Isla Bastimentos - Day 1, also Panama City Day 6
Trip Start
Mar 14, 2008
1
7
12
Trip End
Mar 24, 2008
Bocas del Toro,
Panama
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Red Rooster has a fair amount of vegetarian food, though today they were out of four of the 15 or so menu items. Big breakfast for two at Tio Tom's was $13, big lunch for two at Rooster was $15. Stopped at one of the 5 different mini-supermarkets on the way back, got two Frescas (Keli's favorite), 6 bananas, and a giant pineapple for $3.55
Canal cranes from Cerro Ancon
.It has been raining HARD for the past 30 minutes, after raining off and on all day long. It is SO beautiful seeing the jungle replenished with rain, I can feel the plants drinking it all in! They seem so happy. Being in the jungle is just the most wonderful, beautiful experience! There is so much life here! I can always feel my soul being replenished in the jungle, just like the plants and trees are being replenished by the rain now. Sorry to sound so cosmic but it's true.
I can feel from the tourists (of which are a lot) in the Bocas islands two simultaneous feelings: 1. frustration that they can't do all the fun things they planned because of the rain, and 2. a secret relief and happiness that they are being forced to rest. That's one of the things I love about traveling - our normal routine and responsibilities get left mostly at home. Back home, if it's raining we still have housework to do, looking stuff up on the Internet, etc. Not possible here! (Unfortunately or fortunately, Keli does have quite a bit of homework she has to do before we get back.)
Well, catching up with yesterday, we did wake up and go to the Parque Natural Metropolitano on the edge of Panama City
Panama City skyline from Cerro Ancon
! It is a very beautiful place, with VERY nice people working there. We saw a three-toed sloth close-up! The word sloth in Spanish is "Perizoso," which translates to "lazy." Man, this guy sure was, he sat there on a tree branch, less than 10 feet above our heads, sleeping. Then we were so lucky to see him move! He vvveeeerrrrryyyy slowly moved to another crook of the tree a foot higher up, and went right back to sleep again. It was great because we could see him really well as he moved around. We hiked all through every trail in the entire park, taking about 2 hours. There are some OK views at the lookout points.After our hike, we went to Mi Pueblito, an artisan market with hand-made crafts from all over Panama. Very nice stuff, though only about 25% of the shops were occupied. We had a quick lunch and then went back up to our hotel La Estancia on the hill overlooking the city. They have an onsite washer/dryer which we used for our very sweaty clothes ($2.50/load to wash, the same to dry), and having clean clothes was fantastic! We immediately sweated into some of them again by taking an awesome hike up to the top of Cerro Ancon. What fantastic views of the city and canal we saw from up there! And there is a VERY big Panama flag waving at the top of the hill too, Panama has a very cool-looking flag. We finished the day with dinner at our Mexican restaurant and got to bed early for our 4:30a wake-up for the flight to Bocas this morning.
