Panama - first entry

Cars certainly have a mind of their own. The mechanic Ojochal ordered a filter to fit with the aircon system, and the filter was put on a bus to be in Ojochal the next morning. The part was on the bus, but the guy who was given the task of stopping the bus and pick up the part forgot. You can only guess he had a lot on his mind. Luckily the bus arrived on the return leg at 11.30 and the filter was recovered. Only, it was the wrong type. A smaller filter was put in, and all was good, sort of. Until the window on the driver's side fell down and refused to go up again. The mechanic took out the part that drives the windows in the car and locked the window closed, telling Harold he needed a car electrician. Long story short, we found one of them, and he did a temporary fix so the windows can be opened ok, until we manage to locate a part. Instead of one night in Ojochal we spent three. And we were getting short of time to get the car to Panamá for the inspection with the local police that is necessary to be able to ship the car..

We crossed the border in Paso Canoas. Other than the usual lack of directions where to go first and a route to take to get everything completed, it was easier than we had feared. For some reason we were more or less the only people crossing. The day before had been full of people, trucks and cars with long queues to all the different windows one has to visit to get a stamp or other. When we were ready to leave, the last guy we needed to see warned us that there is a strike in Panama, and people are blocking the roads at random in protest. Later we learned that this had been going on for weeks, and travelers had been cancelling bookings and events, as planning a trip in such conditions certainly isn't easy.

We spent the first night in David, the second in Santiago, and arrived in Panamá City on the Friday to see the agents who are guiding us with the shipping of the car. A few hundred meters after the border crossing we bought a filter of the right size for the car in a spare parts shop. The sales guy installed it, and charged us USD7. They hadn't been available anywhere in Costa Rica.

We have spent some time in Panama City, seen the new and the old, and been able to walk around quite a bit without feeling any danger. We like the city, it is exciting and it has potential to become really interesting. That said, the climate is hard. It is hot, and very humid. The locals tell us that there is no time of the year when it is pleasant. It feels different from the rest of Central America, it doesn't share the same kinds of food and there is so much stuff to buy!