3000+ miles in 6 days

I arrived in Panama last night and Ric dropped me off at a Hostel called The Purple House which was very nice and also VERY Purple. Actually most everything in it was puple. I had expected to be the only one there but there were actually quite a few people staying there that night. One was from Ohio and was doing a Foreign exchange program in Costa Rica and was staying at the Hostel just so that he could renew his Costa Rican Visa. Another was from Australia and had been travelling around the Americas for almost 5 months. Another was from Germany and was leaving back home the next day as a conclusion to a year long trip before returning to school. And a couple French guys were there as well. I had a nice time hanging out with them. We sat around outside eating our dinner, drinking a couple Panamanian brews and talking about random subjects.

The drive down to Panama with Ric went really fast. Pretty much the only times we stopped for anything were to get gas, deal with customs and check into a hotel each night. And no, we didn’t stop once for food. It is a good thing that I brought my own Almond butter, Jelly and bread because that is what I lived off of for the first 5 days, along with my stash of LaraBars. Ric didn’t even eat hardly at all. I gave him half of my LaraBar each day but aside from that he maybe had 3 meals total. I was quite surprised at his ability to get little sleep, drink no coffee and drive more than 12 hours per day without the aid of drugs. We averaged around 450 miles per day over the whole trip, which was 7 days and 6 nights

Up until Costa Rica, all the other Latin American countries were incredibly impoverished and we were met by people asking us for money or trying to sell us random ´´goods´´ everywhere we went. Certain areas were better than others obviously. Also it was apparent that the worse off financially the nation was, the worse their peoples´ state of health and the more populous the area. Most everyone was obese or had some other handicap or bad teeth, etc. Also stray dogs were everywhere and we usually saw at least 4 or 5 dead and mangled dogs per day along the highway. When we got to Costa Rica, crossing the border was like entering another dimension; it felt completely different than Nicaragua did. It felt calm and clean and care free. One of our "helpers" at the border said that the people in Costa Rica were happy unlike the people of Nicaragua and other countries and this was quite apparent as we drove through. Panama has the same feel to it. The nice thing about panama is that they use the American dollar as their own, and the fact that things are cheaper here of course.

Being a blue eyed white boy with long curly blonde hair, I attracted a lot of attention from the locals of Latin America. Everywhere we went, I was stared at. The people didn’t even care if it was rude, they just stared at me like deer in the headlights. They were generally very nice though. Some of the nicest people we met were policeman and government officials and rentacops. We weren’t hassled by anyone even once. The worst thing that happened is that Ric got ripped off for about 60 bucks by one of his "helpers" at the Nicaraguan border.

*For those of you that were worried about me going into Central America; it is not as dangerous as you believe. As with anywhere in the world, the United States included, there are dangerous areas you want to stay out of for the most part. I have talked to many people who have travelled all over the world and they have run into very few problems. The media likes to portray the world as a dangerous ugly place when it really isn’t so black and white. If you go to visit a place, you check out the warnings for the area and talk to people who have been there to know what to expect and exercise common sense and you should be fine. Well that is my theory so far.