Blogs from Panamá, Panama, Central America Caribbean - page 5

Just checking out of my hotel in Panama City as we speak and catching a 7 hour bus up to David. NYE turned out to be pretty cool. I was minutes away from going solo to la zona rumba, which is a closed off area with multiple discotecas. Thankfully, things worked out for the better and I was able to get a hold of Jason´s friend Marian. Jason, thanks, she has been a fantastic tour guide during my brief stay. We ended up going to her parents´ house for a small wedding anniversay party. Apparently her dad was a former pilot, the captains that take over the cargo vessels through the locks. Then we went over to some other "zonian" friends of their´s and spent NYE at a small house party. One guy bought a decent ... read more

Hey all, after an initial scary moment at the airport I made it to my hotel without issue. It is absolutely gorgeous down here. Of course, LAX had to be a freakin madhouse at midnight for some reason, crawling inch by inch into departures, so I had to run into the airport from Sepulveda. Then the lady at check in woudn´t issue my ticket because I don´t have a print out of my return flight on a different airline. Thank god for the iPhone, I showed her my confirmation on my phone and got my boarding pass. Then got harrassed because I ¨smelled of booze¨. Ya, no kidding, I was just at a bar and had to run a 1/2 mile into the freakin airport. Yes, the booze is gonna come out a bit. No law ... read more

Our time in Costa Rica is now offically over and we wanted to take a minute to say thank you to all of you at home who have been following along on our adventures. We know many of our family and friends are reading our blog and it means a lot knowing that you are keeping up with us! We are just as curious about what is going on in Canada (or wherever you happen to be!) so if something interesting is happening in your life please send us a note... we miss you all very much! We hope you enjoy this very long post... we promise to start writing shorter ones! Our last day in Costa Rica was definitely a sad one. We began to feel so comfortable and at home with the city, our ... read more

We arrived in Panama on November 17 after a long day of flying. We checked into our hotel and quickly fell asleep. After having a good nights sleep we were ready to start our day. After breakfast I went and arranged for our vehicle rental and went to reactivate our cell phone. The sim card had crashed. The cost of a new sim card $3.24 which includes $100.00 of airtime. I then purchased a $10.00 long distance card which shoulf give us more minutes that we will need. We left the hotel at around 1:00 pm. I had updated the Panama maps for the GPS so it was time to try it out and see if we could get out of town. We plugged in Keins address and left Panama City with no problems. While driving ... read more

After settling into the apartment in El Cangrejo, we decided to take a walk and see what was in the area. El Cangrejo is a little way outside the centre of the city, and isn’t very close to where the backpackers usually reside down in San Felipe. We had however heard it was a good place to stay, and true to this, we were rewarded when stepping into the little square plaza moments from our hotel. It had everything we needed: a bagel place for breakfast, restaurants for dinner, and a pub. Perfect! In no time, we felt relaxed, and really at home here, and wasted no time in doing an awful lot of walking to explore this wonderful city. Our plan whilst in Panama City was a simple one. We planned on seeing the famous ... read more

MONTEVERDE We left San Jose, leaving behind two hot Panamanians we met at our second night of partying, destination: Monteverde, a beautiful little village up in a cloud forest. After long bus rides, in a normal bus and the fabled chickenbus,a cheap converted american schoolbus used by police and bus companies here in Middle America we arrived in the cloud covered Monteverde. This is where we took on the Extremo ziplines, cables suspended through rainforest and between mountains, the tarzan swing: jump off a ledge freefalling for a few seconds after soaring on a rope through the jungle, and of course the superman: a 1km zipline, suspended between two mountains hundreds of metres in the air, you go flying while a harnass on your back lets you fly (like in a dream) through the air. A ... read more

The final country I was to visit in Central America was Panama and even before I arrived there I had a feeling that I would really like it. As the Panama Canal is the only way to cross from the East coast to West coast without going right round the contintent there is a huge investment in the country. Panama City is an exceptionally safe and modern Capital city, it´s almost a tiny piece of America right at the bottom of Central America. The border crossing from Costa Rica into Panama can only be described as a unique experience. We had been told it was pretty relaxed but I don´t think that we were prepared for how relaxed it would be. When the bus dropped us off at the border the first thing that we saw ... read more