Punta Mala

It was allegedly a 5 hour drive to Panama City, and it was a pleasant enough drive until we reached the edge of town. We got screwed over by not knowing they made both lanes of the motorway one-way so we got massively hooked up in rush hour traffic so the last 10 miles probably took us 2 hours!

In the morning we headed to the customs place to get the vehicle inspected in the morning, then back again in the afternoon to pick up the stamped paperwork. We had to spend some time hunting around for a specialist RV part that I thought I might find in a marine store and eventually got lucky, but did mean a lot more time in traffic and visiting some areas of town that I'm sure most tourists avoid.

Then we headed out on the causeway which provided fabulous views back across the modern city which had a skyline to make Manhattan jealous. We had a nice night having a couple of cold ones looking across the bay, although at half 2 in the morning some rich youngsters turned up, complete with gull wing super cars and stereo systems louder than most night clubs! After half an hour I'd had enough and was about to start the engine to find somewhere quieter when they disappeared as quickly as they'd arrived.

In the morning we drove back out of the city alongside the canal, stopping to watch a massive boat go through the locks. They actually build the tankers with the size of these locks in mind, and now they are talking about having to make a larger canal for super tankers. The Chinese are looking at building something through Lake Nicaragua which would completely destroy that amazing place, so I hope they just beef up the existing waterway. Interesting fact - the largest tankers pay up to nearly half a million dollars, so you can understand why Panama is a pretty developed and wealthy country. The lowest recorded cost was half a dollar, for a guy who swam the entire length!Read more