Leg 19 Day 320 Wednesday 14th Feb Chitre to Panama City 273km

Last night we asked the owner of our little hostel where we could eat, he said that the festivities were only ending at 2h00 so we should walk up the road to the Square and find a place to eat there. Our Hostel was one block away from the action where the Carnaval was taking place. I had walked earlier in the afternoon to go and buy some water and there was a stream of people leaving the square, they walked 8 abreast and blew their whistles and danced their way home, according to me the party ended at 17h00.

When we went for dinner the streets were deserted, only the evidence of a huge street party remained with a hand full of people and some cleaners. a few Chineese hawker-stands and the occasional fire-works being fired. Our choices for dinner was either some old Cork-Screw Viennas from one of the vendors that was cooked a few hours ago but could not be sold, or to eat blue cake from the bakery or

an empty restaurant on the square.

We ordered pasta and chicken cordon blue and even got the last bottle of red wine, we had to raise a glass to our milestone of 100 000km.

Then we went home and went to bed before 22h00. And then we were woken every hour on the hour when the new crowd that must have arrived after we left were treated to more fireworks and there was a Mariachi Band with very load noisy music. Pie sent us a video on our group that he took at 2h00 when the floats made a surprise appearance for one last lap before calling the Carnaval finally OVER. Sadly for Pie him and Tex’s room was on the road side and the floats accessed the square past their window.

This morning after a coffee we set off for Panama City, which was mainly East from Chitre. Note how narrow the land is here, exactly the reason the Canal joining the Pacific with the Atlantic Oceans was dug here towards the end of the 1800’s. We will be visiting the Canal Museum and more info will be passed on to you tomorrow.

The road today was the main road and everybody who went away for the long weekend was on their way back to Panama City. The speed limit is only 80km per hour, so with all the traffic the going was very slow. I noticed many cars had their suitcases on the roof racks of their cars, with one or two Fans as well as the locals also get warm even though it is now technically their winter. Most people drive small cars and Toyota Prado’s are the biggest cars on the road here, with the odd Hilux and Nissan pick-ups.

We stopped to fill up with fuel and a street vendor came and offered me some funny looking food:

It was a homemade custard which tasted very nice even though it looked different to what our custard looks like.

As far as we went the clean-up was on the go and the floats were being dismantled.

We had so much traffic and at times we were travelling very slow and in 1st gear and taking strain in the sun. But then two local guys on small motorbikes came past and hooted at us to follow them and they made-us-clever as to what was acceptable behaviour, so then things got moving again, the pavement was back into play, Lekker.

We arrived in Panama City and stopped at a fuel station to buy water, they had some seating inside and their air-con was on steroids, so we sat down, and then we realised that we had skipped breakfast and that we were very hungry, so Pie ordered us a few pieces of Crumbed Chicken from the fuel station, and it was definitely not as good as KFC but we were hungry and the chicken was nice and oily so we tucked in. While we were sitting there I got a message from our “Lost Friend” Peens who came early to fish and was then planning to cross the Darien Gap the hard way on a little boat, disguised as a fishing boat but which I think was its cover for running drugs, Anyway, Peens had arrived in Panama City and was lonely and decided to become our friend again and fly his bike over with ours to Colombia and not try the “Small Boat” option, He had sniffed out the area we were on our way to, the Historical old Town of Panama City and he sent us a pin and soon we were sitting under an umbrella exchanging stories. His bike has now got mere than the kitchen sink on:

They are busy fixing up the old buildings and already it has become a tourist trap where not only is the beer very expensive, they now serve it in a wine glass but only fill the glass halfway, so it was a short reunion celebration and we set off looking for accommodation in the new CBD. This Old Town is really special from an Architectural point:

I found the Eurohotel on the internet which was very affordable, it had parking in the basement and a swimming pool, it was right at the edge of the fancy buildings and turns out, it has a laundromat opposite it. so as I am writing this Blog all the guys are sitting waiting to feed the washing machine some coins and I am told they are even exchanging recipes.

Peens has poured himself a Brandy & Coke as he has just realised that today is Valentines Day and that he did not receive a single Message or WhatsApp, nothing, he feels very un-loved. So he bought some coke and then made it Naughty, (Stoute-Cokie) by adding some Brandy to it.

I hear lots of people have been asking about Tex’s back, well, the photo showed him lying in a funny position on the floor, there good news is that there is nothing wrong with his back, he was simply lying on the floor to extract as much of the coldness from the times.

I am also improving and think the Cold is now all behind me.

Our hotel room tonight has an air-con that came with Noah on the Ark, plus 1 little shampoo and soap and two towels each.

Tomorrow we have to go and meet the Agent that will fly us and our bikes across to Bogota, less than 200km I think. So bit of admin tomorrow, plus we want to go and see a ship comes through a lock and go to the Canal Museum. But current there is a drought, non like in history, thank you Global Warming, so as a result the big ships can’t cross the Panama Canal as the water level in the top lake is too low, so only smaller vessels are allowed to cross.

More stories tomorrow

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