Visa Success, City Taxis, Nadine Cuts Her Mullet

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  Panama City, Panama
Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Along the narrow isthmus bridging the Americas, the wildlife and terrain of two continents meld to form the striking contrasts of Panama. The capitol, Panama City is a thriving centre for international banking and trade. The city has a diverse population and a cosmopolitan air.
With immigrants from Europe, Asia, the Middle East and all over the Americas, Panama City encapsulates the īmelting potīideal better than any country in Central America.

We are here to obtain our visa and see the canal.

Here is what has been happening over the last few days.

Brazilian visa success achieved.

paul Frank party

Fantastic.

We left Boquete and scored the last two seats on a luxurious double decker bus leaving David for the journey to Panama City. Checked into the Marparaiso Hotel after taking up an offer of free transport and found we had cable television, fresh towels, clean linen, hot water, free breakfast, Internet on tap and a comfortable bed. Gold for $12.50 each per night. Not bad for the city. We are up a few floors and have a deluxe view of a dilapidated building next door.

Driving Is A Sport
The first thing we noticed is that driving is a sport here in the city, madhouse it is. Most cars are dinged up a bit and drivers prefer a bit of dodgem car action as they get from A to B, itīs expected. Panama City is the city of car alarms and horns of every kind, itīs loud and the air is polluted from the buses which have smoke pouring from their rears. The buses are of the chicken bus variety with added pimped up graffiti and space bubbles and what appears to be giant surfboard fins on the roof. We were in the business area of El Cangrejo and decided to go back to the hotel that we had no address or map for in a taxi at peak hour before Christmas and on a Friday just after Panamanian pay day. The process was about an hour to hail a cab from the CBD then the gangster looking taxi driver spent an hour driving us around looking for the hotel with his Black Eyed Peas My Humps music booming from boom boxes in the back. This was not so bad as we were able to see all the Christmas lights that shroud the city in a merry glow plus parts of the city we had not seen before. The driver kept his cool the whole time, this traffic was riot. We felt like some rap guyīs girlfriends as we smoked out the windows and nodded our heads to the beat

extrreme bikers

. Another taxi we were in (we know alot of cabbies now) had a total of seven strawberry scented fragrance trees hanging from the rear vision mirror. Overkill on the stench buddy. This was an all time record and we are still not sure what the damaging effects will be of being in that taxi with all the windows wound up. This guy also had small resin statues of Jesus Christ, two different religious saints, buddha and a Rastafarian Jamaican figure surrounded by joints and doubling as a toothpick holder as well as an ornament. Just what were his beliefs?  I am fond of the folky, Panamanian accordion music he played and sang to.

Crossing the road is another game you really want to win. Drivers donīt stop for pedestrians, even those on a crossing and they donīt stay in their lanes or stop at red lights either. You cross where you can and the word īfroggerī (sit down on a plastic stool, joystick arcade game found at your local fish and chip shop in the 80īs and early 90īs alongside Pacman and Galaga) definitely comes to mind.

The people are friendly and helpful and donīt appear aggressive or stressed as you would imagine the inhabitants of a large city to be. Calm is a word that feels it fits. They love to celebrate and party and they love tradition. We are carried along with the frenzy and aliveness that a city brings and i am reminded of my time spent living in Newtown, Sydney. I love to be in the city........ for awhile. This city has a fair bit to photograph and a session may be called for if i get the inspiration for it.

Beers are 40cents in the supermarket and a taxi fare is $1.50 to most areas of the city

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. Workmen on building sites still whistle, yell and cheer at women (including us) and i am unsure if they get any work done. The city is unexpectedly modern. Prostitution is legal, as is gambling. There are many casinos. We have been to three. The Crown Casino had jesters on the carpet and was Las Vegas style. The most impressive game to try your luck on there was a large table with a horse racing track and little horses that you punt on. The horses ran the track just as they would in a true race keeping you on the edge of your seat. The whole game was computerized and under a large bubble of  clear plastic for viewing. We also went to the Fiesta Casino and Veneto Casino.

On Friday night we went out on the town to check out the hippest nightlife in Central America. First we went to the causeway where there was a string of Christmas parties in full swing. There is a party chicken bus that gets around to with music blaring and coloured lights flashing. The price is $20 for the bus party for all you can drink. Next we went to a street called Calle Uruguay where we started at an English pub of all things (no beer on tap) then made it next door to Habibiīs Restaurant, a Middle-Eastern place with an upstairs bar decked out to look like a Sheiks tent and you can smoke from hookahs for $5 while sipping on overpriced cocktails. We ordered a salad and basic pizza and chatted with some Germans

Panama city

. We walked past the many sleek clubs in Uruguay (sceney with door-nazis, ridiculous cover charges and beautiful people) where Panamaīs young, wealthy, bold and the beautiful clubbers were pea cocking around getting valet attendants to park their ritzy cars. We went to a dance club called BLG, a bit dungeon-like and watched some drag queen shows then tailed it to Fiesta Casino behind El Panama Hotel which has a large party room with big band and lots of salsa and merriment, drinks here were free. The night was okay and it gave us an insight into Panamaīs vampires after dark.

The stores sell gorgeous designer fashions but i canīt help but think the Panamanians wear it wrong. The men are dressed much better than the women. The weather is hot.

Kuna Women
We have already seen some Kuna women from the communities who live on the Archipelago de San Blas off Panama, a strange sight in the city. The women continue to dress as their ancestors did. Their faces are adorned with a black line painted from the forehead to the tip of the nose, with a gold ring through the septum. Colourful fabric is wrapped around the waist as a skirt, topped by a short sleeved blouse covered in brilliantly coloured molas (traditional Kuna textiles)

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. The women wrap their legs from ankle to knee in long strands of tiny beads forming colourful geometric patterns. A printed headscarf and many necklaces, rings and bracelets complete the wardrobe. I canīt wait to see them at home on the islands. We may take a flight over and stay for a couple of days. The Kuna women are known for their unique sewing. I bought four old mola cloths depicting medicine men, these ones have been hand sewn and were once worn on the Kuna blouse, the real deal, not the cloth they make now for tourists. The designs on the fabric are geometrical, spiritual and mainly depict Kuna life. A great souvenir. I saw two Kuna women walking past the old building we can see from our hotel room (missed the photo) and also a woman hand sewing in the gutter next to two giant Lacoste brand billboards being erected. You canīt help but think it is sad for them to be removed from their island homes into the big bad city.


Shopping Frenzy
Clothing is very inexpensive in Panama. Nadine bought a new backpack as hers was falling apart and couldnīt be held up with the wondrous duct tape anymore. Joy. Whilst shopping we attended a Paul Frank (pajama brand) promotional party in a multi plaza mall, complete with DJ and champagne. We also visited the giant Albrook Mall, a massive shopping space where there are Christmas sales on

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. We wanted to get a feel of the Christmas season and some free people watching entertainment. Pacific Fair at Christmas and the Myer sales have nothing on this affair. Absolute shopping frenzy. Latin American woman know how to shop and they buy a lot of crap. We have never seen anything like it. We saw a little booth with a microphone inside where you could sing karaoke and have your voice instantly recorded onto a CD. We briefly considered making a mixed tape for everyone for Christmas. DJīs were spinning records on mixing decks inside shops. The food courts were packed out with fat kids and their families dining out, eating from trays that held the likes of Dairy Queen, Burger King, Dunkin Donuts, Popeyes Chicken and Miccy Dīs. I jumped all over a fresh sushi fix and low and behold, there was nobody waiting at the īhealthyīcounters. Iīve always despised food courts in malls where the lighting is in the shade of irritating fluorescent, where people eat junk foods and talk about all the unnecessary crap they are going to buy. Santa was interesting, dressed in a green suit by a cell phone promotional company, yes green instead of his jolly red suit. You canīt do that. There was also a giant green elf, the fuel for childrenīs nightmares who was set up in a Santaīs grotto scenario. I bought a hat with a massive brim, over sized sunglasses, a tie and an umbrella, all coloured fresh white in preparation for a costume i am working on for the Brazilian New Years Party. Becoming manic for it now. We tried to watch an American movie called My Brother Santa in the cinema but it turned out to be dubbed over in Spanish without the subtitles

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. I like to get into the Christmas spirit by watching a Santa Clause themed movie. We did see īBeowulfī, it was an animated film in English with Spanish subtitles, well animated but very lame. We did buy some nachos with American style spray on plastic cheese on it. We also bought a tent in a hardware store ($70), slightly expensive but we now have a home for the music festival and the fear of sleeping in hammocks for a week is gone.

Visa Success
The morning after we arrived here we went to the Brazilian Embassy with all our paperwork ready as we heard it can be a difficult, time consuming task to achieve the 90 day visa for Australians. We were anxious about this visa situation as we need to get to the Universo Parallelo Festival Party in Salvador before December 28. We had also decided we would prefer Christmas in Salvador near the beach with all the other backpacker orphans. We would really like to cook a roast turkey dinner with all the trappings for a group of people. We really miss entertaining. When we arrived to the office we saw a Japanese lad who was in our exact situation, trying to prove overland travel out of Brazil. We saw the two embassy staff women who would decide our fate. We were determined to secure the entry so we filled in the forms including basic information and contact address, phone number and name of contact in Brazil (we used a Hostel name), we were asked if had a yellow fever certificate but it was not sighted. We handed over a passport photo and had the rest of our papers photocopied. We were told that our ticket out of the States would not be proof of onward travel and that we would have to purchase another air ticket out of Brazil however, they accepted it. We were never asked to prove funds. It looked like we could pull it off in two days so we rushed out and booked the last flight left to Salvador, flying COPA Air, departing on Christmas Eve and arriving on CHRISTMAS MORNING AT 1AM

Brazilian visa

. We got very lucky. We were told we would be having a meeting with the head honcho of the office the next day but when we arrived the next day in our finest clothes, they handed us our passports and wished us on our way. Yippiiieee!!!! Go Brazil! If we could have found a box of Roses chocolates to say thank-you very much, iīm sure we would have done so.

Nadine Chops Her Billy Ray Mullet Off
Today we both nervously decided to go for the first chop of our trip and get our hair cut in the city. You really donīt know what you are going to get, when you canīt communicate well and the male  hair stylist is wearing one fake eyelash with diamantes. Nadine was terrified of ending up with a bowl cut. Luckily, Nadine now has the best cut of her life for $5 and no longer has the Billy Ray mullet tail and i still have most of my fringe for a $3 sting... nice.

Friendly fact for the day....... Panama hats are made in Ecuador

Panama Canal
Our taxi to the Miraflores Locks should have cost $2, the driver charged us $10 and used the excuse that we were tourists and should pay more

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. We arrived at the locks just in time to catch the a boat entering the canal. The canal is one of the worldīs most significant waterways, truly an engineering marvel, stretching 80km from Panama City on the Pacific side to Colon on the Atlantic side, cutting right through the Continental Divide. Nearly 14000 ships pass through the canal every year, we were to witness two. One was a Japanese ship and the other, a ridiculously huge cruise ship with passengers onboard who were no doubt excited to be travelling through the canal. Ships pay according to their weight and prices to pass start at around $120 000. The more we learned about the Panama Canal, both in terms of the monumental construction project and the associated political intrigues, the more interesting it became. The Canal uses a system of locks, chambers with gates that open and close for the transit of ships. The locks operate as water elevators that raise the ships from sea level either on the Pacific or the Atlantic to the level of Gatun Lake (26 meters above sea level) in their transit of the channel through the Continental Divide. The ships came in, the metal gates swung open, the water levels changed and the ships were moved down a level and pulled along by little rail cars then they went on their way. One was enough for us.

We have decided to stay in the city until Christmas Eve when we fly out. We will take a trip to the San Blas islands to break it up in the middle

mono loco fun

. We have decided to change hotels for a change in location and will return from the islands to The Voyager Backpackers where the Germans are staying before they take off on a boat to Columbia. All the cool kids are doing this trip and it sounds great, you even get a stop in the San Blas. We are hoping to tack Columbia onto the trip after Ecuador because we have heard such good things about it. The Backpackers was difficult to locate with directions given as ījust in front of the Albert Einstein headī and īnext to a Subway Restauranteī, really itīs a big city. The buying of the tickets to San Blas was a struggle with the language barriers. The place we want to stay has no contacts and the airline is fully booked. After going through a travel agent we found we could get the price cheaper ourselves by purchasing on line. However when i went to pay for a ticket on regional airline, Air Panama, they had added an extra $60 gasoline tax. Annoying as the flight is only a twenty minute flight. We booked it anyway. To solve the hotel problem we rang a random cell phone number i got from a Lonely Planet forum and presto! it worked. A lady who's mother is a traditional Kuna woman on the islands met us at the hotel and we paid her a deposit for accommodation. It all seemed legitimate. The woman has arranged for someone to pick us up at El Porvenir airstrip, for some tours to the villages and snorkeling and to feed us three meals a day, all for $35 each in a rustic hotel. Sounds good to us and weīll just see how it all pans out.

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