This morning I went to Albrook on the way to the Canal. I had breakfast at Dunkin Donuts. At a cost of $8.50 I certainly won't be going back. It was very ordinary and the Iced Coffee was terrible. I gotta stop thinking I can get decent iced coffee. The only place to get that is KFC in China. I thought Dunkin Donuts would be OK, being American but it was *****.
So I went back to the Miraflores Locks again cos I wanted to see a big container ship go through. Lucky for me there was a Panamax ship going through. Panamax, because it was built to the maximum size to go through. I did a video to Noah but I am not sure it really shows what happens there. It takes an hour for a ship to go through so everything happens slowly.
From there I caught the Hop on Hop off bus and did a couple of laps of the city. It goes around the Locks, the Causway and Casco Viejo and back into the city. I have done these tours all over the world and they are pretty good. This one is also pretty good but I would like to see a small loop around the CBD added. The causeway was built from stone excavated fron building the canal and was built to stop the silt from Panama bay silting up the canal. Now there are a couple of very high end Resorts and a yacht club on Flamenco island.
The tour also went through some slums. I was walking there the other day and an old bloke asked me if I knew where I was? I said no but I know where I am going and I am heading in the right direction. He walked with me till I was safe and we had a chat, he said it was a bad area. I said no **** Sherlock? One look tells you that but it was middle of the day and I was carrying little of interest so I thought I was ok? For an affluent country there are a lot of slums and they are pretty bad.
They high rise are mostly owned by expat American, Canadians and Europeans. They retire here. There is good medical, good airport (close flight time home) and they use $US so they think it is paradise. Personally I can think of at least 30 countries I would rather retire in. I think Panama is way too expensive to retire in, but each to their own.
We all think of the Panama Canal as east west? But it is not it is north south. The country is like an S on its side so north south for the canal. That also makes this the only country in the world where the sun rises over the pacific and sets over the Atlantic.
I ended the day back at Albrook mall. I really know the place now and there are a lot of food halls there. It is one of the biggest malls in Central America. 380,000 square mtr, 10,000 people work there and 150,000 people visit every day. They have El Costco there and they have El sale on right now. The prices are dirt cheap. They have shorts and shirts for $1.99. Nothing that I would actually wear but the decent stuff is still only $5 to $10 so still good. There was women everywhere so I got out while I still could.

The wifi here is dodgy so I prolly can't load pics. I spent a hour loading a video for Noah at Subway so I might have to try in the morning.