Leaving El Valle; Two Falls on the Way

Panama Travelog #27
Near Gamboa, Panama - Fri, 27 Dec 2024. 3pm.

This morning we packed up and left El Valle, Panama after 4 days there. It was surprising how fast we packed. We were done in, like, 5 minutes. Thought the reason it was 5 minutes and not 20 was that we weren't packing for a flight. We only had to carry things as far as the car, where there's no restriction like "1 bag and 1 personal item". Today we're driving to Panama City, where we'll unload all our little bags onto a luggage cart a hotel and take them in the elevator up to our room.

We're not driving directly to Panama City, though. We've made a few side trips to hike waterfalls along the way.

First we drove from El Valle to La Chorrera. It was highway driving all until the last few km, so it wasn't too bad. But then it was.

City Driving in La Chorrera

Our first stop was Chorro de la Chorrera. Trying saying that 5 times fast! The name literally means stream of the waterfall. But what's weird is that The Waterfall is the name of the town. The waterfall in The Waterfall is called The Stream.

Getting out to El Chorro de la Chorrera was a bit of a pain. The main reason is that traffic in La Chorrera was awful. I wrote before about how highway driving in Panama is a bit chaotic with drivers going at very different speeds and some weaving lanes. Well, city driving is a whole 'nother beast.

Many city streets are jammed with solid lines of cars crawling along. Few intersections have traffic lights. Many don't even have stop signs. The norm there seems to be to take turns as if it were a four-way stop. But when you've got a stop sign and crossing street doesn't, forget about anyone letting you in. They won't.

You've got to ignore what that red and white "STOP" sign means in the US and other civilized countries— stop until it's clear to go— and treat it as a momentary pause. You ease out into oncoming traffic until your blocking of their right of way forces someone to stop and let you in. And if you don't do that fast enough, someone behind you will overtake you and cut you off to get into traffic ahead of you.

Finally we got to El Chorro. Billed as "The largest falls in Panama" or maybe "one of the largest falls in Panama" it was kind of disappointing. We made the best of it, though, and enjoyed having it pretty much to ourselves. All the other foreign tourists were probably lost in traffic or waiting at a stop sign somewhere until midnight when the traffic abates.

Revenge Trip to Sendero el Charco

After spending a short while at El Chorro we got back in the car and Road Warrior'ed our way back out to the highway. Once on the main road it was smooth sailing up toward Gamboa, where we sought a revenge trip on the waterfalls of Sendero el Charco in Soberania National Park.

Revenge trip? Yes, because this was the trail that was closed when we tried to visit 4 days ago. And today... today it was still closed! 😡

This time, though, we were in a mood of "Fuck it, we're going in anyway." We parked off the road across the street, stepped over the chain across the parking lot, and walked past the empty gatehouse. There we noticed that the gatehouse was stripped completely bare inside and looked like it hasn't been staffed for years. The fact that the park has apparently been abandoned by authorities made us feel better about breaking in. That, and the fact that we parked next to another car belonging to people who'd evidently done the same already.

We had ourselves a nice loop hike in El Charco. Yeah, the trail's it deteriorating shape like it hasn't been kept up in several years. There's a suspension bridge that's falling apart. I determined that it's falling apart when I was about halfway across. 😳 But we got across safely and looped back around to the falls. And no cops came out to arrest us for breaking in to the park. ...Of course, if they could afford to send cops to ticket or arrest people, they could staff the booth charging admission. And maybe fix the suspension bridge.

Now we're back at the car, ready to head down to Panama City. Our phones are out of cell range up here in the park, so it's good I know the first 10km of the route already. It's the same as we drove earlier this week and earlier today.

What, no Pictures?

As I mentioned in one of my blogs yesterday, I'm streamlining my Panama blogs now with fewer pictures to keep the backlog from getting so out of hand. I'll come back around to share photos & video once I'm caught up.

Hotel Snafu 3/3 in Panama. Fuck Verizon, Too.

Panama Travelog #28
Panama City, Panama - Fri, 27 Dec 2024. 10pm.

OMG. What a fucking mess this afternoon and evening turned into. Things have finally gotten under control somewhat by now but I'm still so pissed off.

Around 3 or 4pm today things looked good. We finished a revenge hike near Gamboa and needed to drive into Panama City. The plan was we'd drive to our hotel, check in, stow our bags in our room, then drive to the airport to return the car, and finally Uber back to the hotel. Oh, and squeeze into that list stopping at a Machetazo, Panama's equivalent of Walmart, so I could buy a swimsuit because I forgot to pack mine this trip. (It hasn't mattered until now because our last hotel didn't actually have a swimming pool, just a duck pond.) All these things happened, and in proper order, but how they all happened involved way more frustration than it should.

1. For starters, our cell phones went on the blink. Both of them. At the same time. They couldn't connect to network even as we approached Panama City. We didn't believe it was a problem when we were up in the national park, because cell signal was spotty there earlier this week, too. But coming into Panama City, with a metro area population of upwards of 2 million, our phones telling us "No Signal" was complete bullshit.

2. Having no signal 80%+ of the time made the drive into a major unfamiliar city... painful. At times our phones were literally directing us 180° the wrong way because they lost signal. And this was with Road Warrior-esque traffic patterns around us.

3. We finally got to the hotel and stowed our bags. The room was cold, so we increased the temperature on the HVAC and left to return the car. Oh, and no upgrade on the room despite being a Lifetime Titanium member. Thanks, Marriott.

4. Driving to the airport with spotty mapping wasn't too bad. I committed as much of the route as possible to memory before we left. And after the first mile or so on city streets it was "Get on the toll road, drive east, then follow exit signs to the airport."

5. Getting an Uber to get back to the hotel was a bit dodgy because of the cell service bullshit. Ultimately it involved some waving and crossing a street when the driver pulled up, but we made it.

Back at the hotel Hawk and I divided our efforts.

6. Hawk got on a text chat with Verizon via hotel wifi to find out why our cell service suddenly went to shit on Day 5 in Panama.

7. I called the front desk about the broken air conditioner in our room. I'd set the temperature to 25° C an hour earlier. The room was about 19° C and the air conditioner was still blowing full blast. The hotel sent its repairman, who only showed me how to switch the HVAC from AC to heat. "Now wait 20-30 minutes," he suggested.

8. Hawk got escalated from a Level 1 tech— the kind who asks questions like, "Let's check that you didn't turn on airplane mode"— to an advanced tech.

9. As I unpacked clothes from my suitcase into drawers and hangers in the hotel room I found out that the small bottle of rum I'd purchased a few days earlier to enjoy in the evenings had somehow leaked. I saw somehow because I screwed the cap on tightly. But now several of my pieces of clothes were damp and smelled like rum.

10. Nothing else was going fast, so at least there was time to wash clothes. Hawk wanted to wash a few of hers anyway. Fortunately the hotel has a self-service laundry. I got quarters from the front desk— yes, the machines at this hotel Panama require US quarters to operate— and started a load.

11. Back at the hotel room, it was still cold. The AC was still blowing cold air full blast despite "heat" mode being switched on. I called the front desk again and said, "The air conditioner is still broken." "I think it's not broken," the front desk agent replied. WTF? "I want to change rooms," I added. "No," she answered. "You can just turn off the air conditioner if you don't like it."

12. I was steamed about the hotel's intransigence but it was time to move my laundry to the dryer. I went back downstairs and... the washer was unplugged. With my clothes still in it. And the lid was locked. Another guest hovering in the area explained to me that he unplugged it because it was shaking. He accused me of breaking it and said he'd informed the hotel manager.

13. The hotel manager and repairman arrived at the laundry room. By then I'd plugged the machine back in to resume my wash cycle. The washer was working fine. I struggled to explain to the manager, who spoke very little English, that no I did not break the washer, as clearly it was working fine. I told them again about my room's air condition, which actually is visibly broken. They shrugged.

14. Hawk and the Verizon tech finally did get our phones to reconnect to the cell network for more than 2 seconds at a time. The diagnostic process stretched across almost 2 hours.

Once the laundry was de-alcoholized and the phones were working we went out for a late dinner. The front desk had recommended a few restaurants within easy walking distance. We picked their first recommendation, Costa Azul, a restaurant with a huge menu of Panamanian standards. I noticed it's open 24 hours and was clearly popular with the late-evening crowd. And the food was... well, it's available 24 hours. I felt like they'd steered us to Panamanian Denny's.

As for the room temperature, I have temporarily accepted the solution of "Just turn it off". I will approach the front desk manager tomorrow. I expect the day shift manager will have more latitude to authorize a room change.

A Man, a Plan, a Canal, Panama!

Panama Travelog #29
Panama City, Panama - Sat, 28 Dec 2024. 12pm.

Today we toured the Panama Canal. We booked a half-day ferry excursion that took us from the Pacific Ocean to approximately the midpoint of the canal, at Gamboa. There are 6 locks from end to end, 3 up and 3 down in each direction. Our ferry ascended through 3 locks then docked. Following that we rode a bus back to Panama City.

It was an early day. We set alarms for 4:45am to be out the door at 5:30am to report to the marina at 6am for check-in and boarding. The day started even earlier for me as my body decided at around 2:15am that it really didn't want more sleep. I sat up for 2.5 hours until our alarms rang.

Once at the marina things moved smoothly. Smoothly doesn't mean swiftly, though. One of the things our tour guides on the ship explained is that ships first wait an average of 8-10 hours at either end for the signal from authorities to begin transit, then a full transit through the canal takes 10-12 hours. So, going from ocean to ocean is a 24 hour process. Though that is quite swift compared to having to sail around Cape Horn at the tip of South America.



Continuing with my resolution to avoid backlogging I will share just one photo from this amazing and information-packed trip. This pic shows the ship ahead of us, a car carrier that can hold 3,000 cars, entering one of the locks at Miraflores. We followed it through each of the locks. There was room for both ships.

Note the tugboat in the foreground. It helped guide the freighter into the narrow lock. By narrow I mean that the there is less than 1 foot of clearance on each side of the freighter.

There are also electric locomotives, two on each side of the lock. You can see their rails in the picture. These "mules", as they're called, attach steel cables to large ships fore and aft to pull, push, and guide them through the locks. We didn't have mules attached to our ship because we're narrow enough to fit easily. That car carrier fits in the locks with less than 1' of clearance on each side.

These are the original locks that were designed in 1904 and completed in 1914. The reason ships like this barely fit in the locks is because they're designed that way. For decades freighter ships have been designed specifically to fit through the Panama Canal locks that have been operating for just over 110 years now.

Dinner for Two at Subway

Panama Travelog #32
Panama City, Panama - Sat, 28 Dec 2024. 8pm.

Last night we walked a bit around the neighborhood before settling on dinner at the front desk's recommendation, Costa Azul. Costa Azul was... thoroughly mediocre. That mediocrity left us curious about the fast food restaurants we'd seen a block away from our hotel. McDonald's, Wendy's, Subway, Carl's Jr. ... they all looked good. They all had classier items on their menus than are available in the US.

Today we were tired after our halfway transit of the Panama Canal. I was extra tired because I'd woken up a bit after 2am, unable to fall back asleep. I napped for a few hours when we got back to the hotel. After that I was still low on energy, and so was Hawk. We decided against going out for a fancy dinner. Something simple, inexpensive, and nearby would hit the mark for us. It was a perfect time to take a second look at those fast food franchises!



We landed at the Subway. What intrigued us both was their chimichurri sub. Then they surprised us by combining the beef, onion, and peppers in sauté pans. They dabbed in chimichurri sauce at the end (the proper way to sauce stir-fried meats and vegetables) along with shredded mozzarella to melt it all together. Then they scooped it into freshly toasted rolls.

"This is like Subway 20 years ago," Hawk remarked. "None of their stuff tastes as good anymore."

"US Subway never had a hot sub this fresh," I countered gently. Or maybe I just said it in my internal monologue. My mouth was probably too full of delicious chimichurri steak sub to say things aloud.