Borderline Experiences

January 19th 2017

... featuring Jan and Willi

After a quick breakfast at the hostel we take a bus to the border to Panama.
At a small kiosk we buy some departure-ticket-things and wait for an official putting the stamp in our passports. Next we cross the muddy brown border river on a very overgrown steel bridge that looks like prisoners were exchanged on it during the cold war or something.

Bridge of Spies vibes
On the other side we pay for something again, this time we get a small slip of paper that no one really cares about in the end.
Well, technically we probably could just have walked past the border office and onto the bridge without anyone really caring, so...

I didn't buy the slip and nobody seemed to mind.

The Panamanian immigration refuses to let Willi, the only one in our group with a permanent residence permit for Panama, in without evidence of a return flight.

What no one tells you when you apply for a volunteer year is that you'll have to pay $450 for said residence permit.

His visa, which he should have gotten about 6-7 months ago, ends up being much less helpful than a non-binding suggestion for a plane ticket from early last year that Willi finds in the depths of his email inbox. With both eyes squeezed shut and without any knowledge of German, that might just look like a return ticket.

Even a blind person could have recognized that that can't possibly be a ticket. Fun fact: No mention of 2017 anywhere, either.

While Willi argues loudly with various border officials (Nils has to look up the word 'lawsuit'...) and Jan is decidedly not fine with the general situation, we help an elderly German man who seemingly can't decide between immigration and emigration.

I was not fine with the general situation.

Finally all bureaucratic hurdles are cleared and we find a 'taxi driver' willing to take us, squeezed tightly onto the back seat of his pickup, to Almirante. The driving reminds me a lot of Mario Kart or GTA: Every now and then we use the oncoming lane to pass someone while right next to a police car or slow down to whistle at some 'chicas' on the road.

Chicos on the other side of the road are being soaked by strong acceleration through a puddle, too.

Nils and Willi engage in what sounds like a vibrant conversation with our driver, who does acknowledge that his driving is 'muy loco' — when we tell him that Germany has cameras on the streets monitoring speed limit violations and sending tickets, he shakes his head in disbelief: "Wouldn't want to live there".
The entertainment value of the drive was worth the price alone.

Even though at no point of the ride did I feel safe, I have to agree.

From Almirante we take a boat to Bocas del Toro — a group of small islands only accessible from the water. From the main island that is home to most of the city we set over to one of the smaller islands with one of the countless water taxis. Here we find the Aqua Lounge, our hostel.
The entire building is situated on the water — cutouts in the floor create pools with diving boards, swings, and a slackline.
Along the coast we follow a sometimes more, sometimes less muddy path for about 15 minutes to end up at a beautiful secluded beach.

The location here is really beautiful. With the ocean all around there's vacation vibes coming up. And you're even forced to read books because the Internet doesn't work.

Pirate Cinema

In the evening we take a boat over to the Isla Colon, the main island, where the Cine Cafe is located — there's some darkened cinema rooms with bean bags here where we can watch a movie of our choice. Because everything is a bit more chill in Panama, the copyright situation is rather lax here: The well over 400 movies from all ages are all illegally downloaded from somewhere — great business model, actually.
After some discussion we settle on 'The Truman Show'.

My suggestion to watch Citizen Kane with Orson Welles from 1941 failed to impress — but Jim Carry was great, too.
The next morning we head to the beach together, and it feels like we have just arrived when Nils and Willi have to leave again — they want to climb the highest mountain of Panama, after all, and we have to leave for New York in a few days already.
Just like lagoons, mountains can be closed as well. The 10 hour bus ride was not really worth it. #youshallnotpass
We spend what remains of the day on the beach and head over to Isla Colon again for dinner — on our way Jan is dragged into a rather interesting conversation:
"Where are you from?" — "Germany" — "Oh, Germany... You gotta like cocaine, then?" — "Uhm, no?" — "What about Ecstasy?" - "Haha, no, gracias." — "Heroin? Acid? You gotta like something!" — "No." — "No?" — "No."

All the drug dealers here are super surprised what we want to buy neither marijuana nor cocaine or anything.

If you are offered cocaine while with your family you should not reply with "I'm good, but perhaps my 14 year-old sister or my parents want some?"