The never ending bus saga

We left Santa Catalina early to start our trek into the mountains to the town of Boquete. The morning started out uneventfully with us waiting around for the bus to fill up with a bunch of surfer dudes on their ways to various destinations.

An early morning for the start of another journey.

Look how serene and comfortable I am. This will be short lived on this day from hell.

The bus quickly filled up. It's hard to see but 4 people are sitting in two seats across from us.

Oli, Nadia, Hillary and Bill waiting for the bus in Sona to head on leg two to Santiago.

I am still smiling and enjoying this little adventure. This will soon change in Santiago. When we finally reached Santiago it was around noon. We had been travelling from 8 in the morning and the sun was at it's zenith. Beating down on us the sun was relentless and we were told that due to an annual festival in David that all of the buses were full for the day. The bus driver then told us that we could sit on 5 gallon buckets for the 4 hour ride to David. Yeah that's right folks. Hillary on a five gallon bucket in a stinky hot bus for four hours. It doesn't compute.

That is the back of Beppe along with a group of sorry suckers stuck on those horrible buckets. Fortunately for me after about an hour a total of 5 people got off which opened up one seat so I snatched it up. Granted it was in the back by the bathroom, but one mustn't grumble.

Nadia used my vacant bucket as a headrest so she was a bit more comfortable. She also, I might add, used the lap of the stranger in front of her to put her feet up. That's how she rolls.

The photo journalism was stalled after this leg of the journey due to the fact that I was ready to pack it in and die and the fact that David felt as hot as hell itself. We barely made it out of there without melting like candles. So the last leg was an hour ride on and old U.S. school bus (circa 1970's old) with me, Nads, and our Italian stray Beppe, panama hat and all. Fortunately the weather cooled as we went further up into the mountains and the bus was not entirely packed so we all had room to spread out a bit.

In all we spent about 8.5 hours on various buses or in various but depots with NO real food, NO ac and banos that even though you had to pay to use, you wouldn't use if they paid you. Alas we made it to Boquete where some new characters emerged and exciting adventures were had.