Thursday, February 1, 2018
Bocas del Toro (Isla Solarte) to Panama City
It poured down rain most of the night, until about 6:30 in the morning, when the rain tapered off into intermittent showers. I had trouble sleeping because it kept running through my head that we have to get a water taxi in the morning back to the main island to catch a plane! Would it be too dangerous to leave? Would we get soaked? Plus, the cacophony of frogs through the night was annoyingly loud and sounded like a squeaky wheel, not helping the sleeping situation. The temperature was pleasant, but with no A/C and all the rain, all our stuff was pretty damp this morning.
We had some breakfast and coffee, same as yesterday, then checked out. At Bambuda everything (meals, beers, snorkels, room) is on a tab, and you don't pay till you check out. They put our tab under the code names “Jtown” and “Mariette.” No clue why. The total bill came to $291. The room itself was $206 of that. Very reasonable. We paid in cash to avoid an additional 3 percent fee for credit card.
Moist morning
The rain paused just long enough for us to travel to Bocas Town via water taxi ($5 each) and make the 10-minute walk to the airport. Yes, the town is small enough that you can walk to the airport.
Bocas Town
Parque Simon Bolivar, Bocas Town
Just five pounds of hand luggage is allowed on this flight, so we had to check our backpacks. From the waiting area, we could see where the checked luggage had been loaded onto a hand cart and wheeled to the side of the runway. Then came another hard rain shower, naturally, and only then did an airline worker run outside and cover the bags with a tarp. Figures. As it turns out, though, Tom's bag and my bag were on a second hand cart that hadn't yet left the building. Lucky us!
Wet luggage on the runway
Fokker 50
Internacional airport (servicing one flight to nearby Costa Rica)
The Air Panama flight was scheduled to leave at 10:10, and we left at 10:30. Close enough. It was a Fokker 50 prop plane, and the ashtrays in the armrests hinted at the fact that it was not very new. The flight to Albrook Airport in Panama City takes 50 minutes. Beats sitting on a bus all day!
We collected our luggage and made our way through the airport and out onto the street, where we were relentlessly harassed by aggressive cabbies while we waited for our Uber. Lo and behold, when our driver got there, it was Abdiel, who picked us up from the train station over a week ago. It was like coming home again.
Abdiel took us to the Country Inn & Suites, located at one end of the Amador Causeway, at the entrance of the Panama Canal. We arrived at 12:30 and check-in isn't until 3:00, so we left our bags with the bellman and went for a long walk.
We spent the afternoon walking along the six-kilometer Amador Causeway. The causeway links four small islands at the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal with the mainland and is constructed of rock extracted during its excavation. In 1999, the U.S. handed over the canal to the Panamanian government, and the U.S. military bases subsequently closed. We saw a few ruins of buildings abandoned by the U.S. that have fallen into extreme disrepair.
Ruins on the Amador Causeway
Bridge of the Americas
There's a very nice pathway all along the causeway, with bicycle cops and public bathrooms and places to refill your water bottle. The views of the modern skyline and the old city were fantastic, as well the sight of ships lined up outside the canal, and a funky building or two, including the Biomuseo, designed by architect Frank Gehry. After a couple of hours, we were almost at end of the causeway and decided to call an Uber for a ride back to the hotel.
Panama City Financial District
Amador Causeway
Biomuseo and Ancon Hill
Threatening skies
The hotel: Country Inn & Suites, a very typical U.S. hotel plopped down in Panama. Our room was $75, a nice, large, modern room with two queen beds, a fridge, microwave, and coffee pot. Good value. We didn't pay extra for a canal view or a balcony, but we still had a partial canal view and a good view of the Bridge of the Americas. They have a business center where we printed our boarding passes for tomorrow's flight, after being reminded that to get an @ symbol on an international keyboard, you need to press alt+64. Not very intuitive.
The hotel has a huge pool with a nice terrace overlooking the canal, but unfortunately the hotel bar was closed for renovations, so we walked to a store a half mile away for a six-pack before returning to the terrace, where we enjoyed the nice ocean breeze while watching ships exiting the Panama Canal as the sun set over the Bridge of the Americas.
Ancon Hill
Country Inn & Suites
Poolside and canal-side
Exiting the Panama Canal
After sunset, we stopped by the front desk and arranged for a driver, Ricardo, to take us to the airport at 6:15 tomorrow morning, then went to the attached TGI Fridays for burgers, fries, and some bottles of decent handcrafted Panamanian beer. We sat outside and continued to watch the ships go by before returning to our room to pack.
Tom
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