“Waterworld...”

“If it keeps on raining, the levee’s gonna break”. The Led Zepplin lyrics come over the car stereo as we descend down towards the Caribbean, through the thick clouds and heavy rain. It’s difficult to see the road, or more importantly, the sections missing from the road. We left Panama City earlier that morning, without getting lost, and were now on our way towards the elusive Bocas del Toro. As soon as we surmounted the continental divide we entered the clouds, and the rain did not stop. You could cut through the humid air with a knife, and though the windshield defrost was on full blast, we still had to open the windows to see what little road we could. The Caribbean side of the country is much more tropical, having no real wet or dry season as it tends to just rain for most of the year. Although this may not fit the bill for most people’s desired vacation plans, the rain came as a nice change from the months of hot hot sunshine that we had been used to. A nice cool 25 degrees also helped to make the humidity more bearable.

Approaching on our destination for the night, the small city of Changuinola, we pulled into a supermarket to get a snack and something cold to drink. After leaving the supermarket we quickly drove past a police truck that made a u-turn and began to follow us. What now I thought. Earlier that day we had to produce our paperwork and passports to a police checkpoint, but they were quite jovial and even made fun of how dirty the inside of our car was. Up until this point we had not had any issues with the police, perhaps a close call when looking for Gamboa before I pleaded for help with directions, but now it looked as though our perfect Panamanian police record was at risk. But what could it be? I had done nothing wrong, was perhaps only driving 20 kph at this point through the town because of all the roadside pedestrians. The police truck flashed its headlights so I pulled the car to the side of the road and put on my emergency flashers. The officer came up to the window and proceeded to rip off some ultra-quick Spanish in an angry tone. I asked him to repeat himself and he pointed to my seatbelt, which I always wear, and said that I wasn’t wearing it. I looked in disbelief as it was currently buckled in as it had been since we left the supermarket. He said that when he drove by it wasn’t on and that I had put it on after he pulled around. Mierda de toro. He printed out a ticket that he said I needed to pay and went back to his truck. I read over the ticket which indeed indicated that I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, so I got out of the car and walked over to his truck.

“This isn’t true!” I said, “I always wear my seatbelt.”
“No, I saw that you weren’t wearing it.” He said.
“This is bad, this is not true.” I said, but then he just drove off. I was angry. I didn’t know if he truly believed I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt or if he was just down on his quotas for the day and figured a tourist wouldn’t know what was going on. I’m not going to pay it, and I’m pretty sure that nothing can happen. He took a picture of my passport and driver’s license, but there is no way the facilities at the border will be able to get any information that I have an outstanding ticket. So I angrily got back into the car and we continued along the highway, with my seatbelt on.

We soon arrived in Changuinola, which seems to be run by the Chiquita banana cartel. The whole city is surrounded by banana plantations, and everyone seems to work for the banana farms. We found a nice hotel that was a little reminiscent of the hotel in “The Shining” movie. But if it was haunted, it didn’t haunt us, and we were up the next morning, ready for our island adventure. I went to the hotel next door that had an enclosed parking area with security camera and arranged to keep our car there for the week before catching a taxi to the ferry. We had tried for so long last time to find where the boat for the island left from, that I didn’t want to risk the same frustrations again. Our taxi proceeded to drive the same way we had just came from the day before, well out of town about 20 km, much further than the 5 km the guidebook vaguely indicated. But he drove us right up to the boat terminal, and we unloaded our compacted luggage for the week. We had moved all of our luggage into one bag, and left the rest in the car. The boat trip to the island was only 4 dollars per person for the 45 minute trip which took us slowly at first through mangroves lined with numerous houses on stilts, perched right over the calm waters. The scene appeared to be right out of the movie “Waterworld”, but differed in that it didn’t suck because it was us as the lead role and not Kevin Costner. Once into open waters, the boat engine revved up and we rocketed towards the island. After arriving we quickly bargained for a large room with air conditioning, cable television and hot showers for only 25 dollars a night. So these should be our last 5 nights in Panama before crossing back into Costa Rica, and soon, maybe a day or two later, back into Nicaragua.

Tyler.