Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Random thoughts about travel and travel in Panama

I have been thinking about our most recent trip, and the past one.

On both trips, I had the experience of driving in a place I did not know well, where the road signs were in a language which is not my strength. It made me think about what it must be like for the tourists who visit the US. One good think is the movement towards a universal system of symbols for use on road signs. That was a plus. But then there are the "construction zone" signs. They are bad enough in English, but they are even harder in an unfamiliar language. I managed through a detour, but partly because the map function worked so well on my cell phone. (Yes, we had signed up for the international data plan to be activated.)

I most certainly appreciate some of the road signage that I used to take for granted. One of them is route numbers, and signs to cities. On our most recent adventure, I drove from Changuinola to David. The first part of the trip was on a fairly major road from Changuinola to Chirquiri Grande. On the way the road goes through and by several large-ish communities. Only once was there a road sign pointing to one of the towns (Almirante), to which we had already been, and wanted to get past.

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