Advertisement
Published: November 18th 2006
Our Panamanian journey started in Portobello, so named by Chris Columbus as he thought it was a beautiful port - it was. We only spent a night there after our boat trip and got swept up by the umpteen marching bands that were celebrating Independence Day from Columbia, some were better than others but none really had a good rythum. After visiting many fortresses - once you have seen one fortress you have seen them all - we headed into Panama City.
The highlight of Panama City is the Canal, to you readers that sounds very geekish but it was sooooo interesting. It was built yonks ago and was an engineering feat in its day and still is today - it was very cool to just stand and watch these huge boats squeeze through - there was literally only centimeters to spare! After all that excitement we went out to a causeway that was a bit of a let down - should have stayed watching the ships!
Over the course of the next few days we visited El Valle where we experienced a Canopy Adventure, basically zipping across wires through the middle of the jungle - pretty cool, and
a town called Boquete where they grow lots of coffee and there are lots of expat Americans buying cheap property, it was a pretty place but did not entertain for too long.
Our last few days were spent at a conglomerate of Islands on the east coast of Panama called Bocas Del Toro. It had a very chilled back Carribean vibe (funny that being on the Carribean) and we enjoyed our first night there having a few beers and meeting some other travellers. The most memorable part of Bocas was the boat trip we took around the islands. It did not start out too well as I spat the dregs of my coffee out of the boat only for it to fly back into the boat and in the face and on the shirt of our Captain - whoops, he was not too impressed. Still after that we had a blast, we saw dolphins and whizzed round in circles so they played in our wake, we snorkelled and saw a nursing shark and we played in the waves for an hour on Red Frog Beach. Most of the locals laughed at me as I was the only lady in
the surf, I was also the only one receiving face plants into the wet sand as my wave jumping skills were not too hot, Nick caught a few waves though so he reckoned himself a certified surfer by the end of the hour!
Oh we did see some Red Frogs too - in a plastic cup that a boy had caught, the frog not the cup.
So that was the end of our quick tour of Panama, it actually ended on a torrentially rainy day on a boat trip to Costa Rica but thats another story!
Hope you are all well and looking forward to the break at Christmas. Lots of love to you all and keep the messages coming - they really mean so much to us and embarrassed to admit it we get excited each time we log on and see a new message - especially Nick 😊
Advertisement
Tot: 0.069s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 34; dbt: 0.0338s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
geoff and Katie
non-member comment
Another exciting chapter of the Nick and Sally adventure holiday, sounds great, thought the mask a real improvement for Nick. From all the photos I had not realised Nick's hair was long enough for curlers but the hair nets really do go with the colour of Sally's eyes. Settling into life in NZ, seems a long time ago that we were in the UK. Weather pretty awful but still able to appreciate the stunning scenary. Cheers, looking forward to the next adventure, if can you include Timmy, George, Julian and Anne that would make it the perfect ripping yarn. All the best Geoff Geoff