Crema de Gringo

Hola Kids,

My turn to write the blog tonight. Joys reading the kindle, fan blowing, and its very close to bedtime. Early morning tomorrow as we head to Boquete, 5 hours north of Panama.

Its always the way when traveling - once seeing a couple great spots in your host city, host town, host neighborhood, host park, host restaurant, host bar, whatever - you want to see more, more, more.

A rundown - we woke up the 14th and headed out to Parque Natcional Metropolitano. The park sits 2 miles from our hotel and remains the largest national park located within a citys limits in all of Central America. Mucho Animales y muy bueno miradores (views) of Panama City. We walked every hiking trail in that bad boy, practicar Espanol with the parque guard and took a taxi from its enterance to a neighborhood we were dying to visit Casco Viejo.

Casco Viejo is Colonial Panama. Looking a lot like New Oreleans, with its narrow streets, mulit-colored buildings, museums, anitquated & new architecuture and monuments, the area is prime for us lookyloos & camera bugs AND...El Presidante! He lives there. Whats better - gigante platos of chicken, rice & lentils for $5.50. Now thems prices I can get down with. Me, Joy and el Presidante. Upon leaving we vowed to come back the next day.

After a brief rest at the hotel & another rain shower, the rains are very much like Colorados 4:15 summer storms, we left for an Itlian restaurant in El Cangrejo, a neighborhood just south of our hotel. El Cangrejo is nothing like our hostels neighborhood or the aforementioned Casco Viejo. Its like a mini Times Square mixed with a bit of Vegas. Large hotels, casinos (Dad, Fathers Day Panama this year), strip clubs and nice restaurants and bars. After thriftily spending $5 on lunch we splurged on $30 dinner. A special Valentines Day for me lady. I mean, shes worth it, right!

This morning we woke up and took a 35-cent bus ride to the Panama Canal with our new buddy Andrew from Halifax. He speaks fluent Spanish, French and English, loves to travel & explore and is an all around great guy. Hes awesome to practice Spanish with, as there is not much judging our horrible butchery of the language. Big bonus.

Side note - some dudes are heading to the casinos now! Bro & Dad youd be in trouble here. Haha.

After sharing a 40-person, Blue Bird School bus with roughly 80 mormon missionaries & 40 working-stiff Panamanians, we walked the 10 minutes to the first set of locks on the canal - the Mira Flores locks. I will not do the explanation or recreation of the engineering marvel that is the canal within this blog, so I would advise consulting the Internet for a detailed description. Very cool and there were many big boats passing through a very tight, long canal. Get your minds out of the ditch, canal, gutter, whatever. Ha.

Joy, Andrew & I went back to the hotel and prepared for a waltz down to the fish market for ceviche. Not before, however, Joy caught a horrid glimpse of something all backpackers must deal with in such a confined, dorm-like living/space sharing scenario. The glimpse, you ask. The magic of a rotund, bald, eastern european man with cream all over his bulbous head, stomach and legs while wearing a speedo. Can you say Crema de Gringo. Not sure heading to the fish market would do much for our stomachs after that, but we risked it. A beautiful walk down the boardwalk, adjacent to the Pacific, with a view backwards into the banking district of Panama, and we were eating fresh fish, shrimp and langostino ceviche. Yummy!

We walked back into the Casco Viejo neighborhood for a second helping of sights & sounds and helped ourselves to some Gelato for dessert.

Full day, right. From here it was cheap eats for dinner in the worst Chinese restaurant this side of San Diego. But we were within our price point of under $7 for two which allowed us to choke it down.

I need a good transition here, and my journalism teacher would frown, but after "dinner" we went to a bar that boasted traditional Panamaian folk dancing. Our cab driver found the place (cabs are about $2 for any ride in the city), we were seated at the "mafia" table up close to the stage, watched one dance and were told that it would be a minimum of $17 per person to watch the show and drink! What! Do we look like touristas! We are on a budget, people, so we took in the rest of the show at the bar instead, paid $9 bucks for three beers and called it a night. By the way, Andrew, our new buddy, almost died.

Ill leave you with that and save the story for later. A bit exaggereated cuz hes not dead and more funny than scary. Dont worry, Mom!!

Bedtime yall. Met some great people, who we will, no doubt, see more of along our trail...lots of kids do this (joy and i are among the elders now) and will have more tails to spin.

Hasta Luego!