Around The World In 80 Waves

The Panama Canal will be 100 years old next year and truly is an engineering marvel. It allows massive ships to cut across the continent instead of sailing all the way around the treacherous southern end of the Americas, saving days on transportation and a huge amount on fuel too. it is one of the times when mankind has refused to be held back by the simple fact that an entire country with hostile geography was in its way.

Saying that though it took nearly 30,000 lives to build it, the dam which holds back the huge artificial Lake Gatun and all the associated infrastructure used to guide the massive ocean going vessels through the locks.

A second larger set of locks to accommodate the modern massive shipping freighters is currently under construction and should be finished in time for its centenary. However I went to the Miraflores locks near the Pacific end of the canal and watched a few of the mighty vessels going through. The science and method for getting ships through the waterway is no different to that of the narrow boat canals in Great Britain, but the scale of the undertaking here is staggering.

The little things you can see alongside this container vessel are actually deisel locomotives known as Mules.

Rather than pull the vessels through the canal they are used to limit the amount of banging around that the ships do once inside the locks. If you can imagine a wrecking ball with that much weight you can understand it wouldn’t take long for it to smash almost anything up.

Nothing I can say will do justice to it, and the slow pace pace at which things traverse seems to take away somehow from the magnitude of the undertaking, but it is still an awesome sight.

Taxis in Panama are really cheap. You can get to the airport from the centre of town, which is roughly equivalent to Central london to Heathrow, for less than $3.

As a consequence I had no qualms about getting into one this morning to go to the customs brokers and hopefully sort out the importation paperwork. 

I was somewhat surprised however when the driver of my cab pulled over about half a mile down the road to speak to somebody, who then climbed into the back of my cab with me.

My first thoughts on the situation were a tad worrying, mostly because I had about $3,000 on me to cover whatever import duty was required on my car. The bloke seemed quite friendly though and because it was so early in the morning I thought it was unlikely ne’er-do-wells would be up and about bothering people like me, so I just sat there in nervous silence wondering what the hell was going on.

Having been to Choro’s office twice before I knew we were heading the right way so there didn’t seem any cause for undue alarm, and sure enough I was dropped off correctly for a $1 fee, before the two of them carried on down the road. When I asked the girls in the office if that was normal I was told it is. Apparantly the drivers decide that one fare is not enough to warrant the petrol, so they try to get two or three for the price of the fuel, which might explain why the fares are so low. Quite odd!

Make no mistake about it, importing the car into Panama is going to be an administrative nightmare. I wouldn’t stand a chance of sorting it out on my own so have retained the services of a Customs Broker called Eliecer Alvarado Guardia, but who likes to be called Choro. He and everybody else at his company (http://www.aduanasalvarado.com/indexE.html) are being brilliant walking me through everything (literally at times!)

The importation process is basically the same as that if I had sent a shipping container full of merchandise here. The ‘goods’ need to be taken to a bonded warehouse where they are left (for a fee) until the paperwork is correct and customs have inspected them.

In my case that entails taking them to a company called Kintes, by following one of Choro’s guys riding a motorcycle. Their site is exactly as you would expect a haulage hub or equivalent to be. I.e lorries and containers all over the place.

They inspected the car for damage, etc and then take it off my hands until I have sorted the importation paperwork at the customs office.

I dont mind telling you it felt a bit weird watching the bug being driven off into the distance by somebody else.

I hope the bug will be ok on its own for a few days while Choro and I tackle the customs. 

I was delighted however when I found somebody for it to play with in my absence. I hope they get on!

Dont even want to think what the owner of the Ferrari is paying in duty though.

My top priority is now selling the bug and I have advertised it locally towards that end.

As well as using a traditional for sale sign (with a Spanish twist) I have posted the details on a couple of forums and a car sales website on the internet, which has already generated some interest in my little car.

A local pilot, coincidentally also called Robert, was very keen on the car and wanted to see it straight away becuase he thought it would be great for his wife.

We met in a MacDonalds car park and he was quite impressed with it. However the little green surf machine was obviously not impressed that I was trying to sell it and refused to start as soon as the other Robert wanted to take it for a test drive. I was clear that it was a flat battery and he was kind enough to call the Panamanian version of Batteries-R-Us for me and they came out quickly to sort it. Sadly this required a replacement battery because cells in the old one had given up the ghost, and it would seem that my regular use of the air con since being in the city had been the straw that broke that particular camel’s back.

Despite all this Panamanian Robert is still interested but for both his sake and mine we have agreed it is necessary for me to undertake the importation of the car into the country.

I am the registered keeper of the vehicle and it will make life easier for me to undertake the process, and then we may just have to come to a compromise over the cost of having done so if he is still in the market for another car when it is completed. I have a few interested parties though so am not hanging all my hopes on him just yet.

After living out of the Little Green Surf Machine for four months I have acquired quite a lot of stuff. Cooking equipment, maps, guide books, souvenirs, T shirts, beach towels and other bits and pieces.

The hoarder in me does not allow me to discard all of the above so I have to send what I want to keep home, because I cannot carry it all without my wheels, let alone need it or wish to pay for the excess weight it would represent on the rest of my flights. That sounds easy in prinipal but the practise was somewhat more complicated. 

First I had to lay out every single item I have with me in the hotel room and then sift through the lot deciding whether or not it was ‘backpacking necessary’ because that will be the mode I return to after leaving Panama. Then using the boxes which I have been segmenting the car boot with I prepared beautiful parcels all sealed perfectly with tape, to the extent that it would have taken an entire Welsh mining village to hack into them.

All good up to this point however at this stage my limited Spanish let me down. Carrying half a tonne of boxes around the centre of the city I kept getting sent to postboxes, when I thought I was asking for the post office. It is about 35C throughout all of this, draining me of all my energy and I am sweating cobs until my arms simply couldn’t lift the weight anymore so I practically threw the boxes down. At this point the rainy season appeared to have arrived and I got soaked for 15 minutes until I eventually hailed a cab.

It took me to the post office (la officina de correos – in case you ever need to send home far too much stuff from Panama) but the first thing they made me do was completely unwrap the lot so they could inspect the contents. I was then offered a roll of masking tape to reseal everything, which wouldn’t have been strong enough for my bulging parcels so I had to abandon everything with the staff and then run a couple of miles through the heat until I could find some duct tape because I was running out of time before the post office closed.

Even though it had stopped raining it was still so hot and humid that I returned looking like the proverbial drowned rat. Thirty minutes of speed wrapping later I am at the till filling out forms like they were lines I had been given at school and ready to pay the huge fee for sending everything home. That is until I discover that the duct tape purchase has left me $1.17 short to pay for postage and there was by now only 12 minutes until the post office closed for the weekend.

Nothing I can do because they dont accept cards so I have to give it toes to a cash point, in the kind of run on a bank that Northern Rock Investors would be proud of! The third cashpoint I found actually worked and I sprinted back to the post office to hand over the $1.17, be handed the receipt and then be shown the door as they are locking up.

I am more than a bit traumatised by this whole experience and I walk back to the hotel to try and cool down, but in all honesty it took three Cuba Libres and half an hour of ice cold air con before I was at all human again. However I have lightened the load and the stuff is on its way. In many ways it is a weight off my mind.

I did a bit of research on Panama hats before I left the UK and discovered that they are actually made in Ecuador. They are only known as Panama hats because this is where the trade in them flourished (along with many other things) because the narrow strip of land faciltated easy trade from both Asia and Europe.

I was originally hoping to buy one of the hats made from the plaited leaves of the Carludovica Palmata plant when I travelled through Ecuador in my car. However I am no longer sure that I will be stopping there at all. Depending on how long it takes me to sell the car I may well be just flying over it, so Panama seems like the obvious place to buy one instead.

All Panamas can be rolled up to make storing or travelling with them less cumbersome. the narrower the weave the easier this is and the most expensive hats have as many as 2500 weaves per square inch.

They are known as Montecristis, after the town where they are produced. A ‘Superfino’ Montecristi Panama has a weave so fine that the hat can hold water, and when rolled for storage the entire hat can pass through a gap as small as a wedding ring.

I would love one of those bad boys but cannot justify the £400 I would have to shell out for something I might wear at the cricket or for picnics in the park, but have picked up the one you see here along with its storage box, which does have a very fine weave, even if it is not quite a Superfino.

As a reward for making it to Panama City I wanted to treat myself to a decent hotel upon arrival, and was particularly hoping for a room with a bath. I had no idea where to go, but saw the tower of the Hard Rock Hotel from right across town and eventually found it at street level after a couple of very questionable manoeuvres on the toll road to avoid the fees.

I was quickly back in my car however when they wanted over $200 a night for a room, but their bell boy was a cool kid who surfs and pointed me in the direction of cheaper hotels so I gave him a block of wax for his board.

Thankfully just for once my phone actually worked when I needed it to and using the Internet to scan the lonely planet forum, I saw a recommendation for the Hotel Milan. (http://www.hotelmilan.com.pa/en/) Google Maps worked too and I was able to get there relatively easily.

After checking in for a week I completely unloaded the car’s contents into my comfortable room to get an idea of how much stuff I have acquired on my travels, but can admit to going a tad Howard Hughes afterwards.

I was exhausted upon arrival in Panama City and needed a healthy fix of TV and air conditioning, as well as a good internet connection while I got the ball rolling on a number of administrative tasks.

I have been doing the odd thing that required leaving my room, but have mostly been enjoying the HBO cable TV channel to catch up on Game of Thrones and enjoy a host of movies which I have not seen before.

I periodically raid the hotel’s ice bucket to get a stash of my own for an improvised fridge to keep the cans I Cuba Libres that I bought ice cold. I will be moving to more salubrious accommodation after the weekend but until then will enjoy the facilities here as much as I can. I have even persuaded the restaurant to cook up one of my tins of baked beans for me, so that in addition to their usual fayre I could complete a full English breakfast. It was good! 

Wooo-hooo! I have made it to Panama City.

Some said it couldn’t be done. Many more suggested it shouldn’t be done.

However I have arrived at the end of the road, and since arriving here I have been enjoying not doing a great deal and recharging my batteries.

I have done a bit of sight seeing including going down to the dilapidated area of the former colonial capital, known as San Felipe.

There are some wonderful old buildings, but a significant number of them appear to be falling to pieces, partly because the area got a bit of a hammering during the US invasion in 1999.

From the Paseo Las Bovedas which runs alongs the shore there you can see all the ships lined up and waiting to enter the canal.

I am told the constuction work in the foreground is the start of a new yachting marina, which is part of a major investment plan for the area.

Driving along the shore towards the modern city centre you come to the Vasco Núñez de Balboa bronze statue. He is holding the Spanish flag in his left hand and a sword with his right as he overlooks Panama Bay.

Vasco crossed the Isthmus of Panama to the Pacific Ocean in 1513, becoming the first European to have seen the Pacific from the Eastern side.

However I have it on good authority that he is no relation to Rocky. 

No posts for a few days because I have simply been taking a day or two off to celebrate and rest having reached Panama City. I have also been rather glued to the events in Boston and Waco having cable TV for the first time in ages. This means I have some catching up to do…

I think the best place to start is with my run in with the law. Having left Santa Catalina and made my way back to the Pan American Highway you see above I decided to push on to Panama City and get started on selling the car, because it has been a nagging worry for a few weeks now. I was just driving down the road and unlike the usual me was not actually speeding. All of a sudden a motorcycle Policeman on the hard shoulder of the opposite side of the road saw my unusual car approaching and then ran straight towards the central reservation of the road holding one arm in the air as I passed. It wasn’t immediately apparent that he was a policeman because he was dressed completely in black or indeed that he was might have been trying to flag me down, so I didn’t stop actually thinking it might be one of the loons that routinely run across motorways down here.

As soon as I had passed however I saw him sprinting back the other way to the Police bike I had not seen previously, and was pretty certain it wouldn’t be long before I got my collar felt. Sure enough about two minutes later I am pulled over. I hadn’t been doing anything wrong in the first place so suspected that I was just being hailed because of the unusual car and California plates, with the strong suspicion it was just an attempt to get money out of me. Of course seconds later he is threatening me with all kinds of fines and tickets for speeding and failing to stop. I feigned ignorance on seeing him because it had been the most ridiculous dash across two lanes of motorway and he had barely got to the central reservation by the time I had passed him, and I point blank refused to accept that I was speeding because I wasn’t (I say again unusually) Having got this far without paying any bribes I refused to bite and stood my ground, despites repeated threats af massive fines and tickets. Sure enough he didnt have anything on me so eventually I was allowed to leave after about 10 minutes of not so subtle persuasion that a bribe might be the way forward. 

I pushed on all the more mindful of my speed and arrived on the outskirts of Panama City at rush hour, however genuinely seemed to be the only person travelling into town at this time, with everybody else going the other way home from work.

I crossed the Bridge of the Americas over the entrance to the Panama Canal and could immediately see the towering buildings of the city.

After all the jungles, deserts and rainforests I have seen since leaving the USA the city’s skyline is a surprisingly pretty sight. The traffic jams, not so much!

As usual I have sorted out a local phone for my time in Panama.

It is particularly important here so I can readily receive calls about selling the little green surf machine, but also because people will more willingly call a local number too.

I don’t know for sure but suspect I will have an aministrative nightmare ahead of me so a phone I can rely on is a must.

As ever if anybody wishes to get in touchuse this number until further notice +507-6244-2994.