Woke up at 6:30 . Rolled around until 7am. Then I finished off yesterday's blog.  

Still have my cold: a little headache, slight chills, sore throat, slightly runny nose. I'm bundled up in bed, drinking water and munching on chips and cookies (got to have more than liquids in my stomach).  

Now I'm trying to find a place to stay in Panama City, close to the bus depot. Everything is $40+. At the last minute, I found a place for $15: reserved it for 5 nights. I'll usually just get off the bus and look for a nearby hotel. This being high season, and in a big city, if there wasn't anything nearby, I wouldn't know where to go, and I'm NOT leaving myself at the mercy of a cab driver. Turned out to be an okay decision: the depot is for every kind of bus in the city - huge place - , and no hotels nearby.  

So I got to the bus desk at about 11:30, for my 12:00 bus. Last place was 30 min check-in; I think these guys wanted earlier check-in . They took my ticket, then told me to go to the hotel desk to pay an exit fee ($9). Came back 5 min later, they checked my bag and told me to board. I'd bought my ticket 4 days earlier. I didn't check my seat assignment, but I know I didn't pick one at the back of the bus. They put me in the second to last row: I think they gave my seat to someone else, for whatever reason. I ended up being the last person on the bus, but it was only 11:45. I was not happy with these people.  

We got on the road, the wrong way, or so I thought. But after a while I thought I remembered that going in the direction of Panama from San Jose was a mountain route not good for buses. So after 1 1/2 hours we were about 40 mi south of San Jose but on the flat coastal route. Took lots of pics of countryside and some small towns.  

When leaving San Jose there were dark clouds moving in. They finally caught up with us about 2:30, so no pics beyond that .  

Just before dark we got caught up in a traffic jam. We inched along for an hour before we took a turnoff. We went up the road about a quarter mile before coming to a complete stop. Sat there for a while, nobody coming down in the other lane. The driver got out. About twenty minutes later other people started to get off the bus. I followed. We were about fifth in line from a roadblock. i, along with others, walked up to the roadblock. It was pitch dark outside; most of the stopped vehicles had their lights off, engines turned off. Two police cars had lights on: there were two vehicles in the road; one was a sedan, the other looked like an SUV, maybe a Jeep, it had a very square rear door with a short rear end. Both had totally squashed front ends, right into the front seat. I couldn't see any liquid on the road, whether blood,water or oil.  

We were there at least a couple hours. I think they were waiting for tow vehicles. One ambulance had come by while we were still on the main road.  

Finally, we backed down that quarter mile, very slowly, squeezing by trucks and buses. I guess we ended up taking some kind of detour: had to pull over for a couple buses going in the opposite direction trying to squeeze by us; there was a little back and forth going on.  

I don't remember what time we hit the Costa Rica/Panama border. I think it was about Midnight: when we should have been in Panama City. They had sympathy for us I think: ran us through in about an hour. Still, it was about 5:30 when we pulled into Panama City.