Return to Panama City

Back to Panama City for two days after the Caribbean adventure... It makes for a great opportunity to visit further the old Spanish part of town (Casco Viejo), which often appears to be a ghost city, with its abandoned buildings and houses, frequently for an entire block. Then all of a sudden a side street can be pretty busy with people gathering in the street, on balconies and listening to some Buena Vista Social Club music. The block next to that street might even be totally restored and cosmopolitan; that's usually where somebody has opened a restaurant. We've now tried a couple of these and they were all pretty good! Some of these dining places are even rather fancy, which makes the contrast with the abandoned house next door even starker.

We liked the seafront area where we could see both the abandoned club of the aristocracy (which we toured briefly on our city tour 2 weeks ago) and the 'Miami of the South' part of town with its extra tall sckyscrapers. Very scenic, and surprisingly not very busy with tourists. But we have the constant feeling that this won't be for long... We are picturing how this old town will slowly get transformed into a very quaint historical town, like what we are more accustomed to in the US or Europe.

The day ended with a fantastic sunset over the bay, that was a welcome change from the neverending rain at Tesoro!

We're now off to inner Panama for a different taste of the life down here in the tropics, so stay tuned!

Starfish Beach

We took a very special day trip to starfish beach, which as the name advertises, has LOTS of starfish on it. The beach is on the other side of the island we were on—on the bay side—so the water is very calm. We saw lots of fish and several cute but very shy sting rays.

This is your ideal tropical beach location!

Tesoro Escondido

In Bocas del Toro, we stayed at a B&B called Tesoro Escondido, which was 4 miles outside of the proper town. Those 4 miles were pretty long. Quentin took a photo from the back seat of the van where the "road" is the beach (or the beach is the "road"!!), just before you ford the river Oregon Trail style! After that you have to go through several sections with 1-2 feet of mud, and then you are home. Your reward for this trip is a gorgeous beach surrounded by a flourishing jungle with wildlife. Below is a sampling of the multitude of lizards, spiders, and crabs we saw in addition to howler monkeys, snakes, hummingbirds and fish (data not shown).

The house was right next to Bluff beach, which was usually almost deserted (except for stray dogs) and the waves were strong. We took several nice boat tours with Roberto, where we went snorkeling, ate awesome Caribbean-style seafood and harrassed dolphins (we did not want to do this, the boats were like, look, dolphins, let's follow them...) The second tour with Roberto did not include the dolphins, upon our request!

At Tesoro, we didn't practice much Spanish as the owner, Monique, is Swiss and her cook, Dorothee, is French, and there was a French surfer in addition to my French husband, so it was more French lessons for Chrysa! :-) The food was awesome by the way, and very cheap in comparison to what we'd get anywhere else. Monique also owns a cocoa farm and has fresh cocoa beans on hand. Dorothee would then roast the cocoa beans and grind them by hand (a multi-hour process!) to make an amazing chocolate cake. Chrysa's mouth is still watering. Thank You Dorothee!!!!!

At the end of the trip it rained for three days and after discovering several molded objects (purse, bracelet, backpack) we were happy to be headed for Panama City!

Relax! It's Panama!

Hello Everyone,
after an ice storm in B'more and sprinting for another flight in Miami, we landed safely in Panama City. Panama City has a mix of normal looking housing and then very tall and new sky scrapers that we were told foreigners live in. No wonder people like to call it the "Miami of the South"! The B&B that we stayed in is located on Ancon Hill (former intelligence bunker area) and is surrounded by forest. Hanging bananas off a tree attracts several birds, squirrels and monkeys, and both of the latter know how to peel the bananas.

We toured the city with a guide named Austin (of African via Barbados descent), from Colon (city at the other end of the canal), and first saw the "old town" section, named Casco Viejo. This area was where the Spanish rebuilt Panama City after the really old town section—Panama Viejo (now ruins)—was destroyed by Henry Morgan and his pirates around 1670. All of the Spanish church and government people lived in this area and many of the houses are quite nice. Sometime in the 1950's or 60's, this area fell out of favor and disintegrated. Now that it is a World Heritage site, people are moving back in and buying and fixing houses. The Panama President also has his office there.

The other highlight of the day was visiting the Panama Canal. The picture above is the Bridge of the Americas, going over the entrance to the Canal. We know it's touristy and everything, but this was truly an amazing technological feat for 1903. Egyptians built pyramids, medieval people built cathedrals, modern men built the Panama canal! The canal has 3 sets of locks to take ships up and down about 100 ft. The big ship in the picture is a "Panamax" ship, the largest that can fit inside the locks. The fee that this ship paid to cross was over $300,000 (USD), but remember that it only took 8-10 hours to cross the canal instead of 21 days to go around South America.
Hope you enjoy the photos!
Chrysa + Quentin

time in Strasbourg!

Hi All,
after taking three 6AM flights in about 6 days, I now have enough energy to catch up on posting. We spent a lovely Christmas in Niederbronn-les-bains, then visited some friends in Nancy and spent a day in Strasbourg before our flight out. On our drive back from Nancy, I learned that misteltoe grows as a parasite on trees. You can see it as large balls of green in a bare tree. In Strasbourg, we visited the Cathedral and saw flying buttresses, one of the highlights of my AP European History class. We also visited the very large Sapin de Noel (Christmas tree) in Strasbourg, the Christmas Capital.

I almost forgot, we had hot chocolate and other goodies at Christian, a specialty chocolate shop.

The three flights I mentioned earlier took us to DC, Panama City and finally, Bocas del Toro, Panama.
Cheers,
Chrysa + Quentin