Banking Panama Style
Zepher
Chris & Lyn Darch
Thu 3 Apr 2008 13:59
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"Banking Panama Style"
Date 03/04/08
Hi Folks,
Another day another bus trip , after finally
getting to the bottom of why you cant pay by visa card your canal transit fee
Ike and myself ( Veg) went back to Colon , its a pleasant trip on an old US
school bus , all the public transport here is private , brightly decorated buses
, all ex us type school buses , they vary in stated of repair also but are a
pleasant distraction from Colon , the trip from Portobello to Colon takes
between one to one and a half hrs depending on the state of the bus ! its a
great journey and gives you the full flavour of Panama outside the city of Colon
,it is a world away from that place , people are friendly and courteous although
very poor.
Anyway the transit fees are now paid , thanks
to the good people at HSBC who extended every courteous to us at the bank , its
the first time I have taken advantage of there Premier service , we arrived at
the bank and were ushered strait into the managers office where she tried
patiently to sort out the forms and info they required to get the transfer
sent , as they were dealing with a callcentre in Jersey and were being sent from
pillar to post , must have been operator shift change as it was 8 o/c in the
evening there , anyway two and a half hrs later we emerged from the bank to run
the gauntlet up to City bank and pay the money over , its real wild west stuff ,
should have bought my tazer stick ! anyway after that we got the bus back to
Portobello , the round trip of two dollar 20 cents... not bad as a taxi in Colon
starts at two dollar for two yards ...
We have yet to explore Portobello or the
rivers that lead down to it from inland Panama but it is high on the list , with
exotic birds , alligators ( well fed ) and monkey swinging from the trees it
should be a great adventure ..
Next mission is the repair of the Auto pilot
and the hull cleaning , Ruth and Rob have been cleaning the hull down about 2ft
below the surface so it remains to don the dive gear to complete ,
Roger ( Washboards) has contacted Raymarine and got
the info we require on the auto pilot box , THANKS ROGER ..
Dave .. any news on Pompy and football
.......
Noah's up a creak with half a
paddle
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