Cristo Negro & Scuba Portobelo

Last weekend we headed out to Portobelo again to experience the Cristo Negro festival.  It’s a festival in which people thank the black Jesus for a favor that was received, or they ask for a favor.   It’s super weird.  Some people walk from as far as Panama City to Portobelo (about an hour and a half drive) in order give thanks.  Others even crawl on their hands and knees until they reach the church where the Cristo Negro is housed.  So, naturally, a group of us thought it would be a cultural experience to check it out.  The actual festival was not until the Monday of the weekend we went, so we didn’t get to see it in full effect, but we were still able to enjoy seeing people walking into town.  It is also a time for this town to sell a bunch of food and Cristo Negro mementos.  The streets were packed with people, many dressed in purple robes, which are eventually discarded at midnight on steps of the church.  Luckily, we were not there for this.  The town is small, so we walked around for a bit, took some pictures of people crawling, and headed back to our hostel. 

 

 

 

We stayed at Scuba Portobelo, which is a great hostel about a mile before the town of Portobelo.  We rented 2 little cabins right on the water, each with its own hammock on the front porch.  Not surprisingly, Alex ended up sleeping in one, and our friend Kevin passed out in the other one. 

 

 

 

 

On Sunday, we spent some time snorkeling around just in front of the hostel, and then decided to take a boat taxi to an island just across the way.  We were convinced we could just swim to it, but instead, we had to pay $10 each for the round trip.  Bastards.  We were the only people on the small island for a while, which was awesome.  We did some more snorkeling and, unfortunately, got burned a little. 

 

We talked extensively as a group about whether we wanted to go back to the city, or just all call in sick and stay for another night.  Unfortunately, after a few hours out on the island, the responsible ones of the group made the decision to go back L.  We boated it back to the hostel, packed up, and started back on the road to the city, but not before buying some homemade hot sauce from the restaurant first…so delicious!

The problem with living in a tropical vacation-like place, is every Sunday evening is a battle to adjust back to reality.  At home in Seattle, weekends were great, of course, but it wasn’t like you were on vacation.  But here, when we go out of town on the weekends, it definitely feels like we are away on a tropical vacation, because we are!  And that’s awesome.  But it makes it soooo hard to go back to work on Monday.  I know, poor us J.

On our drive out of Portobelo, we saw a ton of people walking in from the next closest town, Sabanitas, and some probably from Panama City as well.  We hit quite a bit of traffic because the people would take up most of one lane on the two-lane highway.  We had just entered Sabanitas, and were almost home free onto the big freeway, when our car decided to overheat.  At this point, we still had about an hour drive until the city.  I got on the phone and called the supposed English-speaking number for the insurance.  Her English was worse than my Spanish, so I opted for Spanish.  That was frustrating.  Three hours later a tow-truck shows up, but they only towed it just down the street for the night because, as the insurance lady says, “No one wants to tow it to the city tonight.”  Whatever.  So, our car stayed in Sabanitas, and thankfully, our friends stuck around and waited for us, so seven of us crammed in the other car and drove back to the city.  Our car was towed to the city the next day and is still in the shop as we speak.  I think Alex and I have decided we are going to sell the POS and look for something else.  We might just put up with being car-less for a while, which would work since many of our friends have cars now, but it wouldn’t be ideal for the weekends, especially when friends come to town. 

Speaking of friends coming to town, our first visitors, Anna, Santiago, and Shane are coming in 5 weeks! Super excited! The weekend after that we are heading to Bocas del Toro to meet up with Bridget and Jarod! Then we have the Demers coming for Christmas and New Years, and the Wood clan coming in January!! We are VERY excited to see some friendly faces, and of course, have some days off!

Panama Traffic

I would like to take a moment to talk about Panama traffic.  We, fortunately, don’t have to deal with too much traffic due our location.  I have easy access to the highway from our place to get to school, and we typically walk everywhere during rush hour or when we go out at night.  We are lucky, however, to have a great view of traffic, and it is pretty comical at times. 

On the first and fifteenth of every month, all of Panama gets paid.  Panamanians tend to live paycheck to paycheck.  This is really awesome for us on the 27^th/28^th-ish and 12^th/13^th-ish because no one (well, just not as many people) is on the road or in the stores, because everyone has run out of money.  Payday, however, is a whole different situation.  The roads and grocery stores are crazy. 

Notice the cars on the right from bottom to top, and also the upper right hand corner....they are all going toward the grocery store and the bank.

It took our friends over an hour to get to our place the other night when they live less than ten minutes away.  You're thinking, "Why didn't they just walk?" That's another story in itself...

 

 

It's great that we can enjoy the view and not have to sit in the terrible traffic full of crazy drivers. 

 

 

We see and/or hear accidents on a daily basis...

 

 

 

The problem with accidents around here is that people are required to stay in the exact spot, no matter the amount of damage, in which the accident occurred, until the insurance agent is contacted...or comes to the scene...not really sure.  All I know is, this happened right as I was coming home from school (we had to maneuver around it up on the curb...totally normal), and this picture was taken about 2 hours later.  I think traffic would be half as bad if people would just get the f*** out of the way. 

 

If I had to deal with this every day, I would totally get to the point of doing this:

 

 



I mean, why would you wait when there are 4 lanes flowing perfectly next to you?  That median means nothing anyway...

 

We drove to Santa Catalina a couple weekends ago.  It was our first three-day weekend so we left at 6:30am Friday morning.  Luckily, we were driving against rush- hour.  There is a four lane highway, two lanes in each direction, that goes over the Bridge of Americas.  Many people come into the city for work, so they like to switch up the lanes during heavy traffic times.

 

 





 

Just a cone or two separate us from oncoming traffic.  Again, totally normal.  And yes, we totally sport a Panamanian flag.  We feel it will help our cause if/when we get pulled over.  Bound to happen sooner or later. 

 

When we first arrived, we noticed people really like their hazard lights here.  They put their hazards on for all kinds of things, but mostly for no apparent reason at all.  It wasn't until we started to get some real legit rain that we realized the importance of the hazards. The only way to see anyone when it rains here is to look for flashing lights.  Sometimes you come across the crappy taxi cabs that don't have any functional lights at all.  That's another time when you just want them to get the f*** off the road. 

 

 

I don't know that Panama traffic is any worse than Seattle or the Bay Area, but it is definitely crazier.  Everything (well, not everything) you wish you could do in the states when you're at the tip of your patience in traffic is typically done here.  Many people follow the rules, but it only takes a few to open the doors to chaos.