Granada Hotel Panama City

... my meds but still not feeling quite right at this point. Decided we did not want to do the coffee tour badly enough to spend 30 bucks each to walk around in the rain. Booked a rafting trip on the way back to the hostel and was devastated to find that my spanish phrase book was soaking wet and my phone had been saturated in my pocket and no longer functioned.<br><br> 6th November 2009:<br><br>Next day made up for all the rain as we went on a rafting trip near the Costa Rican border ...

... people watching!!! Lots of sailors walking around dressed in white with their little hats on their heads, what is it about a guy in a sailor uniform? Hahaha!! We gave up eventually and headed towards the hostel where low and behold we find the boys, fresh out of the shower.....ggggrrrrr!!!!!! We met a girl that night from Chile who´d been travelling with her boyfriend for three years!!!!! They had made it (slowly) up as far as Nicaragua but had come ...

... Dublin Irel*nd.<br><br>Ahh, the Emer*ld Isle. I´d w*ited * long time to fin*lly see it, big, green *nd wet, but I couldn´t im*gine it *ny other w*y, it suits big green *nd wet. <br>Bek *nd I were greeted *t the *irport by G*ry *nd Lulu *nd whisked *w*y to their hometown of Westme*th (*bout *n hour west). It w*s *wesome knowing people who lived there, they put us up, showed us *round *nd between them very generously sh*red the weight which w*s us. So if you´re re*ding ...

... is on a tiny corner of the island, the rest<br>of the island is only accessible by boat, its too hot to hike to the<br>top of the island for the views, and the entire village shuts down<br>just after sunset. No bars, no restaurants, no shops, no food or<br>drink after sunset. We stayed two nights and left. <br><br>The End<br>No, I'm just kidding. It wasnt all that<br>bad. It was very pretty there, but not a whole lot to do.<br><br>Well, we did meet ...

... to sell stuff walked up to me and started a conversation.  He wanted to practice his English on me, but it was actually quite comical.  Just as people from the US try to speak Spanish by adding Os to the end of every word, he was removing them.  We had a short conversation in Spanglish and then I moved on.  I had things to see!  (Although I wasn´t quite sure what they were.)  I also ended up talking briefly with some other lady on the street.  Whenever ...

... have class from 1:15 to 5:30 daily, home work to do in the mornings, and the last two nights we have had events, a Panameñen dinner in a local family´s home and a movie in Spanish Habana Blues set in Cuba. Rent it on Netflix (Sarah, you work like it.) Great music in it! Because the school has been taking up some much of my time, I haven´t had that much time to write here. Every time I come to this internet shop, it´s a ...

... whilst some poor blokes in a tiny rowing boat were helping with the ropes on shore. The strange looking vehicles called mules were going to pull us through the canal and we had a pilot on board who, we were told, had had 9 years training and who wouldn't start work until he had eaten his way through a full English breakfast! It took an hour and a half to get through the lock. We had been told of a website where folks back home could watch our ...

I have arrived!! It was a long journey, via Madrid and Guatemala, but having left home at 3am Friday morning, I finally arrived in Panama City at 10.30pm local time. There was a man waiting for me at the airport with my name on a sign, thereby somewhat sadly fulfilling a lifelong desire to experience that!! A 20 minute drive through the high rises of Panama City, alongside the Pacific Ocean, and I was dropped off at Hotel San ...

... minute later the rain starts. At first it's a soft gentle rain that cools things down, but as we continue riding the rain gets much heavier. The drops themselves feel like small ball bearings pelting against my riding gear through to my skin. OUCH. Then the lightening starts all around us, the thunder so severe it shakes my bones more than the single cylinder thump from the KLR. We pull over for a minute but the rain doesn't subside. We know we ...

Our day started bright and early for 2 reasons. The first was the Panama Canal souvenir sale started on the pool deck at 6:30am. This was our first chance to buy shirts, hats, books and other trinkets commemorating our transiting the canal. Judging from the crowds, it was a very successful day for the NCL gift shop. The second reason was the ship had reached the canal entrance by 8am. And when we got there, the HAL Westerdam was already ...