Drinks and afternoon snacks

Because we can

Panamá City

The view from old town

Friends from All Hands Virgin Islands

We ran across Ashley and Alyssa in old town. They are friends from Sid's recent trip to St Thomas for Hurricane Relief.

Casco Viejo - Old Town

Next we toured the old town for views of the water and the original city.

Miraflores Locks -Panamá Canal

We went to see the Miraflores locks this morning. It necessitated a subway ride and a bus ride but was totally worth it. We watched a few freighters pass through the first lock, watched the video and explored the museum.

Saying hello to the City of Panamá

A little bit of culture shock today as Panamá City is not just larger than Antón but larger than expected. The bus here was only $4 a piece for the two hour ride and it dropped us at a very large bus terminal. I'm even more glad now that I've seen it that we sprang for the private car to Antón when we arrived. We'd never have found the right bus.

A short taxi ride got us to our hotel. We're staying at the Grand International Hotel. It has good city views, hot and cold running water, A/C and a fantastic swimming pool. It's located in the midst of many restaurants, bars and the occasional tattoo parlor (but they looked up-scale).

Saying “goodbye” to the village of Antón

We had to say goodbye to Rebecca, Hassan, Philip, Angie and the Villa Astoria this morning. We had two lovely weeks here but now it's time to check out Panamá City.

Post hike snacks

We stopped at Bruschetta for beer and bruschetta after our hike. They have a lovely patio with a view of the Main Street through town.

Petroglyphs, flowers and bamboo

Extra pictures from the hike

Sleeping Indian Girl Hike

We went back to El Valle for a last day of hiking in the rainforest, pine forest and bamboo forest. The trail followed the waterfalls all the way up with beautiful scenery. It rained pretty much the whole afternoon so the trail was slippery but the hike was very comfortable.

Christmas Decorations

Sid hung the outdoor lights in the pouring rain while Candy decorated the inside.

Panadería

We walked to a local bakery this morning. We've been pretty good about avoiding carbs but today I wanted something sweet.

I started with pañuelo, a strawberry jam filled turnover, and Sid with a dulce de jalea, a raisin and cinnamon filled pastry. Then we split an enrollador which was the finest jelly roll I've ever tried.

A simple job

One of our "easy" jobs was to install a simple corner shelf in one of the bathrooms. It was quite simple but Sid got it done. As a bonus it's in "our" bathroom so we are already putting it to good use.

More food

I roasted a chicken with mushrooms, potatoes, carrots and onions for lunch and added roasted zapillo (squash) with maple syrup and sesame seeds as a side for lunch today.

Yvonne and Georgia made coconut sticky rice and a coconut and yucca soup for dinner. We all ate together on the terrace and then stayed to talk for hours.

Late dinner

On a whim, we stopped on the way home so Philip could cook us a late dinner. In the end, I baked the chicken with mushrooms but he made lentils, quinoa and peppers.

Magnificent Frigates

These photos don't do these birds justice.

Another day at Playa Santa Clara

Philip and Angie joined us today. Georgia and Yvonne found us there. They are also staying at Rebecca's. What a fabulous day.

Keys

A "quick" side project was to copy some keys for the guest house. It sounds like an easy job but there were a lot of unmarked keys that first needed to be identified and cataloged. Then the missing ones needed to be copied. The north side of town was without power this morning so it took us four stores to find one that could do them today. Then we needed so many that they ran out of blanks. Tomorrow we'll need to get a few more.

But we love looking at all of the different displays of stuff. It's like a while Home Depot shoved in to a closet, covered with dust and only one option for each item. But everything you could want or need is in there.

The neighbor’s chickens

The neighbor behind the hostel has about a dozen chickens and a couple of roosters. Today was the first time we've seen them out but we hear them every morning.

Plantains

We've been waiting for the plantains to ripen in the courtyard but in the meantime we bought some ripe and some green. The ripe ones (shown here) we sliced and fried - delicious! The green ones we cut into chunks, boiled, smashed and then fried. Also good but much more work.

Reclaimed bookshelf

We added twine to close the gaps and created a free book exchange for the hostel.

Franciscan Franken-sid

This is another of Sid's reclaimed lamps.