Riande Continental Hotel Panama City

... No form of communication or link to the outside world. My friend and I collected a large piece of wood in the shape of a bat, and about 20 coconuts varying in size from goflball to softball. We then begun an intense game of "Coconut homerun derby." We lobbed the cocounuts underhanded and swung for the horizon. Pieces of cocnut shell exploded everywhere when we made contact, some landing in the water over 100 feet ahead. Our canoe with an ...

... something out of Pirates of the Carribean!

We're staying out of the sun for the next few days as even though we were both wearing factor 30, we came away with pink bits! the sun can get really hot very quickly and at night it's so humid it feels like a sauna.

On Thursday it was Katie's 6th birthday and Cat & I constructed a Princess Castle Cake!! It was beautiful....definitely on a ...

... that.
Trying to decide on Venezuela. Really wanted to do Angel Falls especially, but its going to take up so much time and money, plus the place is corrupt as hell with black market exchange rates and all sorts of things. I'll leave the final decision until I get into Colombia as to if i cross the border into Venezuela, but its not looking likely. maybe i can tack it on at the end of the trip depending on money or time.
Had lunch then spent the rest of the day ...

... of resorts for the wealthy to go play at.  The only real difference was that the day was pretty gray, and a larger percentage of the billboards were in Spanish.
When we got there, he went to let me out in a pretty shady-looking area.  I asked for a more secure place, maybe by the ocean.    He let me out there and I walked around.  As I walked around the area, it looked a little less shady.  I walked up a walkway by the ocean and took a few pictures ...

... and hopefully we'll have some fun along the way. After our morning lectures we ate the box lunches, provided by our hotel, that centered on a yellow cheese, white-bread sandwich....a slightly ominous beginning to the several days of box lunches in front of us, and clear evidence that the morning's breakfast (white bread with jam) had not been a fluke. However, nobody complained. We were in Panama, the weather was beautiful, and we were off ...

... building are up a small hill away from the river bank. Greeting the boat at the water were some small boys playing instruments- drum, rattles, empty water bottles and turtle shells. They were so cute and really happy to see us. We walked up the hill and into the village. Lunch was being prepared by the women and we were allowed to walk around the village, make small talk and take pictures. There were lots of crafts to purchase and body ...

... Dahlia and Guadaloupe have in town. This morning we called on more relatives, eating star fruit fresh from the tree at one, picking grapefruit at another and cantaloups somewhere else. Then we went to another beach and collected shells at low tide. The water wont be suitable for swimming for another week - I think itīs part of the windy season which stopped us sailing to Panama. This afternoon we watched a music video being ...

... to watch the gate close & raise us up from the Atlantic. They then had the Jewel of the Seas in the set of locks next to us, so we would be raised up and they would look like they are sinking or crashing into a metal wall. It was fun to see the guests on the Royal ship appear and disappear from the Promenade deck. After we finished the third and final lock of Gatun, we waved for the DVD and headed into the Gatun Lake. Here we sat on our balcony with the binoculars scanning ...

... us to about the halfway point of my journey. It has been so cool so far, but the entire, huge, beautiful continent of South America awaits, including Patagonia, the original end of the world, so I still kind of feel that the biggest adventure are yet to come. Another thing is, Jesse's girlfriend Pascale is flying into Bogota on the 1st and will ride with us (on the back of Jesse's bike) to Quito, so that should be a welcome change of pace. Stay tuned!