Buses

A man is in Panama city unable to make up his mind where to go for Carnival. That about sums up my situation. Pananma city is cool... scrub that its hot, humid and smelly in places, enormous contrasts with one side of the bay bristling with shiny sky scrapers and the other swollen with crumbling colonial buildings. Massive shops full of shiny gizmos, across the road from an old man sitting next to a mountain of assorted old hubcaps and wheel trimmings, or a stall piled high with bits of old mobile phones shadowed by a massive glowering 4x4 parked on the edge of a street plyed by men on tricicles peddaling freezey pops, or coconuts in the misty humidity. What dominates the streets more than anything though are the buses. Millions of them all old US style school buses, but each one painted by its driver-owner, anything from Conan style fantasy scenes to Ronaldhinio´s Portrait. Disney cartoons peep out from behind bits of bodywork, next to tranquil countryside images of mountains and lakes, with the buses route plastered grafiti like across the front. One that went past yesterday had a band giving it some onboard and most of them have music,and some even have streamers trailing behind them or perhaps massive chrome exhausts! Its 25c to get on one, and join in the party, who cares where you are going!