12:00. Well this bites. Dragged myself out of bed at 10:20ish. Got to terminal about 11:10 and bought ticket for midday bus. Am on it now.
SOME FUCKER has got on to do a bit of preaching at the top of his voice.
They didn't let us on til about 10 mins before departure so naturally there was a major queue as every idiot farted around organising themselves. Helped marvellously by some fat bitch who got on the bus just to say goodbye to her friends or family then wanted to squeeze off. (They didn't even have to have got on the bus at that point, so if it was such an epic parting why not just WAIT OFF THE BUS?)
Some wanker took the piss out of my accent when I said 'gracias' at trying to squeeze past someone to get to my fucking seat. My seat handily has a mini TV above it blocking the luggage rack so I can't have my bag above my seat. Most of the luggage rack in the middle of the bug has weird lumpy bits sticking down taking up all the space so I had to put my bag about five rows back anyway.
Owing to feeling totally conspicuous and in a rush I had to grab loads of crap out of the bag to have on the trip, especially as the bag is virtually inaccessible from my seat. So I have my fleece, a little bag with a book and stuff in, a packet of cookies and a 2l bottle of coke on my lap with nowhere to really dump them
The one consolation is this is a 'proper' airconditioned coach. Virtually every bus at the terminal is a red devil style thing and that would suck even more, especially as I was worried we would be on one and there'd no be luggage facilities. (I did ask the slightly surly guy at the ticket desk if I could take my suitcase and he said it was fine, but I am in one of my totally untrusting moods where I believe they will say anything as long as you give them money.)
Oh, and you have to put five cents in a turnstile as you exit the terminal to get to the concourse. Love those departure taxes baby. At least it's cheap, I did have five cents and they don't actually make you navigate through the turnstile with your bags, you can just turn it by hand and a security guard let's you by at the side. (I wonder how much her wages come to compared to the departure tax?)
I have rearranged myself. It's this fucking bottle of coke that's going to kill me. I am having to wedge it with my foot against the side of the footwell to stop it rolling around. It's too big to put in my little bag and I can't see any other way of restraining the damn thing.
I had to chuck the things I took out of the bag onto the window seat as some woman was sorting herself out in the advanced seat while I was a couple of rows back. When I sat down she had moved them to the other seat. She asked me if I preferred the window and I said I didn't mind. I prefer the aisle anyway and as I had realised beforehand my ticket happened to be for an aisle seat. I guess she maybe thought I was trying to claim the window seat by chucking my stuff on there. I was really just trying to get the stuff somewhere I could return to it afterwards because I was in a rush not to block the aisle up and she was stood in front of my actual seat so I couldn't chuck stuff on there. She was OK about it but just yet another bit of awkwardness on this damn bus.
I have discovered the seat in front makes my footwell closed on three sides, including the 'back', so I can push the coke bottle back there and rest my feet on it. It still eats into my space but at least it's less of a conscious effort to hold it in place.
I just hate this business of squeezing onto a bus with stupid fuckwits dithering in the corridor. And that TOTAL CUNT taking the piss out of my accent when I'm trying to be polite really didn't help.
12:35, Joy, the bottle just escaped, it clearly isn't quite big enough to remain trapped under there. The woman in the seat in front found it. So I will have to clamp the fucker between my feet. Fuck fuck fuck.
OK, I've hung it over my raised armrest in the carrier bag I luckily got with it. So unless the damn carrier bag rips due to the strain it's out of the way.
15:00. We just stopped somewhere. Everyone got off but me and one woman but they seemed to leave their stuff behind. Some guy just told me (I completely failed to understand his Spanish but he told me in English) we had 20 minutes here. (Even in hindsight I am unable to piece together what he said to me in Spanish.) So I have got off the bus sort of feeling I ought to (and maybe actually had to). There is a restaurant here but I don't have time to eat (the terminal in Panama City appears to prioritise banks, mobile phone shops and jewellers over food or drink suppliers, although there was a mini supermarket where I bought the coke and a couple of packets of cookies) and I'm not that hungry anyway. I don't really need the toilet and (as far as we understood each other when that guy told me about the stop here just now) the one on the bus does work (presumably for number ones only!) and I assume they will charge me to use the one here.
Of course writing that I just start to feel I could go and worry that the one on the bus is out of order. (It has a massively wordy handwritten sign on the door, though I can't read anything except the word "Ojo" at the top in bigger letters from my seat. I suspect that may be a diatribe amounting to "no shitting" but it may also say "out of order".) But I can't actually *see* the toilets here and I am reluctant to move more than a few feet away from the bus anyway.
I just took a GPS reading while loitering so I can find out where we stopped later if I can be bothered. We seem to be about 180km from Panama City.
While it would obviously be worse than 'usual' here with all my luggage on the bus, including my hand luggage, it is not a particularly Panama or even travelling thing that means I don't like to stray from the bus. On day tours on the trip and the rare occasions I have used buses in the UK I always have the horrible vision of the bus going without me. If I had really needed to go to the bog I would have done, but I'm not wandering away just for the hell of it.
Snapped a few totally pointless pictures here as well.
Oh, as on a few other occasions, I deliberately bought non-diet coke even though I think I had a choice, since I figured it might help me stave off any feelings of hunger.
Probably just the contrast with outside (though it is not that intolerable out there, it's rather overcast which may help) but we just got back on and I am reminded of that Headcleaner song which says "The air-conditioning on the bus was so good that I was cold". But at least no one is telling me about the street gangs in LA they've been involved with. :-)
(The woman sat next to me just got on but when I moved to get up she said she was going to the toilet first. So I guess that proves it works, and is also a bit odd given we've just had 20 minutes off the bus. Maybe she prioritised eating something.)
Oh, it has been raining a bit as well, which may have helped the outside temperature.
17:00. JFC. The bus just stopped and some not even properly uniformed guys wanted to see my passport. They wouldn't be satisfied with the copy, they wanted to see the immigration stamp in the original. FFS. We're on a bus from the interior to near the border. Where do they think I might have sneaked in from?
I had to dredge it out of my hidden belt, which I now can't get hidden properly unless I go to the bog (and of course has been revealed to any random thief who might be on the bus and fancies having a go when we get to David).
I *think* this is the first time anyone has demanded to see my actual passport within a country.
18:05. The bus lights are turned off, it's getting dark, the aircon makes it a bit cold and there's rain running down the windows. It feels almost like being back in the UK.
18:25. We just stopped somewhere and loads of people but not everyone got off. Including the woman next to me who seemed to be in a coiled spring state of readiness for five minutes beforehand and put me on edge about letting her out. She has left her bags so I assume this is a (less popular) rest stop. How people know this I don't know, since no announcement has been made even in Spanish. I assume David is the ultimate destination and that it's too early for us to be there yet, though only by about 40 minutes (the surly guy at the ticket desk told me.
Oh no, conductor chap just grabbed me so I had to leg it off with all my stuff. Fuck knows where everyone else is going or as on the rest of the continent, KNOW WE HAD ARRIVED. Oh well.
19:45. Got to the hostel OK, seems nice if not very lively, a few rather intimidatingly sullen fuckers with laptops scattered around the sort of open area round at the front. Room is quite nice and is air-conditioned. Walls are a bit tatty but it genuinely is a pretty decent room. To be frank I don't honestly believe reception is 24h here but I also suspect I will never be out late here. There is a refrigerator saying beer and water is available on the honour system at USD1, put money in the tray. I have no change but just may investigate this later, I don't know.
I asked about food and there is a restaurant opposite but it's shut as it's Sunday. It's a seafood restaurant anyway so I doubt I can eat anything there. There are some chinese restaurants in town about a minute by taxi or seven minutes' walk, though the directions to walk were totally vague.
It having stopped raining I borrowed and umbrella just in case and set out to walk. Hahahahaha. At the end of the road there is a fork to the main road and a fucking dog sat in the middle of the street. Loads of other dogs barking. Fuck that for a game of soldiers. I've come back. There was a shitty little local shop open at the end of the road where I could have bought some snacks but I have my second packet of cookies and a lot of the sugary coke. I could get a cab but somehow I resent the need, plus I have nothing smaller than a twenty and anticipate the driver being arsey, plus the cab is USD1.50 which really means two in practice and I kind of resent that as well.
The 'city' seems extremely unimpressive on the whole based on the bus terminal (or at least, where I got chucked off, it may not have been the actual bus terminal) and the cab ride. To be fair I never expected it to be impressive, the guide book says it feels more like a country town and boy are they right for once.
But I am damned sick of arriving late in the day in some out of the way suburb of some desolate hole and not being able to get anything to eat. I suppose I could get the guy to call me a taxi but I resent having to do that just to go out for food then come back.
00:25. Well, I've had a quiet night in. Didn't even try getting a beer. Not too hungry fortunately. I have submitted a request to book some coffee plantation tour in a nearby town via a pathetic web form which I expect to be totally ignore but we will see. I haven't yet got round to digging up canal tours, I will have to force myself to do that tomorrow night.
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