We’re now in Panama after travelling via chicken and Tica bus to Panama, crossing 5 borders in 3 days (check out The Gool’s new route map – top right, if your knowledge of Central American countries is as bad as mine was before this trip)! The last border crossing took over 3 hours and was particularly stressful, as a group of old Panamanic ladies kept trying to queue-jump, which especially upset the disgruntled Brits who’d been in line for hours already.

Here’s a brief summary of some of the road rules and transport we’ve experienced in Central America…

The most commonly used driving signal in Central America is use of the hazard warning lights. This can mean:

– I’m turning right
– I’m turning left
– I’m slowing down
– I’m stopping
– I’m reversing
– I’m about to overtake this truck on a blind hair-pin bend
– I appear to have gone the wrong way up this mountainside dual carriageway. Oops.

The tuk-tuk

Small three-wheeled, open-sided vehicle, used to ferry tourists with backpacks and locals with heavy bags of shopping for short distances in Panachael (the largest town at Lake Atitlan), Antigua and Flores.
We have no good explanation as to why there are so many tuk-tuks at Flores, as the whole town is about 5 streets wide each way and you can walk anywhere in 7 minutes tops. Maybe it’s a town of very lazy people!

The chicken bus

Ex-US school buses, painted in bright colours and designs, so-called because it’s not uncommon to find chickens taking up some of the seats, along with their owners on the way to/from the market. They have no air-con, are generally over-crowded and have ancient suspension. The conductor’s job, along with taking passengers’ fares, seems to be to get off the bus at each stop, yelling the destination over and over (“Guate! Guate! Guate!”) and shoving passengers on, while the bus is still moving, then running along behind and jumping back on at the last minute.

On a chicken bus:

– If you feed the driver and the conductor their breakfast (tortillas with chicken and refried beans – what else?), you don’t have to pay the fare.
– Don’t be surprised to find yourself sharing a 2-person seat with your wife AND a flirtatious elderly lady, especially if you look like The Gool.
– It’s perfectly acceptable for passengers to throw their sweet wrappers, newspapers, fried chicken bones etc straight out of the bus window.

The Tica bus

Long distance, Greyhound-style coaches. The Tica bus is a more luxurious mode of transport and our overnight one from Managua to Panama City even provided us with food in mini Tica bus boxes.

On a Tica bus:

– The air conditioning is set to “arctic”. Most people need at the minimum, a vest, T-shirt, long-sleeved top, fleece, scarf, long trousers and socks to prevent frostbite.
– You will usually find one nun sitting near the front on her own (I have no explanation for this).
– The film choices are those of the driver/conductor. You might get lucky and see an illegal copy of the new Harry Potter (in English!). On the other hand you might be incredibly unlucky and be subjected to endless happy-clappy born-again Christian movies where the football team wins every game/the wife gets pregnant after years of trying/cancer miraculously disappears and basically any problem can be solved as long as you truly believe and pray enough. These were played on our last bus, in Spanish (with English subtitiles) at top volume.

En-route from Lake Atitlan to Panama City we spent a night in San Salvador, but didn’t leave the bus station (there’s a hotel right there – we arrived late and had to leave early in the morning) and also a night in Managua, which was terrifying. All the traveller websites and guide books advise you to avoid Managua at all costs and if you do have to go there (as we did), to catch the next bus out as soon as you can.
We arrived after dark and took a cab to a hotel that had an okay review in the Lonely Planet, but it was filthy. Our cabbie took us to his mate’s hotel, which was not far away, cleaner and apparently in a more secure street. There was an armed guard at the entrance, so we decided to stay there. While checking in, we heard a commotion outside (a mugging we later found out) and then 2 gunshots. Needless to say, we didn’t venture out of the hotel for dinner that night and we got a taxi to the bus station in the morning. We were quite relieved to have finally got to Panama in one piece!

At the moment we’re researching boats to Colombia, via the San Blas islands, so that should be a nice change from Central American traffic..!