Radisson Colon 2000 Hotel & Casino

... and directly deposited to their account at the bank. So off we went to the bank! For some reason it took us another hour just to do this. Moral of the story, as we've said before, patience is definitely required in order to do this.

We said our goodbyes to Nick and Rochelle and jumped on the train to Panama
City. This was the highlight of the Colon trip! The commuter train was gorgeous and high-end, reminding us of ...

... be robbed. having no contacts here we looked up where the kingdom hall was in the phone book. getting there was hard as well because there aren't any street signs, so we asked some military officials, and they ended giving us an escort on there suzuki 650 drz, both men fully equipped with a hand gun and an assault rifle. found the hall, no one there so we asked around and found a brother that lives just around the corner, he told us that the spanish ...

... 15 monkeys in the San Lorenzo national park and one of the more impressive toucans. The fort was situated in a beautiful location, on a cliff with Caribbean beach on all sides. We also saw the Panama Canal and the Gatun Locks. Yay, now we can say we've done it. We dropped Cory at the bus station so he could get to Panama City in time for his flight, went shopping at 4 Altos for a while, and headed back to Portobelo around ...

... taught this class) was so fantastic that we couldn't believe it could be replicated-so we said nothing. Galeta is a gem nestled within the armpit of Panama (hope I haven't understated that) known as the Colon Free Trade Zone. Some folks, namely wealthy traders, and a politician or two might think the FTZ has some charms, but I think everybody else would agree that it is a good place to not visit. Huge industrial ...

... bandits.  Personally I think the CIA has its drug operations set up there and they dont want anyone interfering with it.  Basically the rumors go that if you venture into there and dont get eaten by jaguars, bitten by snakes, etc you will get kidnapped and or murdered.   So we had to find a way to get the bikes around the Gap.   In the morning at the hotel we asked at the shipping agent with their office downstairs how to go about shipping our bikes and they pointed us over to an office in ...

... around, one guy made it a personal mission to hook us up. Eventually we found ourselves in the living room of the Mayor's house, watching the game on ESPN2. I stayed long enough to enjoy the novelty, but I can't say soccer holds my interest so I wandered off the explore the countryside while Shen got his soccer fix. Personally, what I was craving was some nature time. Nothing spectacular was accessible on foot, as far as we could tell ...

... then offers to take us to the free zone since its on his way. The walk I gotta say When i was in colon i was probably the most on edge i had been in a long time it is super sketchy and well deserved of its reap it was about 5 block walk with all sorts of grim faces staring at us as we walk by and some people giving us hand signals ot watch out coz we were being stalked. The free zone The free zona is a differnt ...

... of payment before the office opens on Tuesday which is also when the ship sails Watch this space! 30th - 1st Dec Spent sitting around in a dingy, dark hotel room having had difficulty in finding a vacant hotel room. We presume because of the holiday. 2nd - This morning we walked to the office of Seaboard and gave them the receipt for payment. They then gave us a typed receipt for the payment as well as the authorisation to print out the Bill of Lading ...

... Marco was (we like to think) smuggling back to Colombia. Pretended not to speak English but caught her reading my book on the very last day. Cindi the Cabin Girl - Marco´s adopted daughter who knew how to push the Captain´s buttons. Sulky. Peter the Pirate Fisherman - ´My son´ ..I am old enough to be 20 year old Pete´s father (sigh). Top guy, who caught a lot of seafood for us to eat. Caught fish, lobster, crab and almost a shark with ...