Panama Border Crossing

We forgot to tell you about our first difficult border crossing. Up until now, border crossings have been a breeze. Just smile and hand over the passports. We were worried when we crossed into Costa Rica because we did not have an onward or return ticket and we had overstayed our Nicaraguan visa by a couple of days. But, when we arrived, immigration simply stamped our passports and we were on our way! (We didn´t even have to pay our exit fee when we left).

Entry to Panama was a different story. We shuttled back and forth between two different offices about three times, finally to be told that we needed a return ticket out of Panama. We found this a little frustrating because we´d be buying a bus ticket we never intended to use just to satisfy a bureaucratic requirement. A boy of about 12 years adopted us, as our ´tour guide´ and took us to the closest bus station so we could purchase the appropriate tickets. 20 minutes and $30 dollars later we were back at the immigration desk being told that we had bought the wrong tickets, and he would not stamp our passports until we had the correct tickets. Luckily, the original ticket agent reimbursed us because they were the wrong tickets, and we went in search of a different bus line. By the time we arrived at the appropriate bus line, it was closed for the day. Our young guide then suggested that he had a friend in immigration who could ¨help¨us. Hmmm. $20 secured us a little ¨help¨and we were on our way into Panama with all the appropriate stamps in our passports.