Panama to David

"Marco I'm out of here. Where should I stay in David?"

Bambu

"How much does it cost to get to the Bus Station?"

"$2.50"

The first cab I waved down wanted $8 (always ask first).

I stopped another cab, "quente boos terminAL" "Aeropuerto?" "boos terminAL"
"Albrook mall?" "Boos terminAL" "boos Terminal?" "Si".
"dos dolares".

Finding the ticket counter was no problem. Getting to the bus was strange.
I located the terminal but the gate was blocked at the turnstile. Some Kuna Indians were standing perplexed in front of the turnstile. "What the hell is going on here?" I asked. "Do you have a nickel?" "Sure." and I handed him one, he told me that I needed it for the turnstile, a sort of exit tax." What the hell, couldn't they have just added it to my ticket. "No Cambio" (No change). I gave the Kunas two nickels, walked to my bus and walked around the adjacent bus to the entry door from the rear. The throng was packing the sidewalk but not boarding.

After entering the bus I tried to put my backpack in the overhead bin. It wasn't going to fit without a healthy push. In a former lifetime I cracked the screen on a notebook doing exactly that so I extracted the notebook from my backpack and tried again. Still no success, so extracted the bulky SLR camera and tried again. This was easy now. After securing the camera bag to the backpack by tieing the straps I sat down.

The bus was loaded with passengers and some low quality video was displayed on the overhead monitor and a horrendous sound track blared from the jack in the box quality speakers. Spanish sound track to an American movie. I grabbed the shure form fitting ear plugs and blocked my ears.

The 9:45 bus left on time. Around 2:45 we stopped for food at a chinese road side bus only cafeteria. "Pollo?", "No, Puerco". pointing "Puerco y arroz por favor." It was really nasty, grisly and fatty with bones, like tripe and fat. God knows what part of the pig it came from.

People lined up outside the bus. I had left my backpack on board and was anxious to get back to it. After 10 minutes the door was opened and I boarded the bus to discover my backpack was not in the overhead. Nor was my book on my seat. Was I on the wrong bus? This bus was destined for David. Can there be two arriving at the same time? Trying to swim upstream with people hustling down the narrow aisle was next to impossible. What a douche bag. There in fact was another bus going to David which to my relief had my backpack. Around 5:30 we arrived in David and I opened my backpack, slipped out my computer and pulled the backpack from the overhead, ready to depart. It was stuck as it was tied to my camera bag. Good thing I compensate for my idiocy. I packed the camera into the bag and exited the bus. I looked up the name of the Hostel and showed it to the cabbie, he said it was a $2 fare.

We drove through town for $15 minutes and I was deposited in front of a ranch house with wrought iron gates. The bell elicited a quick response and a private room with bath was available for $30/night. Dorm rooms with 10 bunks were available for $8 a person night with breakfast included. I opted for the single room.

This was a much older crowd than I expected. The average age of the guests was about mid forties. After 15 minutes I found out who owned the place, how much it cost, what the gross and net proceeds were, where the restaurants were and had a co-owner introduce me to his girlfriend who is an oral surgeon. Tooth implants for $795. I scheduled an exam and tooth cleaning for the following day.

Trying to hook up to the internet was a pain. I didn't know I had the world's tiniest wireless disable switch on the front of my new viao.

It's cool outside, I'm sitting pool side.