A day in Colon for paperwork
AJAYA'S CRUISE
Phil & Nikki Hoskins
Mon 20 Feb 2012 19:48
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A trip into Cristobal Colon situated at the
Caribbean entrance to the Panama Canal was required to obtain our
Cruising Permit and Immigration Visas. Colon will never feature in any top 10
best tourist cities or probably top 100 come to that. It's a dirty,
smelly, crime-ridden mess of a town and there are parts that are best left
unvisited. So we stole ourselves for what would be a difficult day and
climbed onboard one of the 'Chicken' buses in Portobello at 0830 last Thursday.
We were fortunate to meet up with another cruising couple on the same
mission that helped make the day more tolerable - so thank you to Mike and
Shannon of 'Silver Heels' for helping us to maintain our
sanity.
'Chicken' buses are best experienced from the
outside. It's safer. They are gaily painted in vivid colours and as they
are privately owned just about anything goes according to the owners taste. In
many cases the artwork is extremely accomplished and certainly a
change from the bright yellow livery dating back to their
previous life as USA school buses.
Riding these ancient vehicles
presents the passenger with a number of challenges. First, they were
designed for children, so leg room isn't the first consideration with the
builder. Second, the seats themselves stop just short of resembling granite
slabs. Third, once the door is closed and you are trapped onboard and
underway the driver will suddenly crank up the volume on the stereo to an
ear shattering level. Then, for good measure, tweak it up a few more decibels to
ensure that everybody can appreciate the Latino salsa music.
There is no escape as there are speakers vibrating in their
mountings throughout the length of the bus. Most of them are 'blown' thus
the sound is distorted to make the assault on your ears even worse.
The music needs to be loud perhaps to overcome the noise level of an
elderly V8 diesel engine belching smoke and noise from the exhaust,
usually via two shiny chrome stack pipes at the rear. In most cases
the pipes under the bus have long since rusted so the unburnt gases
exit aft of the engine wherever there is a hole. We gave up any form of
conversation after fifteen minutes for fear of arriving in Colon hoarse.
  Nice and
empty
Room for plenty more yet
  Panama
shoreline near Portobello.............
These buses keep to some sort of timetable. The
driver will keep his foot to the floor and keep it there for as long as
possible throughout the journey helped by enthusiastic use of the horn when
fast progress is threatened. Braking heavily on the approach to
bus stops make it much easier for those at the back to get to the front quickly
avoiding time wastage. When just one person alights the
driver is determined to keep the vehicle moving if at
all possible. There is no passenger limit nor one advertised anywhere
onboard. When no more can physically fit on the bus then it's full.
  ......gives way to inland
communities
Arriving in Colon we had to find the building
situated somewhere in the commercial docks that issues the Cruising
Permits. This entailed a nerve-wracking hike through a car park
outside the container depot where we had to negotiate row upon row of
huge trucks manoeuvring or parked up with engines running, all emitting a
toxic cocktail of black smoke and hot oil fumes along with the smell of
simmering tyres in the tropical heat. The buildings in the port compound were
architecturally quite outstanding when compared to the mess of the town situated
outside the perimeter gates. It was just a shame that a number of them were
bricked up and out of use.
 Colon container port
with ..
... old colonial
buildings ...
....and Panama Canal shipping in the background
Inside the building (the guard at the doorway
desperately tried to sell us cartons of 200 cigarettes) we finally located the
office of the A.M.P. Inside we were transported back to a
previous era of carbon paper and 'Brother' typewriters. It took an
hour for us to obtain the documents and the equivalent time for them
to extract $200 from us. Despite the time spent there our Cruising
Permit was littered with spelling errors but as long as the dates were
correct it meant that Ajaya could stay in Panama for one year
and we were happy. Business was conducted in a light-hearted
manner
which made it almost, although not quite, a
pleasant experience.
The next stop was the immigration office on 11th
Street in downtown Colon. Outside we flagged down
probably the only taxi driver that didn't know exactly where the
Immigration office was situated although he did find the street itself. We
finally stopped at an office doorway that had an immigration vehicle parked
outside so in we went. Our next brush with Panamanian bureaucracy was about to
begin.
  
Colon - not an attractive place to spend time in
 
We had been advised to ask for Ruth - but Ruth
wasn't there. But Minerva was, and she didn't take prisoners. To our
disappointment, despite taking all the relevant copies of boat papers and crew
lists with us, we found that we were short of various pieces of paper including
two additional passport pictures each and a signed disclaimer stating that Phil
as Captain would take absolutely all blame for any negligence or damage
however caused whilst in Panama. A really nice document to
have clipped to your immigration file!
This office unlike the previous actually had
some modern equipment including a photocopier. It was not for the
use of us mere visitors. We were sent to a Chinese stationary shop
conveniently situated across the road where we had to sit in front of an ancient
Polaroid camera for some instant pictures. Then obtain the required copies as
directed by Minerva, all carried out with typical Chinese
efficiency. Then back across the road to the Immigration office where
we found Minerva was at lunch. It was obviously that time of day as one of the
more 'portly' members of staff was seen staggering back presumably from the
fast food shop with polystyrene boxes of fattening fayre stacked one on top of
the other. We then sat waiting for Minerva's return whilst Miss 'fast food' sat
troughing her way through the contents of her containers in the back of the
office.
Meanwhile, Minerva eventually returned
looking no happier than she did before lunch. The 'Admiral' duly placed our
paperwork onto the counter. The two men in our group were by now
running scared of her. However, the 'Admiral' had made a wrong move as it
wasn't our turn! Minerva wanted to look at our friend's paperwork first so
the 'Admiral' was told to sit back down. Minerva went through every piece of
paper two or three times looking for errors and quantities of copies. Eventually
she pronounced all was in order, but not before we had to write down our
parents names and give a thumb print on the immigration document!
Typically the cleaning alcohol had by now been removed from the counter
where it had been that morning and we were given a small piece of
paper to clean the ink from our thumbs. We then had to wait another half hour
for the 'boss' to arrive back in the office to stamp and sign the documents
(although we suspected he'd been there the whole time). Finally we
were cleared to go and Minerva even managed a smile when she was
presented with one of Ajaya's boat cards. We rushed out of the office
to get back to the bus station to get out of Colon as quickly as possible -
forgoing any form of refreshment in our haste.
Having walked through the shabby end of town
where small children ran with us shouting 'Gringos Gringos' we found our way
back to the terminus and climbed onto the Portobello bound bus.
We then sat in the blazing heat whilst a succession of
sellers climbed onboard one after the other to sell their various
wares to the captive passengers.
Another seller climbs
onboard the bus - our pals with hastily grabbed ice
cream
This proved an interesting experience as
whilst most were selling useful items such as sweets, CD's, matches, cotton
buds, hair nets etc., our mouths drooped when the last
seller, an old man, appeared brandishing a shiny hacksaw, which
he then paraded up and down the aisle shouting something in
Spanish. It was difficult, given the mainly female balance of
passengers, to work out who would actually want to buy a hacksaw except to
possibly cut your way out of the wreckage of a bus crash. With no
takers for his tool he gave up. Thankfully before anybody else could get on
to sell some obscure item like a lathe or printing press the bus reversed out of
the station and we headed out of Colon at a frightening speed. The artwork
inside the bus depicted, amongst various other scenes, small demented children
with cut throat razors sticking out of their heads and huge breasted dominatrix
in shiny body attire. We did wondered if this bus was actually going
to Portobello via Hell. We were so relieved to be able to get off
(alive) at the busy town of Sebanitas with its large Rey supermarket and
Mobile Phone shop. Finally we could get our 3G Wifi stick and a ton of shopping
which was then inexpertly stuffed into the boot of a taxi back to
Portobello. A very trying day finally came to an end. We really enjoyed our
sundowners back onboard.
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