We Just Wanna Work on a Pretty Boat Part 2

Stop #1

On day two we had planned on finding out how to get on a boat to go through the canal. We knew that we basically needed to find a certain yacht club and post on their bulletin board that we were interested. The only problem: we really had no clue where we were going. Taxi #1 took us all the way out to the first set of locks for the canal. Here, there is a visitor center/museum but nothing close to what we needed. Then Taxi #2 took us all the way out onto some islands that were full of pretty yachts. We wandered around taking pictures here because it was just so amazing to be out in a place like this. However, after talking around a lot and getting plenty of help, we realized that we weren't at the right spot. So, finally now that we knew where to go, Taxi #3 took us to the Balboa Yacht club (which in my head is a sort of promised land for our small group of wanderers).

Stop #2

Now that we were at the yacht club, we found the bulletin board and posted up our information. We then sat down in their restaurant, ate some great food, and waited. While we waited we were watching the news on the TV  The were showing images from all over Panama where people were rioting in the streets over the government trying to sell an area that Panamanians rely upon. So, we obviously decided to avoid the city for the evening. Thanks to the help of my wonderful mother, we were able to reserve a spot at a hotel outside of the city so that we were out of harms way. But really, who could've planned that happening. The ruining of plans continue.

This second morning was our waiting time. We had given out our information, and we were waiting to hear back from any possibility that we might be able to go work. So, basically we spent some time just in bed. At a certain point we decided to call it off on this side. We packed on up and headed to the bus terminal to head to the other side of the canal. Struggle bus warning.

We get to the bus terminal, which we had been to before. However, the bus system in Panama is totally different than that in Costa Rica. In Costa Rica, you just find a bus, walk on, and pay the driver. In Panama there is this system where you go through a turnstile to get out to the buses before getting on. We had no idea how to do this because you apparently needed a certain prepaid card to get through. Totally not knowing what to do, Taylor just help up a dollar, and they let us through and helped us onto the bus. We walked on without paying anyone else. So confused. We get on this bus and finally get moving. After about 30 minutes, a man begins to collect fares, and we had no idea what we needed to do. Just riding along on our struggle bus. We paid him and just wanted to get to Colon.

We finally arrived in Colon; the other side of the canal. Here, we needed to take a taxi to go anywhere because this side is a lil bit sketchy and was the center of all of the large riots. After a couple of taxis, confusion, and being ripped of by a taxi driver, we were at a yacht club 30 minutes outside of Colon. We just felt weird there, but began to ask around about line-handling in the canal. Eventually someone just told us that nobody was going through till November. So, there went all of our plans.

With all plans out of the window we decided to go back to Colon to get on a bus to Portobelo: one of the coolest places ever, and something that Kyle grew up hearing stories of.