A friend and I are planning a four month backpacking trip to central america, but niether of us have been out of the country before. We are looking to make some friends that can give us good advice and or help us along with our planning. We are on a very tight budget, but will have the next six months to save for this trip. We are going to go into Panama from Houston, Texas and then hitchhike around, hopefully hitting all of the countries at some point before leaving from either Nicaragua or Costa Rica. We would leave from another country farther north, but our Spanish is very poor and larger cities don't seem to be very safe. Any thoughts or advice? What do we do if we have our important documents and bank cards stolen?