Memoirs: Backpacking Adventures

Chapter I

Adios, Osa Peninsula! Panama Here We Come!

The second phase of our journey began in Panama. We would leave the bug behind “safely” locked up, to adventure into Panama and South America… backpacking. Crossing the Panamanian border was more of a hassle than we were ready for. Immigration asked us for a return ticket out of Panama in order for them to grant us an entry permit. To our advantage, I was able to bribe the officials with some luxurious Costa-Rican chocolate (some of the best we had ever had and organic too!) and after a couple of humanitarian brainwashing techniques, they stamped our passports and on our way we went! We felt we were back in the old ways of trading, when one was able to use their goods as a payment…it felt really good to know that chocolate was still considered (among some of us) a valuable treasure! We crossed the border at night and we were a little scared (since we all know that you never, ever cross a border at night, except of course if you are partying in Juarez!) but honestly, we had no choice because Paso Canoas was literally “a shit-hole.” Luckily, a tourist bus coming from Costa Rica was waiting for its passengers to clear up visas and such, and gave us a lift to David. It felt strange to be in a bus, especially knowing that we weren’t just going on a tour, and that from now on, we would depend on someone else’s wheels to carry us on into our destiny. Nevertheless, we were really excited to cross the Darien Gap into south America after having stayed in Costa Rica for much longer than we EVER imagined and of course, without having to pay a fortune for crossing our car (around 1,000 US!). We landed in David and headed to a hostel called The Purple House…the name its definitely honored by everything, and I mean everything being purple-except- thank God, the dog! After being in the Osa Peninsula for more than two months, secluded from electricity, the city, shopping malls, traffic or pollution, coming to David was a bit surreal. David, considered the largest city of its state, was a slap in the face to our hermit ways! Without a doubt, we took advantage of our newly discovered mini ‘hell’ to indulge the ‘little devil’ inside of us with some ….I hate to say it…Mickey-Ds. As terrible as this may sound, it is just human to say, it felt strangely familiar. It was as if we were just back into our shelter little ways of Consumerism America, we saw everybody pretending to be happy, surrounded by plastic meaningless crap, like if nothing was happening around them, and we, felt enslaved.