Panama City

Monday: I arrived in Panama City and met a very nice Venezuelan with whom I shared a taxi (due to it being nighttime). My first impression was that it is HOT and HUMID. In fact, I think that was my second, third, and last impression, too! It doesn´t really cool off at night, so my plan of waking up at the crack of dawn to walk around in the cool of the morning didn´t really pay off. And in order to get my morning caffeine fix, I had to sweat a little more over a steaming cup of coffee! My hostel was clean, though, and had cold water showers and a great view of the city.

Tuesday: Though I had great plans for Panama City, I ended up doing very few of them. I walked around the old part of town in the morning, and then I took a taxi to the causeway that connects a few small islands. They said there was a lot of shopping there, in addition to bike rentals, but the shopping centers were expensive U.S. brand stores and the bike rentals are only on the weekends. The Museum of Biodiversity isn´t even finished being built yet, and I would have had to wait 2 hours for the Marine Museum to open. I did see a pretty cool fish in the water, though, so I guess it wasn´t all for naught.

I caught a bus to the terminal where I caught another bus to the Panama Canal. I would have had to wait 2.5 hours to see actual boats in queue for the locks, so I just took pictures of the lock and the canal instead. I bused back to town and walked around until I arrived back at my hostel where I took a nap. For once, my timing was great--a serious thunderstorm was just beginning, so I slept it out. Once awake, I walked around looking to buy a book or something to do, but had to settle with May´s National Geographic. I did come across a political march as I walked: the recently elected president hasn´t changed enough members of the cabinet, or something like that. After a dinner at the air-conditioned Café Coca Cola, I retired to read and sleep. I had originally planned to spend the next day hiking in a nearby tropical forest park, but seriously couldn´t imagine the heat.

Wednesday: The modified plan was to head to the Pacific Coast where I would spend a few days on an island lying in a hammock and hiking to see the wildlife. The town was 30 minutes before the last stop on an 8-hour busride, and though I reminded the driver twice to drop me off (I had no idea where it was and there were no signs), he forgot and I ended up at the terminal in pouring rain. Instead of backtracking, I decided to take another bus to the mountain town of Boquete where the climate is great. It´s still hot, but not nearly as humid and it will cool down at night. I have plans to rock climb tomorrow (on real rocks!) and hike up the volcano the next day or so. I may go back to the Pacific beach I had intended, or perhaps just move onward to the Carribean Sea side of the country. Who knows?!