Panama City

Looking back the last couple of weeks have been a bit intense. It started in Nicaragua which was a good time (mostly cos my friend Aleeza (who I know from Mozambique) was with me!) but it just felt a bit weird. Nothing bad happened but it felt weird.

The week in Costa Rica was a bit sour with stuff being stolen - 3 girls things. None of my stuff, but not very nice at all. Laptop, ipod, phone, wallet, clothes, Clinique face products (I understand how upset this girl was!). Thankfully no passports went missing. I was then also super sick with dehydration. It took me a while to get over it but my friends took good care of me and fed me a couple of rehydrate satchets which really helped. But overall Costa Rica was very beautiful and I can see why so many Westerners go there on holiday or move there to "find themselves".

Costa Rica

Panama itself is lovely and the YWAM guys have been so welcoming and lovely to us, a downer was one of the guys on our team went missing for 36 hours and that totally freaked me and others out. We had guys in our team looking for him, we put in a formal missing persons report with the police, it was pretty intense. He's absolutely fine and came back on Monday morning much to our relief :)

Gamboa Union Church where we stayed - right across the road from the Panama Canal

The same day he came back (Monday 12th Dec) we'd had so little sleep cos we were worrying about him all Sunday night, we had to take one of our team to the airport as she was flying home to Germany. I didn't go to the airport, but on the way back they guys who did take her stopped at the Police Station in Panama City and our car was attempted to be hijacked while one of our team members was in the car. Not cool. Everything was fine and the car wasn't damaged at all but it's not a nice feeling.

Sleeping in the nursery of the church

We spent the rest of the week trying to figure out how to get us and our cars to Colombia. What a hassle (understatement of the uear). We could fly to Bogota but it's expensive (about $400). So we looked at boat etc options. This is the most complicated border crossing to do! We can't go by land as the Darien Gap (the land between Panama and Colombia)  is basically impassable - no roads, jungle so we'd need to chop our way through with a machete, malaria, danria fever from bug bites (or whatever it's called!), but more importantly the area is controlled by guerrillas and Colombian rebel training camps. So not a good option ;)

After 6 long days at the port dealing with seemingly impossible paperwork to get our vehicles shipped, plus hours spent online and phoning people trying to figure out how to get ourselves to Colombia we eventually got the cars on the ship the week before Christmas (at least I hope we did otherwise I'll be in for a horrible surprise when I get to Cartagena!!) and have flown ourselves to Cartagena (the coastal town when our cars should be shipped to). Due to availability we couldn't all fly together, so most of the team flew on the 20th and 4 of us are flying the 24th.

So it's been a bit rough the last little bit, but it's also definitely had some good points, like last week we went to a family of the church where we're staying for dinner and they treated us to an amazing Indian dinner, it was so good to be in a regular house again! Makes us realise how crazy our lifestyle is and how we really need to get some better more presentable clothes!! We've also been so blessed to have stayed in a surfers missionary base for the last week. It's been AMAZING!!! Our own beds, hot showers, fresh towels and blankets, wifi, couches, AC, such luxury!!! I think my next night of camping is going to be a bit rough!