Vamos a Panamá..

In Venezuela I took advantage of the dollar exchange rate and bought a flight ticket to Panamá city.

The first thing that caught my attention in Central America was, "this is really sophisticated, really organized!" Panamá city looks very developed. 

I went to see Panama Channel and it has a tremendous importance in Panama´s economy and in its history. It was first started with French, then due to the lack of financing, the yellow fever and because Panama wanted independence from Colombia,  it gave the opportunity to USA to finance the project and to keep it for themselves until 1999. The channel opened in 1914 and was run by US and US employees and because the treaty gave perpetuity to US (in exchange of protection against Colombia during Independence from Grand Colombia in 1903). In 1964 students protested against this and in 1977 a Panameñan representative sign with the US that in 1999, the channel would be 100% Panama. It happen and the economy grew a lot since they changed the rules and now employs almost only Panameños. The channel is 1 out of the 4 main indicators of GDP growth (Tourism, channel, banking system, free trade zone Colon). The ships take 8-10h to cross the channel from Pacific- Atlantic or vice versa  It was interesting to hear about he prices paid by cargo companies and who uses more this channel (US, China and Chile).

After Panamá city I decided to go to Bocas del Toro. On the terminal I met the first Latin, Mathias, an Argentinean and we ended up travel together for the following 4 days.

On the way to Bocas, the bus stopped in the middle of the way in a terminal and imagine who I met, the Canadian couple that didn't get the stamp in Venezuelan border. Apparently they didn't have problems until they landed in Isla Margarita, but there they couldn't do anything and had to pay a bride, it was 150usd each but they started asking 500 usd each! This was during the days Chavez died and they couldn't go to Caracas to Canada´s embassy. Really nice to see that they are fine and nothing happen!

Bocas is too touristic  but is really beautiful. On the first day we went to the other side of the main Island to starfish beach with Carabean taste. On the second day we took a boat táxi to other Island, walked around 2h and ended up in Red frog beach, nice but normal beach. 

First days in central america I had the feeling that in general south american backpackers are more approachable and nicer than central american backpackers.  What is the big difference? There are more Latins travelling in south america than central america.  For example  in this city all the backpackers I knew and tried to make conversation were kind of disinterested in meeting people, “please, can I leave my bag here while I am going to get some food”, and he started asking the security guard if he could do me that favor.. After 10m I came back from dinner and saw some people who I nod,  the only one who replied was an Argentinean. It happens to me a lot, nod to someone and that person looks behind thinking that it is not for him - I know that people do not greet each other that often in non-Latin countries but.. come on! Another common episode is asking someone from occidental countries (of course there are exceptions and I have good friends from there) "where you from?" to each he replies his country and his city and "have u been there?" and never asks you your country and mostly of the talk is about them (this never happened before in south america..) anyway, that is why travelling is perfect, to see the differences! (and do not generalize because mostly all tourists in central america come for few weeks and not all are equal)