Thu 12:10. On the bus. Some guy is stood at the front trying to sell trinkets in support of some art charity as far as I can gather.
Did the usual dozing thing and dragged myself out of bed at 10:30, despite not being sure if checkout was at 10 or 11, I figured I'd risk it as they seem relatively relaxed and 11 does seem to be quite common. I really didn't want to get up.
The hostel called me a taxi, the driver charged me USD2.50 as opposed to the 2 (or 1.50 then change your mind and make it 2) it's cost me the last four trips to and from the bus terminal. Maybe this is a luggage surcharge but I am dubious. Luckily I had a 5 note on me so I could pay him exactly without having to wait for just USD0.50 change. Chiselling git.
I bought a bus ticket about 11:10 then legged it off to the nearest terminal restaurant (as the bus ticket said I had to be there by 11:30 for a 12:00 bus, I knew that was bollocks but there you go). The same one I went to yesterday was nearest. A pathetically small piece of chicken (at least yesterday's portion was a decent size) and about four medium-sized boiled potatoes for USD3.95. Oh, with a can of diet choke. Robbing bastards.
This guy on the bus is getting on my wick but he seems to be getting laughs. His 'routine' reminds me of the guy on (if memory serves) the bus from Puno to Arequipa on my way to Nazca. I've stopped even trying to follow him (I am trying to ignore him) but I wonder if he's not doing it for charity after all.
I checked my e-mail quickly before leaving the hostel this morning. I had one from the canal tour people after submitting my online booking last night. It turned out to not be an 'instant' booking but at least I didn't have to call. (I am getting ridiculously hung up on the difficulty of calling people, but it IS surprisingly awkward.) I am booked, which is a relief (frankly I was/am getting sick to death of the damn canal trip) but they have e-mailed me a voucher which I have to print. So unless I can find a late night net cafe tonight, that means I can't make my proposed trip to Colon tomorrow as that would take me away all day and tomorrow is the last day before the canal trip. So, cheers guys. Just screw up an entire day for me so it saves you the effort of having a list of customers you can check off against when I get there. Serves me right for not bringing my own portable printer with me.
Oh, and expedia did reply to my last e-mail about Panama City. They said I should contact customer support. Odd, that's what I thought I was doing already. I really hope the problem isn't just with me (I can't see why everything else should work but not Panama City) but of course I've now booked via someone else and in fact discovered a promising-looking aggregation site (wego.com), so even without feeling they're a bunch of unhelpful gits I am now less likely to just use expedia without making an effort to get a better deal elsewhere because it's easy.
The comedian is still at it. The crowd seem to be enjoying it but he is annoying me.
I am a bit dubious about the ability of the taxi driver to locate my hotel tonight. The brilliantly confusing numbered and simultaneously sort-of named streets in the city combined with an obscure street (Google Maps seems very poor for Panama City) promise trouble ahead. Oh, and of course I'm concerned that even though I have paid the six nights in advance (and there is no refund for cancellation and the full amount is charged for a 'no show') the hotel will decide I'm not coming because I'm not there til about 8pm. I wasn't asked what time I'd get there when I booked or given an e-mail address, just a useless phone number. As previously ranted about, I should not have to worry about this. They are clearly taking my money anyway so that room should sit there unoccupied for the next six nights if I don't show up, no questions asked. We will see what happens. The hotel is possibly a bit ropy but some of the comments on various web sites were stupid (one guy was complaining because he
had to CARRY HIS OWN BAGS up to - the horror! - the FIRST FLOOR) and others suggest it's OK. But it is *relatively* cheap, I avoided some even cheaper but more dubiously reviewed ones. Hostelworld.com had no great sounding hostels anywhere in the city and only two were free all six nights anyway. One was a real hostel miles from anywhere, the other was a short-term apartment miles from anywhere (on some flash-sounding gated development) at about fifty quid a night - an odd property for hostelworld. If the location had been better I might have splurged on the apartment (though an extra USD50 for check-in/cleaning seemed a bit of a cheek) but especially given the general incompetence of the local taxi drivers I decided I wanted to be more central. The hotel may not be great and it's the nature of the city I'll still need to take taxis, but it is fairly central which has to help.
Oh, I tried to download an ebook on my phone just before writing this. About 170K into a 230K download, my credit expired and it cheerfully threw me off. Heaven forbid I should be allowed to go 60K 'overdrawn' on a single file download. Much better to force to me to top up (via the oh-so-convenient ringback necessary while I'm roaming), re-navigate to the page and download the full 230K yet again, thereby allowing you to charge me twice and waste more of my time. Nice work O2.
So, it's evidently Steve's Customer Service Awards day today. :-)
15:15. We stopped (and got chucked off the bus whether we liked it or not) at some random terminal 30 minutes ago.
I'm not starving but I thought it might be nice to get something to eat. The only options seemed to be bags of dry bread products (I don't mind dry bread as such, but what is the damn attraction of the stuff over here? It seems the primary snack at bus terminals and the like, all over the place, not just in Panama.) and some things called 'emparedados' which I inferred from a bit of clip art on the menu to be a kind of toasted sandwich.
So I queued up and ordered an emparedado de jamon. I was going to ask if it came with mayonnaise but since some woman ahead of me in the queue pushed back in to get a drink just as I started to speak, then some bloke loitering by the counter got served, I figured I'd just order. Besides, the woman making them was different from the woman taking the orders.
I got a receipt saying paid and moved along. After a couple of other orders got made (one at a time, no parallelism, very slowly) the woman who I paid took my receipt back off me and put it at the end of a virtual queue of paper receipts over by the cooking woman. So the fucking staff deliberately shoved me back in the queue. I don't see how I could possibly have done anything different. Surely they didn't give me that receipt expecting me to immediately hand it back to the same person? I assumed I would need it to collect my food once made.
Five or ten minutes later, some customer woman asked me something in Spanish. I already had a bit of an arse on here as I had observed that every single one made seemed to get a massive squirt of mayonnaise and ketchup, so I'd just bought something I couldn't eat anyway. I said I was sorry I didn't understand and stood back. She then asked me what I wanted in English and I said I'd already ordered, being deliberately obtuse. When the staff finished serving everyone else who had been queuing they magically noticed me. I think my receipt thing had even gone missing, rather than being at the end of the virtual queue. They then finally made me what I'd ordered. Since I wanted something for my money I waited til they'd made it (the useless fuckers aren't getting my money and using no ingredients up) - the woman did say 'disculpe' as she handed it to me, but I don't care, what shit service - and left it on the counter. Where's a beggar when you need one? I could maybe have yelled across at
her as she cooked it not to put any crap on, but it was too far away to be convenient and I guess that's just how 'emparedados' are. (I had also kind of resigned myself to wasting my money as before when I thought I was in the queue, I realised I had no way to know when they were making mine and hence no way to intervene.) So at least I now know I can't eat 'emparedados'.
It's a good job I ate at the terminal back in David. It's not so much that I expect I'd be starving by now as that it's annoying to have the prospect of food dangled in front of you only to have it snatched away.
I did vaguely toy with just asking for my money back when I had to tell them my order again right at the end after everyone else had been served, but for some reason I didn't do it. I guess because I did sort of want something to eat and because I couldn't be absolutely sure they would put shit on mine. In hindsight this would have been the perfect time to request a non-standard, edible one, but I guess I was so hacked off with all the previous shit that I just wasn't thinking straight. Maybe by this stage I almost preferred pointedly not eating the thing to finally getting something edible.
Looking back, the one consolation is it wouldn't have made any difference if I'd asked about mayonnaise, since I'd have ended up with a big squirt of tomato ketchup to render the thing inedible anyway.
Oh, for the record, they appeared to be essentially half a baguette with the chosen filling plus maybe a bit of salad plus the ketchup and mayonnaise then briefly shoved in some sandwich toaster type thing.
I don't know why the fuck we need to waste half an hour stopping for a break on a 6-7 hour journey (including the break) anyway. (Seriously, that's not just because I'm hacked off about the food. I thought it on the way out to David, and as I got off the bus at the stop today before all the crap happened.) No other buses I have taken seem to do that, at least not ones with onboard toilets. It might make all the difference in terms of daylight at the other end when I'm trying to find the hotel.
19:40. Well that went a lot better than I expected. Bus got in about 18:45. Apart from trying to make conversation with me which I couldn't follow, the cab driver knew where my hotel was and charged me a probably semi-reasonable USD5. The room is actually a fairly decent suite (as you might expect from the hotel name) and there is an Indian restaurant immediately opposite. Score. :-)
I am awaiting onion pakora and chicken biryani, then will have a bit of a wander. Calle Uruguay and hence The Londoner are nominally close-ish, and Via Argentina which apparently boasts El Pavo Real and maybe other bars are also probably close-ish in the opposite direction.
I still need to get my bearings as to exactly which street I am on, but I have a hazy map of the area in my head.
21:05. Walked over to Via Argentina, I even managed to ask directions. Come to El Pavo Real, it sucks a bit (the draught is probably in quarter litres though it's hard to be sure) but they were playing Kenny Loggin's "Danger Zone" which raised a smile.
I asked if they did draught beer and the guy said yes and just stood there. Errr...
Saw an amusing rum ad on the way over which made me smile. Left my camera back at the hotel but I snapped a picture with my phone.
They have the same Beefeater gin poster here The Londoner has, showing some slightly foppish youn man about town.
I am feeling pretty good oddly enough. I think in part it's the J K Jerome effect, but I think not being stuck out in Casco Viejo helps. Maybe there are decent bars there, but I couldn't see any. I feel a lot more comfortable actually being able to walk to places.
I think I might go to Panama Viejo tomorrow now the Colon trip has to be postponed. After finding a net cafe with a printer, of course.
This is not a great place but the music is unashamedly cheesy 80s stuff and it makes me smile. It's not very busy but that's cool. I may go elsewhere or I may not, we'll see.
I can't help thinking not being in a hostel makes me feel better as well. Maybe that's too broad. Various hostels have been OK but I can't help feeling Hospedaje Casco Viejo was neither that comfortable nor (and this is probably just me) that matey. Worst of all worlds.
It is heartening if in a strange way slightly disappointing they don't have election coverage on in here. I did have a quick look at the BBC web site at the hostel (only because I was reminded by some random tweets coming up automatically when I connected to the wifi) and I got the impression only about 15 seats had returned, if I am not mangling the terminology too badly. If memory serves exit polls were suggesting the conservatives would be 21 seats short of a majority. I have no idea how reliable exit polls are though.
The biggest fly in my short-term ointment is the battery on my phone is getting very low. I suspect I may be left without reading material soon.
22:35. I see from the poster outside and some random American guy shouting at some people in the street there is live jazz here tonight. Got to be worth a try. Not that I was likely to move anyway. It's getting moderately busy although far from rammed.
Oh, the music has changed a bit. We currently have Mana's "Mariposa Tracionera" on.
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