Embraced by Andies: Panama

Panama is nice country as have all the countries been this far. Panamanians still have strong national identity with ladies wearing traditional clothes and guys riding their beautiful horses in some areas. We haven't seen so many hoses in any other Central American country. Panama gets quite a lot of money from the canal and you can see that it's richer than other countries around. The canal is amazing. It has been a huge project that took 35 years to finish and killed almost 30000 workmen while in construction. At the moment the Panamanians are digging a new channel to get even bigger boats to get through. Panama city is modern and fancy on some parts, and slum on the others. The are plenty of skyscrapers and casinos. We tried our luck one night and walked out from the casino 300$ richer. Buena suerte! The beaches are nice and still quite unspoiled, but sadly everything is for sale and investors are building bigger and bigger resorts to make some money. That seem to be happening pretty much everywhere in Central America, so if you want to enjoy the pristine beauty of the tropical beaches go before it's too late.

Panama, the city of contrasts. The central has it's banks, malls and casinos, and the surroundings are poor, slums in some parts. We were staying in Casco Viejo, which is the old town that has been restored.

Colonial buildings in Casco Viejo, which has recently been dangerous slum, but is now getting popular area among young and trendy. Contrast can be seen as the poor and the elite are living side by side. Unfortunately many of the poor are getting kicked out of the way. The area is heavily guarded by police and private guards.

Very old fire truck in Panama city.

Tugboats in front of the Panama city

The Panama Canal is big indeed. The channel uses fresh water only to first lift the ships 26 meters above sea level and then lower them again 26 meters on the other side.

Miraflores locks. There hundreds of tourists are hooraying for the passing ship crews. Big locks anyway. The biggest ships that can fit in the canal can have 13 containers side by side. Many ships are built just to fit the canal. They are called Panamax.

I might be able to jump...

We spent most of our time in Panama surfing, fixing the van and trying to find the cheapest way to get to Colombia. Our luck with surf varied. In Las Lajas we got small but nice waves, but Santa Catalina was flat all the time we spent there. The surf was good in Playa Venao and first time on this trip I got to surf some bigger waves with no many guys out. The paddling out was really difficult, but after 10 months of quite regular surfing I managed to do it and it was worth it! Of course we have no pictures of those big days at all. I'm really hating myself being so lazy taking surfing pics. It must change now, surfing is after all what we have been doing most on this trip. The problem is that when I'm not surfing I'm laying somewhere trying to recover from the last session with no power left for anything. (or fixing the van).

The average day in Playa Venao, weird (maybe mad) guy from Israel surfing. The wave is fun, fast and hollow.

Iitu coming out after long session in Playa Venao.

In Playa Venao we also had a little spare time to paint the van.

Panama was easy and fairly safe place to randomly camp and sleep in a car. The nature was beautiful, but pristine places where hard to find. The Costa Rican Osa-peninsula was so amazing, that it's hard to get same kicks from other places anymore, jungle wise. Anyway we enjoyed our time camping everywhere, and people were very friendly and hospitable.

In Playa Venao we got many dog friends, as always. This one we called Turnipsi. This doesn't look like our kind of dog but it was so cool that we wanted to take him along. But for sure he's happier living his life in the beach than in the colds of Finland.

Karavaanari karavaanari on kaikkien kaveri.

The view to El valle de Anton, a quiet village built in a crater of a volcano. It was full of big empty houses of retired gringos. We also played retired and soaked in hot springs and took a hard 2km walk into the forest.

In the park was a nice waterfall where we took a swim after the hard walk.

Iitu waking up for the coffee. I'm the breakfast master while Iitu tries to gather herself from the bed, hehe.

View near the Playa Venao.

Keijo Karma, the van, was making our life quite difficult in Panama. The reason that everything started to fall apart was those crazy roads in Osa-peninsula, Costa Rica, with too deep river crossings and potholes and rocks. We were actually quite famous there because we managed to drive the old van to such a difficult places. First the front brake tubes got blogged and the brakes were on all the time causing serious overheating problems. We got that fixed while we were still in Costa Rica. When we got to Panama, in the beginning we had to change front bearings and front tires and tighten up all the possible bolts. Then the speedometer broke and after that the starter motor broke. Then broke the handbrake. Some parts of the handbrake got loose inside the rear brake drum and the noise was horrible. Then the exhaust pipe got really loose and joined the choir. And that was not enough. The motor was running with three cylinders only. And some of the windows were leaking again. There was moments of serious madness in my head. I was ready to find out how well the bloody car would burn. Fortunately Iitu seemed to be fixing the van happily and not stressing at all. She is such a good mechanic nowadays! So finally we managed to fix everything and the last weeks in Panama Karma was running like an angel again.