It's Friday night and I'm sitting in a little cafeteria in Panama City- waiting. I'm slowly easing back into the backpacker lifestyle. I forgot about these times when you're too exhausted to drag your butt out to a bar for a drink, but you've already given up your hotel room. And so you sit. On this particular occasion we're killing time before heading to the station to catch our midnight bus to David and on to Boquete, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to write a bit down.

Ola and I left Toronto very early Wednesday morning. As a result of having to leave the house by 3:30 a.m., neither of us got very much sleep. After a full day of transit, we both felt incredibly jet-lagged despite the fact that there was no time change involved. It's been a little while since I last travelled in this manner, and the combination of other distractions and general aging has left me feeling a little ill prepared. We arrived at the airport in Panama City and immediately went outside to get a sense of the temperature. Forgetting that the crazy heat and my pack might affect my weight distribution, and balance as it turned out, I promptly toppled over skinning my knee and bruising my hip. At least I got the first injury out of the way quickly.

There's really not a lot to say about the city itself. It's nice? We've stayed a day too long, but I think there's some expression about sight and your behind…

It's not particularly big and we haven't found it too difficult to navigate or get around. The buses are quite interesting; they're called "red devils" and are all tricked out old school buses replete with flashing lights, loud music, and crazy paint jobs. They're hot, crowded and incredibly cheap.

Yesterday we went to the Parque Natural Metropolitano. We did a bunch of climbing and saw the views of the city. We sat down to look at our book only to have someone point out that we had a sloth hanging out directly above us and perhaps we should cover our heads in case he had business to take care of. We then wandered through the ruins of Panama Viejo. The original city was sacked in the late 1600s before moving to its current location. As it turns out, Captain Morgan wasn't such a good guy, but apparently was an excellent pirate. We ended the day in a neighbourhood called Casco Viejo which has lovely old colonial buildings, cobblestone streets, cheap food and awesome coffee. Being the party animals that we are, we were asleep before 10:00. Today, we took care of some "box ticking" and went to visit the Canal and the Miraflores Locks. It reminded me very much of the Trent-Severn Locks I grew up around in Lakefield…only much, much, much bigger.

We're both still pretty tired, and I don't imagine an over-night bus ride is going to do much to help that situation, but there's supposed to be a flower and coffee festival happening in Boquete this weekend. And since those are two things that I love, what could possibly go wrong!!?? Ha, I guess that remains to be seen.

Anyways, I thought I'd try out this new blog site and see if I like it any better than the other. If you have any opinions, let me know. Otherwise, follow along on our adventures and drop me a note when you have some time.

¡Hasta Pronto!