A close call with the Panama jail
Ok, here is an update. I was planning to stay with a friend here in Panama but she did not have a place after all so I ended up (for two night) in a cheap hotel $25 per day. The hotel only has internet in the lobby and almost immediately I noticed that there were a few “night girls” staying in the hotel too.
Later my friend found me a new place but this one was worse....I am not going to talk about it, but It was bad $10 a night, no internet.
Finally I got an email from a friend about a hostel, WHY DID IT NOT OCCUR TO ME BEFORE!!!!!.....
Now I am in a place for $12 a night with breakfast, Internet, nice people, books and you know...good stuff.... SO HAPPY NOW.
Last night at about 3 AM and after 3 beers and a shot of russian vodka a nice Chilean and I decided to go out for a bite to eat.
Less than 100 m. from the hostal, we were stooped by the Panamanian Police....
- “Passport Please”
- uhhh!!! we do not have it, we replied !
- Well....we need to go the central station....we are going to detain you for investigation !!!!
- FUCK !!!!!!!
OK..I keep my calm and the Chilean started to talk our way out. After 1/2 hour one of the police officers decided to go with one of us to get the passport to the hostal. I stayed with the second officer and the Chilean went back to get my documents.
My friend got my Canadian passport from my safe and we gave it to the officer!!!
Little side note: I am traveling with my Argentinean passport and I have my Canadian as back up....well....my Canadian passport does NOT have any stamp entering to Panama,. The only stamp I have in my Canadian is Belize, because Belize was the only country I was not able to use my Argentinian passport.
The police was not able to see my entry and without asking any questiosn my passport was checked, and re-checked, and re-re-checked, they were not able to see my legal entry to the country.
I did not say anything about it, I played dumb but I knew what happened.
After several minutes of checking they let me go without a question ! Trust me, It was a close call !!!! because 2 girls here in the hostel were actually detained and thown into jail for the same reason
I guess I have to carry a copy of the passport all the time from now on !!
