Even more annoying for them is the fact that the film is about 6 hours long.
Another film was tried out: “Two Mules for Sister Sarah”. Oh dear. The kulak kept pressing the wrong subtitle selection on the DVD menu so the film would play for 5 minutes in English before getting restarted to try to put it in Spanish. All passengers now know the 1st 5 minutes of this film by heart.
We eventually arrive at Panama City. Exhausted.
Next time… Panama City
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