Back in Panama!

Well the trip from Nicaragua was quite an adventure. When I arrived to the bus station in San José all the people behind the counter had mouth covers, everybody is scared about the swine flu. All what I've been doing is just washing my hands as often as possible and avoiding people who has flu-like symptoms. We left San José at 12 noon and arrived to the border at 6.30 pm. When the immigration officers spotted my nice Pelican case they requested to open it to check it, obviously I had a lot of equipment and the officer said, you know we need to make a list of all these things but the office is now closed since it's Sunday and you don't want to pass the night here at the border ...why don't we help each other... Well yes, the mother F***er blatantly asked for a bribe and what else could I do?? He told me just be discrete please, so I passed him my passport with 5 dollar bill inside and problem solved.

Next day at 3am we arrived to the bus station in Panama city, obviously it was dark, and carrying more than 60 kilos (2 big bags and 2 small bags) in scientific equipment and some clothes at this time is not the best thing. I saw a kid and told him you want to earn a few bucks, well just help me push this bags over the bus stop hoping that I could get a taxi at 3am willing to take me to Gamboa (a one hour trip). Well luck hit me again and a nice pick-up taxi stopped and I negotiated the price and voilà! I arrived to Gamboa and my house mate (an old college fried from Colombia) opened the door and help me with the bags.

The house is nice, big, and my room is big and nice as well, not a lot of decorations but enough space for sure.

Yesterday and today I've been just doing all the paperwork to get going and doing some groceries and hopefully I can start looking for butterflies tonight or tomorrow.