Bocas Del Toro, Panama City

Our plans got detoured a bit. We were planning on going to Colon to take the train yesterday, but I guess there are no direct buses to Colon from the Almirante (the mainland city that our boat from Bocas brought us to, (probably cuz nobody wants to go to Colon because it is a dangerous slum)) and pretty much everything goes to panama city. So we just went to Panama City and got a hotel. It took a few hostels slash hotels but we found one on the third try. Lots of hoofin´it! Our current stay is okay, really dingy but there is AC and TV that gets like 4 channels but we have been watching the olympics on mute so it´s all good. So far only swimming and mens gymnastics (i don´t mind either, obviously) and of course, michael phelps is awesome.

Our last day in Bocas Del Toro was good, we found a place that had sushi (we hadn´t had it since we left) and had a couple rolls, then we went to an indian restaurant and had an overly priced and rather lackluster meal. It was pretty tasty, but the portions were ridiculously small and we spent like 50 dollars. Muy caro! (very expensive)

So anyways, yesterday we took the 10 HOUR train to Panama City (plus the 30 minute boat ride off the island) and it was a fairly rough day. We were both fairly sleep deprived and grumpy, but we pushed through. We bought mini M&M´s and those proved to be a high point.

Today we went mad city walking. We probably walked about 5 miles...we went from where we are staying in Casco Viejo (the old town colonial area of Panama City, where it was originally founded) into the main city part. It looks like Miami-NY-Chicago-San Fran but everybody speaks Spanish. There are all these big buildings and it´s rather cosmopolitan. Definitely not what I was expecting. We wandered, ate
subway, and then went and saw The Dark Knight. It was so good! Now we are both extra depressed that Heath Ledger is dead. What a bummer, he was so good in it.

Now we´re just hoofin it around, we are trying to book a flight to Cartegena for Tuesday at this internet cafe. It would be about 160 dollars, the boat there is like 350 and takes 5 days so we definitely want to fly. Then the pseudo plan is to maybe take another flight from Bogota to Quito, Ecuador and take a bus to Peru. The buses from Columbia to Peru are sooooooo loooooooong, and plus we don´t want to
take any buses there when it´s not day, so we´re working on that predicament right now. So I think we´ll be here for this weekend and Monday, we like our hotel okay right now but we might upgrade and go downtown where there is more stuff going on and we could get hot water and cable tv. 5 channels of fuzzy spanish are getting pretty old, even after 2 nights.

Don´t know much else. There were some shirtless hippies juggling in the middle of a highway offramp red light, which was pretty funny. At least the bums here work for their handouts.

Although one of the funniest things I forgot to mention was in Nicaragua on Big Corn Island. We were in a cab and the two twenty something dudes in the front seat were singing along to Britney Spears´ "I´m Not A Girl, Not Yet a Woman" very passionately. Awesome.

Everybody here is pretty bored slash dumb slash doesn´t want to talk to us, or at least gives us that impression.

Here is a conversation (translated to english) with a hotel clerk
today.

Me: Do you have rooms?
Her: No.
Me: For tomorrow?
Her: No...yes.
Me: How much?
Her: Fifty.
Me: Fifty?
Her: Thirty.
Me: Wait...thirty or fifty?
Her: Yes.
Me: Which?
Her: Yes.
Me: Thirty or fifty, WHICH?
Her: Thirty.

So exhausting.

We have had a few big beers and finally found a less than shitty internet cafe...since we have to be here this weekend we´ll probably take the E we brought or buy lots of cocaine or something fun. We want to have cable tv though before that happens, nothing worse than coming down from Cocaine in a dingy room trying to watch Hannah Montana in Spanish.