Crossing the Panamanian Border - Part 2

If you've read Crossing the Panamanian Border - Part 1, you know what the plan was. If you haven't read it yet, you can find it here. Below, I am going to share with you how much of our plan we were able to execute.

The day we traveled started well enough. The taxi driver arrived to pick us up 7:30 AM as requested. I was a little put off by the cost of $25 to the bus station given that it was only a 20 minute trip for us, however, since I don’t take cabs usually, I can’t say it was expensive, just outside of my expectations.

Our taxi driver was quite helpful on the ride down. We explained we were going to Rio Sereno and when visiting the bus station two days prior, the woman at the ticket booth said we would have to take a bus to La Frontera and then another bus to Rio Sereno. Our taxi driver stated that we could, in fact, take a bus directly to Rio Sereno and he knew exactly where the bus was stationed at the bus stop.

Bus to Rio Sereno

Sure enough, as we arrived at the station, the bus was pulling out. Our taxi driver stopped them and said he had four paying passengers (it was three passengers as children under seven do not pay a fare) who needed to board. The cost of the ticket? $5.00 a person. Our day was going according to plan I thought.

After we get on the bus, we ask the bus driver how long we should expect the trip to take – his response, 3 and a half to 4 hours. Granted this was a little longer than I expected but I had granola bars with me and made sure to take the baby to the bathroom right before we left. This bus is a mini-bus with no bathroom.

No shoulder on the road makes for an interesting ride

I mentally recalculated our expected time of arrival in San Vito and settled back for a ride that promised an incredible view.

The concept of an incredible view is truly subjective.

The view, in my opinion, is spectacular. We were so high up on the mountain that I was looking directly at the clouds I was accustomed to seeing from below. However, I also spent the ride looking down at the mountainside as we drove round and round several mountains to our final destination.

In some areas, I saw guardrails that gave me a modicum of assurance we would finish this trip unscathed while in other areas, I just prayed for the driver’s good judgment and health as he drove.

He was, to his credit, a cautious driver for most of the ride, slowing down every time a “Peligro” (danger) sign was posted. I was assured that he and I were like-minded in our commitment to safety until about 30 minutes before we reached our final destination when he picked up ten passengers who had to stand up on the full bus. In addition to what was, I suspect, the clear violation of some rule, his mini-bus was simply not built for that much weight; you could hear the tires squeaking for the rest of the ride which included a couple of additional trips up the mountain.

My prayers were answered and my good thoughts sent out to the universe well received. We arrived at the border safely and like the post I read described, I could see that Rio Sereno was a quiet place. Our bus driver convinced us to take a $2.00 taxi from the bus station to the immigration building, and after being taken two blocks and told I had arrived, I recognized I had been robbed.

No big deal, I thought. You live, you learn, you blog about it and make sure neither you or any of your readers make same mistake again.

We walk into the building with our papers and passports in hand – we had done our homework and were ready.

And then devastated.

The immigration officer tells us if we want to go to Costa Rica will have to go to the Paso Canoas border, the Rio Sereno immigration office had lost power three days earlier and had no definitive date on when the electricity would return. As a result, they could not process anyone in or out of Panama. To get to the Paso Canoas border, we would have to take another bus.

My go with the flow attitude suffered a slight setback at this point. The point of all my homework and research was to avoid spending hours on various buses, and it appeared despite my best efforts, this was doing to be the result.

We walked the two blocks back to the bus stop and located the area the Paso Canoas bus was picking up passengers. The time – 11:30 AM. There were four people waiting for the bus. We asked when the bus would arrive and how much we should expect to pay. The bus was scheduled to arrive at 12:00 noon we were told and the cost was $4.25 per person. The length of the trip? Two to two and a half hours.

We thought, okay, let’s get something to eat quickly and get ready for this trip. We found Hellen’s restaurant right around the corner from the bus stand. We told the cook we needed to order fried fish and rice to go within 10 minutes – he (or she) delivered. We bought three plates of rice and beans, fried fish and potato salad for $4.00 each. By 11:45 AM we had the food in hand, ready to eat as fast as we could in the 15 minutes we had until the bus arrived.

We turned the corner with our food in hand, looked up and saw that the bus had come. And there were just three seats left on the bus.

It appeared our adventure would continue, which brings us to Part 3 - the conclusion of our San Vito journey.