Monday 24 July 2017

Panama City 2017

We had to cancel our Panama City trip that we had planned back in October but now that mom is home and things have settled down a bit, we decided it would be a good time try again.

When we had to cancel, we did not have cancellation insurance but the hotel we had booked with was very understanding of the circumstances and gave us a full refund.  We decided then that if we went back we would be certain to book at that same hotel and we did.

We ended up flying out on Feb.19.

We were leaving awful weather here in Alberta.


They had to deice our plane before we took off.
We were sitting quite close to the wing so I got to see the process up close.


We stopped in Houston then carried on to Panama.
When we boarded in Houston, the airline was looking for 5 people who would give up their seats.
Whomever volunteered would fly to Miami for the night then on to Panama in the morning.
Their hotel room would be covered and they would also get $500.00 American.
I thought it would have been a good idea but My Honey wasn't into it at first.
It got upped to $800 before they were actually taken up on their offer.
Afterwards My Honey thought it may have been a great deal so we decided that if it happens again, we would go for it!


It was evening when we arrived to Panama.
We got a ride to our hotel.
It was called the Hotel Coral Suites.
At first I wasn't sure about the location but it turned out to be great and I felt very safe.
It turned out that the driver we got actually lived in Calgary for a short time - what a small world.

When we first walked into the hallway of the hotel, the hot, stifling air was just about enough to knock a person over.  They most definitely were not air conditioned.
Luckily we saw that our room did have an air conditioner when we walked into it so we turned it on first thing.

My Honey got a kick out of the Do Not Disturb sign on our hotel room!

We got dressed and walked up the street to find a place for some supper.

Even though it was evening, it was incredibly warm.
I know I am going to love the weather here!

We opted to sit outdoors on the patio because really, why wouldn't a person take advantage of weather like this.
Especially considering what we left for weather back home.

I had a salad to start, kind of like coleslaw but with a more vinegary dressing.

They had passionfruit juice so of course I had to have that.
I learned right away that the Spanish word for it is Maracuya, I figured it would come in handy for me on this trip. (I was right).


I ordered some kind of seafood soup.  It was ok.

My Honey had these pork chops - they were good.

My favorite of the meal, aside from the passionfruit juice, was dessert.
I had done some research before our trip and lots of other travellers to the area and even locals advised to try the Tres Leches (three milk) cake.
It was on the menu so I figured I would get it checked off my to do list right away.
It was DELICIOUS, moist & milky.
I just loved it and will likely have it again a time or two before we go home.

After we ate, we headed back to the hotel.
Our room was nice and cool when we got there so we were able to get to sleep comfortably.
We figured we would get to bed early so we could get an early start in the morning.

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DAY TWO - Panama City

We had no agenda for today and decided to just head out and wander around to see what we could find near our hotel. 


First we went upstairs to check out the rooftop pool at our hotel.

What a great little area.
We didn't go swimming right away but knew we would be back.

This statue was out front of a hotel up the street from ours.
I am not what the significance of it was, but it was interesting.

Our driver last night had told us about a little restaurant we should try out called El Trapiche.
He said it was the best local place if we wanted to try real authentic Panamanian food.
We tried to find it last night but by the time we did find it, it was closed.
So we meandered over there today.

We sat on the outdoor patio again - We plan on taking advantage of this gorgeous weather as much as possible this trip.

We ordered a bunch of deep fried specialties to start, I can't remember which ones we all ordered but it was several of them from the menu.


This is what arrived.
It was all ok - it all kind of had the same taste to me but My Honey liked it.
My favorite was the pork rind, it had a good flavor to it but I dont' think I would be able to eat many of them.

My Honey went for the Fiesta Panamena.

It had a couple of the deep fried items we had already tried, some rice and chicken.
This is the kind of food he loves, rice and beans, so he was quite happy with it.

I opted for the chicken salad.
It turned out to be just like a chicken salad that you would make to put on a sandwich but just a giant mound of it, not really what I was expecting.
However, it tasted really good, but it was a lot and I couldn't finish it.

I'm dressed for sunshine!
You can see that it was a large serving, I ate maybe half of it.

We left there and did some exploring.

Guess this means it's a good area to find food?


Look at all those hammocks.
I think people spend a lot of time outdoors here.

We walked up to a local supermarket and this lady was selling bags of fresh mango.
We've seen a few of them already.
I bought a bag - they put some kind of flavoring on it that I didn't much care for, also, the mango wasn't as ripe as I like it to be.


While we were inside the grocery store we heard this really loud noise and everything just shook.
It kind of startled us and the girl that worked there that was stocking a shelf.
Everyone just went running outside.
We thought a big truck or something had slammed into the building, we weren't really sure what happened.
We went outside to have a look but couldn't see anything so we just went back to shopping and didn't really think anything more about it.

Then later on in the afternoon, we learned from our cab driver what it was that we had felt.

An earthquake.

That was my first time ever experiencing one and it was kind of freaky to think about it.
It had long passed by then but the cab driver was talking about aftershocks and I won't lie, he had me a little nervous.

We didn't feel anything else though for the rest of our stay so I worried for nothing.


Seems to be some very talented graffiti artists here.

We quite enjoy it.

My Honey got the first punch buggy of the day.

I tied the game up right away and put myself in the lead in one fell swoop.

We walked through this little park that had all these painted plant pots.
They are getting old and rusted but they still look really great. 


It was super hot so we needed something to cool down.
What better than fresh fruit popsicles?

I opted for.......you guessed it.....passionfruit.

My Honey had done some research and found a local market that he wanted to check out.
We caught a cab (it was too far to walk) and headed over there.

Some sights we saw along the way.

They have all these really colorful buses everywhere.
Our driver later told us that the city metro just can't handle the amount of commuters so these privately owned buses run like city buses to help out.

Looks like people are living here under this overpass.

The low income areas and the high income areas are all very close to each other.
This area felt particularly ghetto-ie to me.
The apartment windows don't even have glass in them.
I was feeling a little uncomfortable and much to my dismay, this is right where the market was that we were heading to.
Our destination. 

It was full of wonderful fruits and vegetables.

This guy looks pretty relaxed.

There was some cool artwork on the walls in the market too.


There were piles and piles of pineapples.
We bought a couple to eat later back at the hotel and a little watermelon.



We likely would have bought more but we would have had to carry them around until we got back to the hotel and things like that get heavy quickly.
As it was, My Honey ended up carrying my bag for me the rest of the day.
He does that often when we are vacationing as my bag seems to accumulate lots of items through the run of a day.
He is such a gentleman.

There were these beautiful flowers just outside of the market growing on this old ugly wall.
I thought they looked beautiful. 


We left there and waited at a taxi stand for a bit but a taxi never showed up so we just started walking.
Eventually we did flag down a taxi and had him take us to a local mall.
It was a big mall with lots of cool stuff. 

Like this giant tiger,

an indoor carousel,

a t-rex, 
even King Kong was there - I couldn't pass up an opportunity to have my picture taken with the big fellow.

We only had about an hour to look around before the mall closed.
We took a cab back to the hotel to drop off some stuff then walked around to find a place to eat.

This place was around the corner.
We were able to sit outside again and enjoy the nice evening and I had some nachos.
Not very Panamanian but they were good.

We got back to the hotel and snacked on our pineapple from the market.
We also called the driver that had picked us up from the airport and made plans with him for tomorrow.

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DAY THREE

We were up bright and early and waiting outside the hotel for our driver, Phillipe to pick us up.
He does tours and today he was taking us on the Panama City Tour.

First stop was the Panama Canal.
We figured it was the one place we absolutely could not miss while we were there. 



Pretty cool to see something so famous up close.

The water looked really gross and disgusting, I would not want to go in it that's for sure.

There was a little museum there that we walked through.
They had this machine which supposedly told you how much of your body weight is water.

Not sure how accurate it was but it said I was 78% water.
Not sure if that is good or bad?
Panama Canal Selfie 

From the museum we headed out to the observation deck and we were treated to this.
Phillippe said he had never seen anything like this before.
All these sailors were just standing all over the masts, it looked really cool.
I thought there were going to jump or something but they just stayed that way until the ship went through the lock.
It looked so awesome.

We left there and took a tour around the city.
There are lots of beautiful churches.

Slummy looking buildings but they are so colorful.

Billboards next to run down buildings.

Even abandoned boats are susceptible to graffiti.

We stopped for a photo op at this interesting building.
It is the Museum of Biodiversity, unfortunately we didn't have enough time to actually go in.

We were headed to another section of the city where there are a bunch of boats docked.
There are lots of cool looking old buildings along the way.

We had to stop for a picture here as well.
Phillippe said there are lots of these for lots of cities throughout Panama.
Cool idea for tourists.

There is the Bridge of the Amerca's off in the distance.

The back view of the museum.
Such an interesting looking building.

I just love all the colorful buildings.

and all the graffiti/artwork everywhere.
This wall is awesome.

Phillippe took us to what used to Casco Viejo which is the old Panama City,
The buildings sat in ruin for a long time but now it is being restored and it has become quite the tourist attraction.
It has also been declared a World Heritage Site so the developers have to follow very strict guidelines when renovating and are not allowed to make any changes to the outsides of the buildings.

It is really quite beautiful - it is a little high end and seems to be steered more toward wealthier tourists or at least heading in that direction.

The Church of San Jose is there and it houses The Golden Altar.
It is truly a sight to see.
Hard to believe it is all made entirely from gold, amazing.

Interesting story about how they disguised the altar to save it from pirates. 

Lots of folks were there checking it out.

Not sure why but I always think it is so neat to see these electric cars plugged in.

The courtyard area was beautiful and clean.

I love this knarled up old trunk of this tree.


Phillippe told us that they used line prisoners in front of this wall and execute them, 

then they would just throw the bodies over the wall into the ocean.
Hope it didn't take long for the tide to come in and carry them out to sea or else it would have gotten really smelly.

Lots of the places here are still standing empty because of how much they cost and also how expensive the renovation are because of all of the restrictions.

It is a lovely place to spend an afternoon.

This area used to be dungeons and they kept prisoners here.

My Honey loves history like this and likes to read all the little plaques.
This gentleman latched on to him for awhile and was telling all about the history of the place.
He was really just looking for a tip which we didn't mind giving because he did give us lots of information but we just couldn't shake him.

We finally did though and walked up and around the walkway to see the sights.
Phillippe was meeting us at the other end so we didn't want to make him wait too long.

You can see the downtown portion of Panama City in the background.
It apparently is quite the up and coming place.

There are tons of vendors set up along the walkway here, I picked up a little key chain I thought could double for a Christmas Tree ornament in case I don't find one when we are here. 

We stopped at this little café at the end of the street vendors where Phillippe was to pick us up to get a drink (it was super hot) and they had these little bus straw holders which I just loved. 
In hindsight, I wish I'd found one and bought it to bring home for a souvenir.
We don't buy many souvenirs anymore but this would have been something I would have been able to display and I could have found a use for it I am sure.

The buildings here in this section of town are just so ornate and beautifully maintained.

Phillippe stopped at another church for us to check out - so beautiful.

Then he took us to the local fish market.

These are lobsters, I have never seen any that looked like this before.

Everything here is super fresh, you can buy your fish in the market, then take it to one of the restaurants right there and have them cook it for you.

There were stray cats everywhere.
Guess this is the place to be for them, no shortage of food.

We went there to try the ceviche which has a reputation of being the best.

We tried a couple kinds, they were all delicious.
It is a big staple here, everyone eats it all the time.
We bought lunch for Phillippe as well.

After the fish market Phillippe dropped us back to the hotel and we saw some really cool buildings along the way.

Hard to see all the colors on this one from this view but it was my favorite.

Another colorful bus, love it.

These were some pretty flowers just outside of the hotel. 

I saw there was a Hard Rock in town and if there is one where we are visiting, I usually pick up a t-shirt for my son so we decided to go there and get that done.
We googled it and it didn't look too far away so we decided to walk there.
It was a bit harder to find than expected but we did eventually find it.



We ate supper there, we just had an appetizer plate, I picked up a t-shirt for my boy and then we walked around the mall that was there.
I ended up getting a Pandora charm while I was there.
I like to pick up charms as souvenirs now, I ended up getting a little sea horse.

We sauntered back to the hotel and in our meanderings came across this gorgeous park that was all lit up.
It looked so pretty.

Just My Honey & I enjoying the warm weather, even late at night it is still in the 20's.

We got this passionfruit dessert at the mall.
I was too full to eat it at the time so we sat in the pretty light filled park and ate it.

We also shared a snow ice dessert.
It is shaved ice with flavoring and creamy milk on top.
Had that in the passionfruit too.

When we got back to the hotel we decided to make use of the rooftop pool.
My Honey went for a dip

I just dipped my feet in.

It felt wonderful.

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DAY FOUR
We made plans with Phillippe again.
This time we had him drive us out to an all inclusive resort on the ocean.
We made reservations there for the night.
It was a couple of hours away so we left early.


Up and at em bright and early - excite to go on adventure.
We are waiting outside the hotel for Phillippe to pick us up.

We actually got to go over the Bridge of Americas.
Then he stopped on the other side so we could take some pictures.

Just look at all those rigs.

Phillippe took a photo for us, nice to have that instead of having to take selfies all the time.
I like having pictures of all the places we get to see and I want us to be in the pictures.
Otherwise I feel like they could just be pictures that anybody took.

Not sure why there is this oriental style architecture here?
I think Phillippe told us but I can't recall.

I like it though.
I especially like those carved dragons on the top.

Phillippe was excited about taking us to try a food place that he likes, Quesos Chela.


They make these empanada like pastries filled with different things.
We tried a couple of varieties.

The cheese filled ones were the best.
The place makes this cheese right on site.
It is a soft cheese and we liked it so much that we bought some.

We continued on and arrived at the resort, it looked promising.
It had a golf course right on the grounds.


We got our room and it looked right out on to the ocean.
I loved it.
I wanted to take a picture right away before we messed anything up so went to get my camera/phone.
I couldn't find it anywhere and realized I must have left it in Phillippe's vehicle.
I was super bummed and worried about that but put it to the back of my mind so I could enjoy our day.
My Honey has an extra camera so I borrowed his to take some pictures in the meantime.
We went back 

This is out on our deck, it was on the ground floor so we could walk right out to the ocean.

I absolutely loved all these flowers growing up the posts.
It was just beautiful.

This is the view looking up at the hotel from the ocean.
Our room is right on the bottom where all the pink flowers are.
It was so gorgeous.

We spent most of the day in the water.


The sand was kind of black but really sparkly.
It didn't get outrageously hot to the point where you couldn't walk on it which was nice.

We took a break from swimming to have a snack.
This little birdie had the same idea.
He was eating leftovers on the table next to us.

After we ate, we went for another dip then we went back to the room to shower.
The location of the room was awesome.

After we got all cleaned up, My Honey wanted to go for a walk along the beach to see the sunset.
I was apprehensive at first because I didn't want to get all dirty again but I am so glad I went.

It was lovely to walk along the beach at sunset, 

Nobody was around, we basically had the whole beach to ourselves.

My Honey always does have the greatest ideas.

We had supper, walked around the resort a little then headed back to our room.
Sunshine filled days make for early bedtimes!

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DAY FIVE


It's another beautiful day in paradise with this handsome guy!

I was feeling a little sun soaked in the morning.
I think I may have stayed in the sun a little longer than I should have yesterday.
I didn't want to give up our little patio but alas we had to check out by noon so we had to give it up.
I could have laid here all day until Phillippe came back for us.

Phillipe wasn't schedule to come back for us until 4 pm so we had some time to spare.
We explored the resort/hotel grounds a little.
It was so pretty but unless you were at the beach or in the pool swimming, there wasn't much else to do.

I could see us getting bored pretty quickly if we were staying at a place like this for any length of time.

There was some neat vegetation on the property.

I wouldn't to be sitting under this tree and have one of these fall off onto my head!

Even though it was so beautiful, I was happy to head back to the city when Phillippe came for us.
I asked right away if he had found my phone and he said that he hadn't.
I was so disappointed but then when I got in, there my phone was wedged between the seat and the center console.
Talk about relief!
I really didn't want to have to replace it obviously but I was more upset over all my pictures that I would have lost.
  
Phillippe had another food place he wanted to take us to.
This time it was a place that makes their own sausages.
I had a bite or two but by this point I wasn't feeling very well at all.
I think the sun may have gotten to me.
My belly was not doing good and I was sweating & shivering, plus, this may be too much information but I was having to make numerous ladies room stops.

He did take us to one more stop on the way back to the hotel room though, it was a look out spot.


My Honey walking up to the look out deck.

The views were pretty fantastic.

Look at those homes tucked in the side of the mountain.
What a view they wake up to every morning, fabulous!

 My belly was feeling really queasy but I didn't want to miss out on those views.
Glad I got out and had a look.
We were only there for a few minutes when the police came by and shooed us out of there, I guess it closed strictly at 6 pm or something and they don't fool around.

It made me chuckle to see that even the stick people on the signs had big butts, they seem to be all the rage here.



We got to cross over the panama canal on the way back to the hotel.
By the time we got there I was feeling very unwell.
I put long pants on and my sweater because I had the shivers and crawled into bed.
I felt awful because I just wasn't up for doing anything.

I told My Honey to go ahead and go get himself some supper somewhere so he did and I just stayed in the room and slept.
I was hoping to feel better in the morning.

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DAY SIX

I did wake up feeling a little better and able to venture out and do some exploring.
We kind of wanted to get back to Casco Viejo and explore it a bit more as we were on Phillippe's schedule last time we were there.

There was some beautiful artwork

and some really great old buildings.

I loved the cobblestone streets and the old buildings.

We found a little place to have some lunch.

My Honey had pizza 


I had a passionfruit slushy, icy drink

and ravioli.
An unusual choice for me, I don't often go for pasta but I was in the mood today for some reason.

We left there and explored a bit more but I just wasn't feeling very good again.
We found a little frozen yogurt place with every topping imaginable so we went in and got one.  
I thought if I just sat a bit my stomach would settle but it didn't work.
Everything was just going through me so I just wanted to get back to the room to lie down. 

So My Honey found us a cab and we headed back.


So this old building which I thought was abandoned but there was a pool out front and a few kids were having a great time playing in it.

They even had an old couch pulled up to the side of it that they were using for a ladder.

I felt really terrible for not being up to doing anything but I just wasn't.
I got back in bed and told My Honey to go out and explore.
I would have felt even worse if he had to stay in the room with me and miss out on his vacation too.

He came back a little later and I thought I was feeling a little better so we got a cab down to where Carnival was going on.
It is a big party here in the city and we wanted to check it out.

As soon as we got there, I started feeling yucky again so we found a little place to stop and eat (and use the washroom).

It was lucky that we did because we ended up getting to see a celebrity.

When I went inside to use the ladies room, the waiter was pointing to this fellow in the restaurant and making boxing motions and he was really excited.
I had no idea what he was getting at and he was speaking in Spanish so I didn't understand.
So when I went back out to our table I was telling My Honey and the waiter came and was motioning to him too.
My Honey knew right away that he was talking about Roberto Duran.
I had no idea who that was but apparently he was a famous opponent of Sugar Ray Leonard.
The waiter seemed to be gesturing that he was there so My Honey went in to check and sure enough there he was.

He graciously allowed us to take a picture so here it is, My Honey & Roberto Duran.

We could see the entrance to the carnival area but for some reason they weren't letting anyone in anymore.

There was a huge police presence, there were all kinds of these duos riding around on bikes.

We walked around a back way to see if we could find another entrance as did a lot of other folks, it was a no go though.

More guys on bikes with guns, it was a both unsettling and reassuring at the same time if that is possible?

We walked around by the water a little but I wasn't feeling all that well so back to the hotel we went.
I had a bit of a nap then we went out and looked for a place for supper.


We found a little place with an outdoor patio again and it was fairly close so we chose it.
My Honey got to try the whole fried fish he'd been wanting to.
He loved it.

I had the fried chicken.

Also, the had Tres Leches cake too and I couldn't resist so I gave it a try.
It was even better than the piece I tried the first day we got here.
However, we hadn't even left the restaurant when my belly went rogue again and I had to scramble to find the washroom.

I didn't want to chance it so I went back to the hotel.
We stopped at a couple of little stores along the way looking for imodium, which turned out to be quite a difficult task.

We found a pharmacy and asked if they had it, they said they had one.
Turns out they weren't lying, they had exactly 1 pill, and they charged me .85cents American for it.

I took it because I was desperate and went back to the hotel to bed and sent My Honey out on his own again.
I don't remember feeling this awful for a long time.
My Honey ended up going to a casino across the street.
He won a bit too so that was nice.

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DAY SEVEN

I woke up finally feeling much better today.
Boy that sun filled day sure took it's toll on me.

We saw there was a carnival parade going on today so thought we would walk down there to see it.
Security was really tight getting in, you had to have your passport for ID and they were patting everyone down.
The separated the men and the women and had them go in different gates, likely for the patting down I am assuming.

They took a pen I had in my bag.


.
My Honey is against the fence in this one getting patted down, he said they confiscated a dental pick he had in his pocket, ha ha! 


Basically carnival is just a big dance party and the goal is to have fun, dance and get sprayed down with water.

They had all these people set up with hoses to spray people.

They had big stages set up and once you were through the initial gates, there were more line ups to go through.

Look at all those people ready to party.

We weren't interested in that so we just walked around.

More water sprayers poised and ready for action.

They had all kinds of vendors with food and drinks set up in there as well.
They were just getting set up though and so had nothing really interesting that we wanted to try.

It ended up being the hottest day of the trip so far, I think it got into the mid 30's.
I felt like I was melting, I can understand why they encourage people not to do anything to strenuous in the mid day sun.
We walked around for awhile trying to find the parade but had no luck.

We did see this cool statue of a cat I think.

Then we saw lots more stray kitties.
This little one looked skinny.
I felt bad, I wanted to take them home.

Look at this gorgeous one.
I just love the way this picture turned out.
The kitty looks so regal.
My Honey took this shot.

Wonder if any of that giant ice block will be left by the time he gets to where ever he is going?

We couldn't find the parade and we weren't far from the fish market so we decided to walk over there and have some lunch.

Aww My Sweet Honey - Ain't he cute?


Waiting for our food to arrive, we are in the shade but it is still melt your face off degrees out there.

I was just dripping in sweat - gee whiz, if I lived here I should be stick thin.
Of course it does make you want to sit around and not do anything so there's that.

This is the "restaurant" we ordered our food from.
There are all kinds of them in a row and as sooon as you walk in here, they have people from each place with menus trying to get you to order from them, like really in your face sales people.
Each one claims that the place they work for is the best.
We had no idea which was which so just allowed the first one that accosted us to seat us.

I really wanted to try the langostino, they were tasty.
I was surprised that they gave us an orange slice with it, I thought that was odd.
Then I tasted it and realized it was actually lemon, it was just orange in color.

We also tried the calamari and OMG, so glad we did.
This was hands down the absolute best calamari I have ever had anywhere.
I think about it sometimes still and want to go back just to have it again.
If you are in Panama City ever, you must try it.

My Honey had a full fried fish again - he was even far more adventurous than I could ever be and tried the eyeballs (yuck, I wouldn't be able to stomach that).
He liked it but said the full fried fish he had in the restaurant near the hotel was better.

This poor pup, likely a stray, was just a panting in the heat, he is stretched right out trying to cool down I think.

Check out the ingenuity of this guy.

He made his very own hat out of cardboard - I thought it was awesome!

Starting to blister and peel already - and I thought I was being careful and reapplying sunscreen as much as I should.
 
We took a cab back to the hotel after our lunch, I love just looking at the scenery along the way.

It is somewhat Americanized here too, they have restaurants like we have back home.
 
After we cleaned up and showered we were ready to go back out and explore some more.
It was our last full day here and I was feeling better so I wanted to cram in as much as I could.
 
We walked by this bakery near our hotel often so we decided to stop in and try a few things.
My Honey making faces, ha ha, he always cracks me up.

We tried a cream stuffed doughnut like thing - it was ok.

 

I thought this would be similar to the biscuit cake that I like but it wasn't and it was actually a little stale so it was a fail.

They have a subway (Metro) so we thought we would go on it for a ride, just see where it would take us.
It is still pretty new here and it doesn't go to that many places but we didn't mind.
We really had no destination in mind anyway.
 
This was on the post outside of the entrance.

I couldn't believe how big and roomy and super clean it was.

I was impressed.

Barely anyone uses it it seems, or maybe it was just the time of day?

My Honey was checking out where it went to.
We just hopped on and went to the last stop.

It didn't stay underground for long which was nice because we got to see some of the landscape.

I couldn't believe how many homes there were all crammed together.

They went right up the sides of the hills.
There were just so many of them.
I wished I could have gotten some better pictures but I had to try to snap them when we were stopped at stations or else they just looked like big blurs.

We got off at the last stop - we are so sad because we have to go home tomorrow.
We looked around the stop a bit - it ended up being a big shopping center but everything was closing up.
I wish we had a little more time so we could have went on the subway a bit more and explored around the country side.

We headed back to the city and found a place to have supper.
Boy, I sure am going to miss the lovely weather here.
It may have been super duper hot a few times but I would much prefer that to snow anyday.

I had a chocolatey ice cream drink and it was supper yummy.

We tried little clams finally too - they were good also.

My Honey had this strange sandwich thing - I didn't really like it.

I decided to have a dish of fresh fruit for supper - it actually was fresh and not frozen so that was nice.  I've found that fresh doesn't always really mean fresh.

We saw the ladies at the table next to us with this thick chocolatey drink dunking churros in it so I wanted to try it.
I've had churros before and they aren't really my thing - turns out I still feel that way.
I am not crazy about them at all.

I did love this super thick chocolatey drink though.
You really had to eat it with the spoon, it was too thick to pick up and drink.
It was way too much to finish too.
My Honey & I shared and we barely put a dent in it.
It would be a lovely trip on a cold wintery night sitting next to a fireplace and warming up after a long day of sledding.
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
DAY EIGHT
 
All too soon it was time to head home.

I snapped one last picture of the city as we were heading to the airport.

Good bye Panama City, it's been a slice!
 
All in all, we had a wonderful, memorable trip.
I sure wish I hadn't been sick for a couple of days there but it happens.
 
I am glad we finally got to see it and while there were things that I loved, I feel like I saw most of what I wanted to so am satisfied it we don't ever make it back.
 
If we do make it back though, the only thing I feel like I missed out on and would most certainly want to do is to visit the island where the Kuna live (the Indigenous People).
 
Until next time, be happy.
 
 

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