Panama City

Well, we made it! We got to our hostel in the city yesterday at around 2 p.m. after a very interesting ride in a diablo rojo, an old American school bus painted like a county fair carnival ride packed full of locals. It was a great way to experience how locals get around and to see the city-- the ride took about an 1 1/2 hours! Our hostel is great for $25... our room is a little cave like and has no frills, but it works. After settling into our little room, and having an arrival beer, we decided to explore.

We walked about 1 mile down to a boardwalk along the Pacific... great views... the City center to the left and the old city, Casco Viejo to the right. We walked around for a couple hours and we were really impressed by the city. Very clean and beautiful and the area where we were was very safe -- I did get yelled at by a tourist police officer because I crossed the white line from the pedestretian path to the bike path! I think we need tourism police in San Diego!

After walking around for a couple hours, we headed back to our room and took a much needed nap. When I woke up from our nap I was greeted by a rash on my arm and my upper lip looked like someone had socked me! I guess my sensitive Gringo skin needs to get used to the tropics!

I rallied, swollen lip and rash aside, and we went out for round two of exploring.

Unfortunately, unbenounced to us, the entire city shuts down on Sundays, especially at night. No restaurants were open other than a fastfood chicken place called Pio Pio. I did NOT want my first meal in Panama City to be a chicken sandwich (unless it was Chick fila. I would totally eat Chick Fila).

Anyway, we were SOL for eating dinner at a restaurant. We decided to settle on snacks from the market by our hostel. When we were at the market earlier, I noticed a case at the counter that contained what looked like Dim Sum. Apparentely, there is a large Chinese population in Panama City, so it was indeed Dim sum! We ordered a BBQ bun, some kind of meat wrapped in a noodle, and a sausage that tasted and looked like a fat slim jim. The bun and noodle thing were amazing!! The sausage? Not so much. The best part? the Total cost, including a bottle of soda, $2.50!

Finding food like Dim Sum in a tiny market on a random street in Panama is one of the best parts of traveling. In a million years I would have never guessed my first meal in Central America would be Chinese food. Oh, and have I mentioned our second meal was pancakes!? But those are free, and I will never turn down free pancakes.

Well, now we are off to see the beautiful national park in the middle of the city. There are sloths, monkeys, little deer, tons of birds, and reptiles, all within a five minute ride from the city center. We will spend a couple hours at the park and then we are heading to the old city, Casco Viejo, for mojitos and cigars, and a romantic dinner!

That is all for now. Oh, one more thing, I am still trying to figure out this weird keyboard. There is not an apostrophe, so I cannot use contractions. LOL.

Happy Valentines Day, all. Wish me look on staving off additional rashes, bug bites, and allergies!!