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Panic=> Control=> Relax=>Decision=>Solution
Entry 52 of 79 | show all | print this entry |
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We have been in Panama City for over a week now and our state of mind were not of clear blue sky in the last few day.
PANIC:
Juliette didn't know what to do. I tried to draw from my experiences this summer in Los Angeles when I lost my wallet and all my ID's; but this was Panama City, and it was not as efficient as LA when one try to get thing done. And both of our verbal Spanish, although much improved since Mexico, was still not fluent enough to even tell the Taxi driver where we wanted to go. So we started to panic, to relieve the stress, we made great "magic" on the our bed, at which point, in our minds it was the only safe place in Panama.
CONTROL:
We travelled often between our hotel and Via Espania, the main boulevard of Panama City. First, Juliette called Mastercard, try to explain the situation and possibly get a replacement credit card. Well, it wasn't easy, mostly due to her French bank restrictions. Although Mastercard was friendly, her French bank was completely stupid to the point that they did't even know where Panama is located on the map. So after days of frustration we gave up. Next we had to decide whether we can continue on to South America or just finish our trip here since Juliette had no money and I didn't have the budget for both of us. The reality of making it to this years Carnival in Brazil was slipping away, we were just over a month away, and the entire South America stood before us. Time and money was not in our favour and my dream was falling apart. Juliette did not want me to be disappointed because of her unfortunate event, she encouraged me that we would make it. She studied the South American Lonely Planet and made accurate plans (time and money) needed to get to Rio de Janeiro in time. To this day, I thank her for her leadership in time of despair.
RELAX:
During the time of this crisis we tried to relax. We visited the Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal, did some shopping in Via Espania, we bought a new camera (a $50 Kodak 35mm) because we lost both of ours and needed one for our travels. We ate a lot of Pringles and tuna sandwichs to save some money, and watched some American TV. We finally did our laundry. Mostly we tried to relax before the next part of our journey.
DECISION-SOLUTION:
Upon finally decided to continue travel to Brazil, we had to get some Yellow Fever vaccination as well as my Brazil entry visa, (Juliette did not need a visa with her EU passport). Finding the Brazilian Embassey was easy, finding the hospital for the vaccination was not, but after couple days of searching we did get our Yellow Fever Certificate. Originally I innocently planned to cross the Darien Gap--the unpassable strip of rain forests between Central and South America; now I was scared just thinking about it. So we bought the plane tickets to Quito, Ecuador by skipping Columbia and the Darien Gap. After giving up hope on her Mastercard, Juliette received some money from her family back in France via Western Union and changed into Traveller's Cheques. After all that has happened, the show must go on....
South America Here We Come !!!
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