We said goodbye to Panama City this morning and took a taxi to Albrook Airport to pick up our rental car. To my dismay, my TD USD Visa card pin is still screwed up! It took us a whole hour and half to sort things out. At the end, the rental car agency had to swipe the card manually. By the time we got to the Miraflores lock of the Panama Canal, the last ship of the morning had already passed through, meaning there would be no point to pay the hefty entrance fee ($15) to go inside. We'll instead try to get back in time on our last day to see the afternoon sail through.
Our second stop is Playa El Salado, a beach community known for their shrimp dish. On our way there, we could see there are some intensive farming of something going on, either clams or oysters. Since we didn't have the chance to eat breakfast this morning, we were so hungry that we ordered 4 dishes: shrimp ceviche (no corvina, ie. sea bass), seafood soup, calamari, and garlic prawns. Despite the recommendation from Rough Guide, the shrimps were way overcooked. 😞
Without mommy's presence and her gift in languages, both Eric and I seem to have difficulties to order stuffs even with the help of Google Translate. There are surprisingly fewer Panamanians speaking or understanding English than I thought. I first tried to order beer with our meals but none came. The waitress didn't understand. When Eric later attempted to order 2 beers and also asked for some hot sauce in one sentence, she came back with two beers AND two cans of Coke! Then when I tried to get her to return the Coke, she took away my can and promptly came back with a bottle of Coke with cap opened! At that point, both of us just gave up and drank both beer and Coke. We haven't had Coke as a beverage for such a long long time! We both missed you here, Mommy!
Our next stop is the town of Nata which has the oldest church in Panama. It was a very beautiful church with all wood construction. It dates back to 1500-1600 AD. The best thing is we were the only people there taking in the sight. This sight is so off the beaten tourist path.
The main highway (the Pan-American Highway) from Panama City to Santiago is very nice to drive. It's in a better shape than I had expected. We can drive upto 80-100km/h most of the time except near towns. Police has a strong presence here pulling speeding cars over. The secondary highway from Santiago to Santa Fe is totally different. It is dotted with pot holes the size of craters! For unknown reasons, both of my GPS apps (Google Maps and Here We Go) went berserk at the same spot. We were guided to a gravel/dirt road when we're 30km outside Santa Fe. We knew something was wrong but I kept driving in for a hundred meters more before turning back. That's when our tiny Kia was stuck in mud. Only with some ingenuity, Eric's muscles, and God's blessing that we were able to free up the car. I don't even want to think about what ifs as it was close to sunset at that time!
Now I understand how some people died due to wrong guidance from GPS! That's why I have tried not to use GPS as much as possible. We are so conditioned to trust more in GPS than our common sense! Very scary thought!
The hostel in Santa Fe took us a bit of time to find as it's very dark when we arrived. It is a very lovely place. Turned out that the restaurants in town (only a few restaurants in this small town) were all closed by 7:30p. We ended up buying some eggs and spam and Eric cooked up our own dinner! Saved lots of $$$ tonight! Spent a total of $6.84!
The hostel is very clean with nice yard and garden with communal kitchen for prepping meals. Butterflies flew everywhere and flower fragrance filled the air. Also met and talked to a bunch of travellers from around the world. Cool!
Sounded like another full adventure day, Commander Wu style! So glad to know both of you are OK - can't bear the thought on what ifs ... It was a disappointment to have missed the ship at the canal - definitely need to ditch the TD credit card! The church looks historic and ornate. Glad to know the hostel was above expectations.
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