Tracking Down Our Second TRAK Kayak

 

Jan 11th - 13th

The rest of our time in the city was spent taxi-ing back and forth between old town and downtown, barely taking any real deep breaths of clean air (cough hack cough!), finding one tropical park for a moment of respite, taking cold showers in the land of one-tap showers, (I love even when there’s two taps you know you’re not getting any hot water) searching out the forgotten gear for our camera equipment and computers, (what a headache) finding a decent English speaking dentist for Jaime and tracking down the second TRAK kayak at the FedEx office.

- A -

 

I have a cracked root canal and cavity, the dentists in panama are a wonderful cheap and well trained option for the world traveler. $50us gets you a filling and $500 gets you a high end tooth cap. I will talk more about this adventure later when I find the time to go through with it. For now I just had a really good tooth cleaning for $25us.

Now it is time to pick up the Other TRAK, I had flown via Belize with one TRAK Kayak, it had cost me $200 dollars to get it to Belize (for $10 more i got a first class set, so that was a given). From Belize to Panama no one even flinched at the Large bag even though it was slightly over the 70lb allowance for Taca. The Other TRAK kayak had been posted from Canada for a little bit less money, when we eventually found the Fed Ex station the boat was waiting in its box, I signed for it and then we unpacked it. getting a Taxi from there to the bus station proved tricky with two large Golf bags and our Backpacks. We ended up making Friends with a Venezuelan political outcast who now runs a restaurant ("Finca" with the best fruit Shakes) next to the FedEx station. Our new friend told us her interesting story of not agreeing with the politics in Venezuela thus was forced from her government job and the country to Panama. In the meantime she had called her friend, also from Venezuela, who took us for $10 to our Bus in her thankfully large trunk car! - J -

Now - it’s on the bus and off to Santa Catalina via Santiago and Sona, About a half day trip. Beaches, Surf, Sun and sand along with small town living, here we come!!

- A 'n' J -