Bus trip to Panama City

Today we got up before the sun and packed up our things to leave Bocas. I was thrilled that we were able to book this bus trip because the first tour company we tried to reserve it through said it was sold out and that we would have to arrange our own transportation and transfers to Panama City which would have been a HUGE pain in the ass. Luckily, it was no problem at all when we went to the next tour company; they had plenty of space available and I actually cost less- $35 for the whole trip.
We took a water taxi back to the hell hole city of Almirante and waited 30 minutes for our bus to arrive. We were immediately nervous because the bus looked like the King Quality bus that we had previously taken which was like running through Antarctica in a bikini, so I immediately started pulling towels and jackets out of my bag that I could use for warmth. These big buses have assigned seats and though the bus was nowhere near full, the guy working the bus insisted we sit in our assigned seat. Of course Alyssa's assigned seat was broken. Broken like when you sat in it, the bottom half of the chair tilted down to the floor broken. And the bus was already freezing. We noticed that the air vents above our head were broken so that you couldn't shut them, so we stuffed one of our ziplock bags in the vent to stop the cold air from hitting us. The bus attendant came back to count us about 6 times and when he noticed the bags, he ripped them all out. We tried to explain that the vent was broken but he wouldn't listen or even look at us. He instead demanded our passports and studied them thoroughly, marking things on his clipboard. He didn't ask anyone else for their passports so I took this to be a bad sign.
As the bus began to move, Alyssa jumped back into the row behind us because her seat was so messed up and I stuffed the ziplock back into the vent. I fell asleep trying to keep myself warm but was awoken to Alyssa poking me because the attendant was coming back again to check on us, so I removed the bag from the vent. Eventually he noticed that Alyssa was not sitting in a different row and told her to go back to her seat. We tried to explain that the seat was broken and even showed it to him but he told her to sit down. Luckily for us, an old woman sitting in front of us had witnessed this injustice and yelled at the guy in Spanish, demanding that he changed our seats. After being scolded, he reluctantly reseated us. I thanked the lady profusely and understood what she said (in Spanish) about the fact that we had paid for this trip and should be able to sit comfortably. Unfortunately, there would be no comfort for me. This bus attendant turned out to be a complete nazi who would walk up and down the aisles "checking on things" and counting the passengers over and over. It was like he was a possessed camp counselor or something. Every time he could, he would "accidentally" hit me or do something rude. At one point, I had fallen asleep with my head turned towards the aisle and he managed to hit me in the face with the front of his pants while walking down the aisle, snagging my hair in his belt buckle. He refused to stop walking and pulled out some of the hair. I was furious with this guy! He clearly hated his life and had taken out a personal vendetta against us. Unfortunately my Spanish vocabulary is lacking the profanity I needed to make my point to him, so I kept quiet but secretly thought of the many ways I'd like him to be tortured.
The bus stopped at a rest area for lunch, but the food once again looked awful. Central American people seem to enjoy eating cafeteria style food that is akin to what I imagine prison food to be. I was hungry but I doubt I'll ever be that hungry. Luckily, Alyssa had her PB&J so she made me a sandwich to hold me over.
We finally arrived in Panama City at 6:30, after 11 hours of travel. The bus dropped us off in a bus terminal that looked just like an airport. We hopped in a cab and were thrilled to see a Target out the window. We wanted to go to the Target so badly, but we like to get to our hostel and get set up for the night before we do any outings. It's amazing how much you can enjoy seeing something that reminds you of home. Panama City was definitely a real city, which was so different from the small beach towns that we had been in for the past week or so. It was kind of unnerving to see skyscrapers and traffic jams.

We stayed at "Hostel Mamallena" which was pretty nice but I thought it was pricy ($33/night). There weren't many hostel options in Panama City though, so we took what we could get. Since the part of town we were in was clearly unsafe, we decided to go get some dinner before it got dark. Sadly, there were no restaurants to be found. We settled on this chicken place called "Pio Pio" which is essentially a KFC. All we wanted was something healthy to eat, but sadly once again no dice.

Final thoughts on Panama: I could see how on the surface it would seem nice. Beautiful jungle, warm water, nice beaches etc. But under the surface I found the people to be really unfriendly, the city and beaches to be trashed and I was left feeling harassed and scammed. I doubt I will ever return.

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