Wasting away in Puerto Lindo

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Ok so a little happened in a lot of time.  We got to Panama city and spent the first day exploring the city with the help of our friend's driver Pancho.  We went to the Canal and saw it but there were no boats going through.  It is a pretty amazing feat of engineering and there is more work going on with it right now to expand it. After the Canal we went to the Causeway, which is the spit going out from the Canal, and then to  Caso Viejo, the old part of town.  We got dropped off and got some delicious lunch at a restaurant called Casablanca. Ceviche and comida tipica, rice and beans and fried fish.  Then walked the Cinta Costera, which is the local park/sea walk, and got utterly soaked in the afternoon downpour.   The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing and doing laundry.  That night we went out for Indian food of all things, which Chev thought was very funny cause she ordered her food in Spanish. Very international.  The next day we headed out from the city,across the country to Puerto Lindo, where we had organized to meet our boat to go to Colombia.  The day before we had spoken to Dagny, the owner of the boat, the Metacomet, and she told us her friend, Dennis was coming into the city to pick up supplies and could give us a ride.  Well this ride ended up being the most interesting ride of my life.  Let's just say our driver was a drunk, racist ex-pat with very bad teeth, with his sidekick Francis, the washed up, chain smoking, ex-karaoke queen from Louisiana.  We made it alive, barely, but with two new friends from Australia, Tom and Elissa.  When we finally got to Puerto Lindo after many hours we chatted with the boat people and found out we weren't leaving as soon as we thought. One day turned into two and finally we left after three days more days in Panama. We passed the time by going to Portobelo and enjoying the Independence Day festivites, chilling out in restaurants and going to Isla Mamey to hang at the beach. All and all not too bad.

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