Catching a break... in Venao, Panama

When you’ve been on the go for seven months, there comes a point when sitting awkwardly on stuffy public transport is no longer amusing, and ten hours on a bus seem longer than ever before. You find yourself groaning at the terrible music blasting out of the driver’s scratchy stereo (possibly the soundtrack to your death, as he swerves to avoid yet another vehicle) and you ask yourself if the romance of travelling is starting to die…

We reached this point when leaving Panama City, the schizophrenic capital where the charming streets of El Casco Viejo, laced with coffee shops and gourmet ice-cream parlours, look down on slum-ridden neighbourhoods that take on a rather sinister personality by night. We were heading to the Azuero Peninsula on the Pacific coast, and no less than four gruelling bus journeys later we would finally arrive at our destination: Playa Venao. A beach near the sleepy coastal town of Pedasí with only a handful of hostels for those seeking sun, sea, sand and surf - even travellers need a holiday sometimes.

In this fashionable, relatively unknown area of Panama, where mass tourism is yet to leave its graceless footprints on the sand, all the long, soul-destroying bus journeys began to be replaced with long summer days soaking in the sun, backpacks replaced with the odd backpacker - eager to exchange travel stories over a beer- and all the while the city crowds we had been so eager to escape were as far away as the bright stars fighting for space in the sky.

A week and a half later, leaving Playa Venao for Panama’s mountainous region, Santa Fe, we felt we were leaving a piece of ourselves behind; but, after days spent lazing around followed by nights star-gazing we knew it was time to travel. We climbed onto the first of another four buses required to reach our next destination, and smiled at each other as the driver turned up the volume of the Reggaeton music now thumping out of the stereo. Sometimes taking a break from travelling is the only thing that brings the romance of it back to life.

Guess what I found out in Panama?

1. Panama is the only place in the world where you can see the sun rise on the Pacific and set on the Atlantic - the narrowest stretch of land separating the two oceans being just 80km. 2. The Panama Canal is by far one of mankind’s greatest engineering feats. Literally separating two continents, the canal allows ships voyaging between New York and San Francisco to save 7,872 miles of travel. Today, the canal is said to generate one-third of Panama’s entire economy. 3. Reggaeton music, a strange blend of Jamaican dancehall, Salsa and Latin American hiphop was born in Panama, although most pop artists of this genre are from Puerto Rico.