Panama City - Days 3 and 4
Trip Start
Mar 14, 2008
1
4
12
Trip End
Mar 24, 2008
Panama City,
Panama
Monday, March 17, 2008
Do you want to know something amazing? The hostel has wireless internet too, so I'm sitting here on my awesome Asus EEE mini-laptop connected to high-speed internet! Keli did some homework for school today and submitted it online no problem, from the community computer here at the hostel. At our last hotel we used the laptop to check for any wireless signals around and found NONE! Wireless is just not that prevalent here in Panama yet. And may I just say again that I LOVE the Asus EEE laptop! BTW, we decided to NOT bring the external keyboard - I'm already pretty used to the mini-keyboard on the laptop, it's working just fine.
What is a hostel you ask? Some people may not know that word. It's basically just a hotel, but a hostel usually also has a kitchen that all the residents can use and a little sitting room with sofas. Hostels originally catered mostly to young "backpackers" with little money, and who were willing to sleep in bunkbeds, 6 or more to a room. The hostel we are in is one of the best ones I've ever stayed in. We have a private room for just the two of us, and we have our own private bathroom too. It is a bit small, but comfortable. The friendly owners have been very helpful with info on what to do in town and how to get around. There is a nice living room with two sofas and a big TV, plus a room with two computers in it that people can use to get on the Internet, no charge. They work great!
The kitchen is pretty big, with two refrigerators. One frig has a sign saying stuff you want to keep for yourself, and the other frig says stuff you want to share with anyone. There is a stove and two microwaves. The best part is the patio outside in back of the hostel. There are several tables painted with beautiful funky designs, two hammocks, fresh coffee, and they're putting in a fountain too. All-in-all, it's very homey and friendly, and it is SO nice to come home to after running around busy, noisy Panama City!
That has been a very interesting lesson for us, having a good place to stay can be very important! Our last hotel downtown was not very nice inside, the lobby staff were not friendly, and it was in a so-so neighborhood. So we didn't really want to hang out at the hotel.
Estadio Rod Carew
But we also didn't really want to go outside! And when we came back home from our activities, we didn't feel refreshed in that hotel. And the other hotel was only $11 per night less than we're paying now for Casa de Carmen! Definitely not worth it! The trip has really started to feel better since we got here to this hotel, with its wonderful family feeling. We are surrounded by like-minded traveler-type people and we chat with them about the things they've done and what was fun or not fun. One guy named Chris is a PhD student in history at Princeton. He's here for a couple days on his way to a historical archive in Cartagena, Colombia where he will do some of his dissertation research. Another couple are Julie and Bill from Massachusetts who are SO happy to be here in the warm weather instead of the foot of snow they left back home. They went to the ruins of old Panama this morning and liked it, we may do that tomorrow. They are going tomorrow to Bocas del Toro, the island area we are visiting on Thurs-Sun. We will probably see them up there. This happened also in Costa Rica that we saw the same people a couple times.
Getting back to the theme of what do I like about traveling, this is part of it. I love being around other travelers! I love hearing their stories of past travels in Africa, Russia, and the US. I love seeing the excitement in their faces when they talk about where they're going next. They seem so alive! That's how I feel when I travel too. One great thing about this hostel is the mix of ages too. There is a shared bunkbed-type room here, and that is mostly people in their 20s. But there's one guy who appears to be about 60, and a couple that looks about 50ish. On the Panama Canal tour, we chatted for quite awhile with an English woman who had been to 68 countries in her life, and she was over 60! Her friend of about the same age counted Panama as her 80th country! Wow!
Yesterday we did go to the baseball game at Rod Carew stadium! Who remembers Rod Carew? We know that Dave's parents remember them, they somehow fell in love with the Twins in the short two years they lived in Minnesota in the mid-60s. Rod Carew was one of the best Twins players of the era. The other most famous Panamanian player in the US is Mariano Rivera, the excellent pitcher. Panamanians love their baseball! And Carew and Rivera are national heroes.
Keli at Rod Carew I
With all that said though, the game last night was not terribly exciting. There were about as many fans in the stands as there were players on the field! OK, that's a bit of an exaggeration, there were probably really about 50 fans. But the stadium probably would hold a couple thousand, it's really a beautiful stadium! The game was VERY low-key and the fans were not really that enthusiastic. It was a complete pitchers' duel, no score until the bottom of the ninth when the local Panama Metro team got the longest hit of the game, a triple over the head of the right fielder, scoring a man from first and winning the game 1-0, defeating the team from Cocle province. The level of competition looked about the same as college baseball in the US.
It was fun seeing a Panama baseball game and who knows if maybe someone we saw will be a star in the US someday! It was also very relaxing for us to sit and talk and enjoy a pretty evening. We ended up having a minor crisis after the game when we realized there were no taxis to take us back into town! The stadium is about 15 mins outside of town and the few fans drove their own cars. We met up outside with an American guy from New York who was in the same predicament as us. He said he had asked someone in the stadium office to call a taxi for us, but we waited about 10 mins and the taxi didn't show. The parking lot was almost empty! Finally we saw a taxi stop on the highway outside the stadium gate and we went running for it. It was not the taxi we called but the driver said he'd take us. The NY guy's hotel was downtown so we had to go there with him first before heading to our hostel which is in a Northeastern suburb. Funnily, the cabbie only charged us $5 for the whole trip. Going to the stadium before the game, the cabbie had asked for $7, which we haggled down to $5. The same ride can cost two VERY different prices depending on the driver. (Taxis do not have meters...) The taxi driver was also the most low-key, slow-driving cabbie we have had on the whole trip! They are usually very flashy, very talkative, and drive like madmen!
It was a nice quiet day here at the hostel today, Keli was doing homework and Dave was resting up and taking pics of the hostel. Dave also went to the grocery store nearby this afternoon and stocked up on tons of food for tonight and tomorrow. Now we're going to make a quick dinner and then head out to the movies! Hopefully we'll find an American picture playing, which will have Spanish subtitles here. Then we plan to go out salsa dancing after the movie, if we can find a good club in the ritzy club district called Calle Uruguay.
Dave at Rod Carew I
Well, that's it for now! More soon!
