Riande Aeropuerto Panama City

... a guy called Conrad Grant. A random guy who started a conversation with us when we had stopped to take a picture. He was a Panamanian but had been educated in English schools so had perfect English. He took us a great tour of the old part of the city and had so much background information and knowledge of the history of his city. He was brilliant. He took us down to the Plaza de Francia and Paseo las Bovedas, on to Palacio de las Garzas where I took the ...

... pub *nd every second pub turned out to be * shop of some description. We spoilt oursleves on * pub me*l *nd I delved into * few pints of Guinness *nd M*gners. We h*d * f*irly e*rly night, th*t w*s untill I got up to t*ke * ****, but someone w*s using our toilet (the joys of dorm rooms) so I went downst*irs to use one *t reception, but they s*id I h*d to go *cross the street *nd use the pub´s, so with sleepy eyes I trodded *cross the street only to discover hundreds of ...

... taxi blocking the road and it looked like a couple of guys were holding up the driver? He made me lock the doors and then drove round another way to avoid whatever was going on.

However when I ventured out this morning for a wander, I was welcomed by the deserted streets and the dust and heat, which soon made me feel reasonably safe again. I met an old Panamenian guy whilst I was taking photos of the cathedral who spoke really good english and assured me that if I was ...

... Roosevelt when he visited the canal to it was the design of the well-respected farmer. It is a nice hat and he got it for a steal. We also visited the mud baths but we didn't jump in. Tom had visions of us wallowing around in mud, which would have been fun. But alas the procedure was to spread mud on your face and body, let it dry, wash it off then sit in a hot spring pool that kind of looked a little on the murky side. We'll pass...

... was in position in the second lock, the gate was closed behind it and then the water level lowered by another 27 feet, meaning that in total the ship had been lowered by 54 feet from the top part of the canal to the bottom part. That was fun to watch! Then the ship was able to move out the other side of the lock and was able to continue its passage through the canal. We stood at the observation deck for 3 hours and watched 5 or 6 big ships move in and out of the ...

... the wedding of the daughter of the Chabad Rabbi. We knew this wedding would be a real contrast to the last, and it sure was. This was our first attendance at a true Chabad wedding and it was very interesting. Freida, the bride walked down the aisle with a veil over her face. The difference between this veil and any others I have seen is that there was no transparency in this veil. She could not see a thing. She was accompanied on ...

... we spotted beefy American bodyguards in the front seats as we took lots of photos and marvelled at being only metres from Bush, one of the world´s most despised men... Cooking up fresh veges from the market to make a bit of a pasta now. A colourful, exciting day in Panama city full of new experiences, its been so different to anywhere I´ve been before. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1 89030&id=536470104&saved#/album .php?aid=187252&id=536470104

... canal and more than 22,000 people from France, Guadeloupe and Martinique died while building it, mostly from yellow fever and malaria.

We found a great spot near our hotel to get food. It is like a ****** carvery, but really good and really cheap: we paid $2 for a meal that looked like stew with rice. We just kind of pointed at the stuff we wanted her to put on our plate. One day, we pointed at something and she said visceras de pescado (fish ...

... lake. An earthquake happened and cracked the mountains and the water ran out and now people have been living here for a few hundred years. If living inside a crater isn't strange enough this town is surrounded by mountains and the most famous mountain is the Sleeping Indian Girl. The legend goes that when colonizers came to El Valle there was a prince who fell in love with an Indian girl. The prince went back to his father to ask if he could marry the girl. The ...