Around The World In 80 Waves

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!