Blogs from Panama, Central America Caribbean - page 11

Geo: 6.3939, -80.163We had a slow day. Philip finished grading the final papers for his class. He should be able to upload the grades tomorrow morning when we get in cell phone range of Nicaragua. That will be the last responsibility for the class. Glad it's almost over.We went to the party for the Princess Captain's Circle members, people who have sailed with Princess at least once before this cruise. Turned out to be 90% of the passengers on board. The person who has sailed the most has been on 279 Princess cruises. We have a new captain who got on board at Aruba. The dinner menu had all the best items on it – lobster, chateaubriand, duck a l'orange. Sure wish they would spread them out throughout the cruise, but that would be more expensive. ... read more

Geo: 10.8678, -79.8993We were awake and up in time for breakfast in the dining room today for the first time. I have been anticipating having eggs Benedict, but, no, it was not on the menu. As far as I remember, eggs Benedict has been on the daily menu of every other ship we have sailed. Breakfast was still good although the waiters were rushing, and I felt a bit hurried. We had a slow day today. We watched the old move Charlie Chan in Panama on the TV in our room. That was fun. I can't remember ever watching a Charlie Chan movie; I just remember the character from people imitating and caricaturizing him. Philip and I worked on one of the jigsaw puzzles in the library, a composite picture of neon signs of Las Vegas ... read more

A rather smooth bus- and a short boat ride brought us to Bocas Town, the main town of the Bocas del Toro archipelago, on Isla Colon. Here we wanted to spend some time to take our Spanish to the next level. We booked five days of Spanish lessons for the next week and another quick water taxi to get us to Isla Bastimentos, another island of the Bocas del Toro.Everything at Isla Bastimentos is a bit more Caribbean than Panamanian, the creole people, the mixed language, the Caribbean food, the very loud music, the speed of life in general. We stayed in a wooden house above the water, which was really perfect, relaxing and had a ... read more

From Panama City with an Uber, a local bus and another local bus we went to Punta Chame, at the end of a peninsula, where the wind blows often, for a few days of physical exercise for Merijn, playing around kitesurfing. That was fun!... read more

I decided to head down to Panama City earlier than Jess and Andy so I could do more there than they wanted to do. After a mostly sleepless night bus we arrived at 4am, luckily upon arriving at the hostel they were happy to point out 5 sofa spaces to sleep on, and there were still quite a few people up drinking! The extra 2hrs sleep were a godsend in order to function the next day! My new friends and I headed out to the old town for an explore and because it has great views over the water to the built up part of the city. Two of the guys are keen photographers and with an array of old interesting buildings this led to a great day exploring and taking photos. That evening we also ... read more