South America
MexicoPanama
We drove straight from the border to the beach at Santa Clara. On the way, when we stopped to do some food shopping, I bought some antibiotics tablets (amoxicilin) which quickly cleared up my bunged up ears (from the diving back in Honduras).
Clean it
Our main task now was to do another "end of trip truck clean". So again we all plugged away at cleaning everything in the truck and the truck itself.
Party!
In the evening we had a transvestite's party. Each of the women donated some spare clothing to each of the men, and vice versa. I ended up with a bikini top and dress of Cath's and she dressed in a blue tee shirt and Y fronts of mine. I've got to be honest and say that her impression of me was funny, cruelly funny (it still makes me laugh looking at the photos).
And then it was onto Panama city, but first we stopped at the canal (next to the Merida docks). Here we were given the guided tour (of how the canal works) and watched a ship come down through one of the locks. Until you've seen this for yourself, you don't realise just how big these ships are, and how little room there is to spare. And how they're handled so deftly by the small electric train/tugs. Then it was across the Bridge of the Americas (the bridge that crosses the canal) and into Panama City and the end of the trip.
The group splits up
As always happens at the end of these trips, people started flying out. Some flew home, others carried on their trip south (Jim and Ian were travelling from Alaska to Tiera del Fuego, and Jim was going even further south to the Antarctic), I stayed around in Panama City for two weeks before flying out. This was a big mistake, there is nothing in Panama city to do for more than a couple of days. I passed my time wandering around, eating breakfast in a dinner down by the shore, surfing the net, and eating my evening meal at TGIF (which was hard to find, as they don't use street numbers in Panama).
* Pictures of Panama *
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* The group *
Back in the UK I had the same problem that I always have - what to do next? I've still to work that one out.
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