Panama City Day 2: December 27, 2011

Panama City: Night 2

In the morning, we moved to a new hotel.  We didn't know where would have available rooms so we went to the nearest cab and told him to take us somewhere. We stayed in the Casco Viejo area and moved to Los Santana, which turned out to be an Israeli hot spot.  The lady at the front didn't speak a lot of English and there was a lot lost in translation. We signed up for a tour the next day and hoped for the best.

All the cats in the room were quite comical.  The bed was very springy. We took much needed and much desired showers and then headed out to visit the city.

The city was hot and humid.  We hailed a cab and headed to the Panama Canal.  By this point we were very hungry...I'll repeat, hungry.  We decided to eat at the restaurant on the 2nd floor, which offered a nice view of the boats passing through the locks. Unfortunately, Rebecca is a vegetarian and the option were limited. We settled on Sangria.  We hadn't eaten in a good 20 hours and proceeded to get a bit tipsy on the Sangria.  I ordered food but I'm a lightweight so that didn't mitigate the Sangria too much.  The Sangria was delicious and made for an interesting rest of the tour through the Panama Canal. I proceeded to act like a fish by the aquarium and a canal worker next to the statues. 

 

The Panama Canal with a boat going through!

Sangria was the drink of choice for the trip! (Although, I did more of the drinking)

Shoveling dirt and rocks to make way for the New Panama Canal

We then headed to the old city of Panama.  The old city is where the President lives. The buildings were run down and colorful.  The cat calls were everywhere.  Note to any single ladies out there, if you need a pick me up then go to Panama.  You'll get honks, hoots and hollers and some broken English cat calls. 

 

After enjoying the views of New Panama City from Old Panama City, we headed to the Causeway.  This was a struggle.  The cab driver wanted to charge us a crazy amount to go to the Causeway.  We eventually negotiated being dropped off at a bike shop which was only $10USD (savings of $20USD). The walk was great and you could see the New Panama City and the Miraflores bridge.  The sunset was lovely.

View of the Miraflores Bridge at Sunset

It was time to think about food again.  We tried to find authentic food but could only find Italian.  I decided to indulge in a cerveza de Panama.  It was delicious. The food was decent and now we need a cab. No cab company ever answers the phone in Panama, so we had to wing it. Not many cabs passed the Causeway at night.  This lovely white car did stop by and asked if we wanted "un taxi especial".  It was a bit creepy and we had a good laugh.  We eventually made it back to the hotel. 

The next day, we had to wake up at 5am, so we tried to get to bed early. Unfortunately, the bar turns into a night club.  The music was bumping the entire night....then there was all the Hanukkah singing until 3am.  We got about 2 hours of sleep before our adventure the next day...