I arose before dawn for the last leg of the southern journey that had been necessitated by the fact that I didn’t get to go to Costa Rica on the bad ship Pamplona one week ago. Oh well. The journey to the Panama border was uneventful, as was the Panama border. I couldn’t be bothered queuing up for stamps in my passport, so I just walked across unchallenged and bought a can of Coke IN PANAMA! Woo! And then I came back to Costa Rica and waited for the bus back up North.
On the return journey, I met Jordan, a boat captain from Florida, who said he might be able to help with the old Cuba chestnut. We were pretty much made to stand for a large portion of the 5-hour journey, but that’s something I learned to do working in the Union Bar, so it wasn’t too problematic for me. Once we got to San Jose, I took Jordan and another backpacker to the hostel I wanted to stay in, the night before (it was lovely and well worth the extra $2, Sophia’s mates!), but I didn’t stay. My bus back to San Salvador left at 3am.
The great Central America relay race was only just beginning.
You can’t visit a beatiful country, only stamp a passport in Panama was not the expected travel to all the world, some day you need to visit the most important city at Central America with spectacular nature & culture.
Don’t worry – Panama isn’t going anywhere… I’ll be back – for a holiday!!