Thursday, March 8–Josiah drove us to the airport to catch our plane at 1:10 pm. I made some mistakes in booking this trip. Somehow I booked the pre-trip extension without meaning to and without noticing it, so we have four days added to the trip. It should be relatively interesting. We go to the mountains of Panama and explore. We flew to Atlanta and then to Panama. Although the flight to Panama was only about four hours, it seemed long, and we didn’t get there until 10:00 pm. There was no trouble entering the country and we were met by a driver who took us to the hotel. I was able to speak a tiny bit of Spanish with him and wish I had worked harder at learning more. It was after midnight by the time we were settled and in bed. I took a shower, but I think they must have turned the hot water off, and I only had cool water. Unfortunately, Tom’s back was worse during the night, and he’s really uncomfortable. Our room is lovely and the view is great. There are many attractive buildings to see from the window. As we learned later, most were built in the last 10 years or so. Many are banks.
Friday, March 9–We were warned that it would be hot, and it is. We walked out to go to a mall right behind the hotel just to get out and to buy a couple of Apple things and felt as if we were in Mississippi. Afterwards we went back to our room but found that our keys did not work so we had to have them rekeyed. We then rested for awhile. Tom was getting very anxious about our not having been contacted by anyone, so we went to the desk to make inquiries. There was a notice for a group that was touring the city tomorrow, but nothing for us. While we were standing there Lisa Drew, who is also supposed to be on this pre-trip saw us and introduced herself. She had had contact with Louis, who is our guide, and knew that he was coming to the hotel at 2:30, which it was. He came in while we were talking. We discovered that we have to leave at 6:45 am tomorrow, not later in the day as the program had said. However, breakfast starts at 6:00 so we should be able to make it. I was a little bit peckish, but we didn’t find anything very appetizing in the hotel and neither of us really wanted to brave the heat to go searching for something. We saw Louis on the way to the room (his key wasn’t working either) and he told us about a nearby seafood restaurant for supper. We went back to the room and just sat around. We have reservations for supper at Segunda Muelle at 6:00. I hope we find it! We did find it and it was good. It was about a fifteen minute walk from the hotel as Louis had told us. The walk was very crowded and very dirty seeming on the way over there. Some of it smelled like sewage, but the restaurant was nice. Tom had a dish with mashed potatoes and a couple of different peppers. I had a cerviche made of cubed fish, octopus, and shrimp with a sauce of three different peppers and lime juice. Both our dishes were cold. We also had iced tea which seemed to have some kind of fruit juice in it and was also delicious. We walked back to the hotel and made ready for tomorrow’s 6:45 departure. At least I had hot water for my shower tonight.
Saturday, March 10—Tom seemed to do better last night with not as much pain. Our preliminary plans had been for a late departure, but we were up in time to eat breakfast at 6:00 and then meet the group at 6:45. We now have Cindy Durbin from Dallas and Rich Egan from New Hampshire They didn’t pick up our bags until after 6:45, but everything worked out and we made it to the airport in plenty of time for our flight loading at 8:15. The flight was only 35 minutes. This was a small airport and the airline was Air Panama. We were all on the next to last row. We drove to Boquete in a small bus and walked around town some. On the way we stopped at a roadside stop with a honey museum and saw many coatis that were very tame. Rich tried to get them to come to him. The stop had a lovely view.
We had lunch at Big Daddy’s.
Big Daddy's
We all had the fish tacos made with sea bass, and they were delicious. The owner and the manager of the restaurant are Americans who’ve moved here. Louis told us that the town had grown from about 5,000 people about five years ago to 20,000 now. It has become a retirement Mecca for people from around the world. The weather was quite pleasant with a constant breeze. After lunch we drove to a local honey bee farm.
(Click on the image for more pictures of the honey bee farm.)
After learning about the honey production we had a honey tasting with about 20 different honeys. I think all of us were about tasted out by the time we finished; We then drove about 15 minutes to Hotel Ladera in Boquete where we are spending tonight and tomorrow. Our guide there was a very enthusiastic Gino pictured below.
After the honey farm we drove back to the hotel and had several hours to relax and nap. At 6:30 we met at the lobby and Alfredo drove us downtown. There were several restaurants from which to choose, but when I heard “Italian” I suggested that one and we all ended up eating at the Italian restaurant, La Scampina, where the food was delicious. Their tiramasu was about the best we’ve had! We then walked to a gelaturium where most of us had gelato. Next to bed.
Sunday, March 11—We did not have to leave until 8:30 so we went to breakfast at 7:00 and had plenty of time to get ready for the day. We left on the bus with Alfredo driving and knowing that we had about a two hour drive. As an extra, we stopped at a Bird Paradise which was a spot on which the owner, Mischiel, had planted many trees in what used to be a grazing land and attracted many species of birds. He especially had hummingbirds. He also was building his own house and had been doing so for three years while holding full time job as a hotel manager.
Louis and Mischiel
On the way to see an orchard collection, we saw firefighters training to rescue people tripped in the mountains. There were swimmers in the creek watching the exercise as well as the firemen trying to lift the “patient” on a stretcher. The man on the wall was the trainer, who had been trained in Costa Rica.
We stopped to watch there for about 30 minutes and then drove another hour to see the orchids.
We stayed about an hour there and then went to a nearby town and had a rather poor lunch. I had a tamale which here was wrapped in plantain leaves and not very good. I also tried the strawberries and cream, which also was not very good. Tom didn’t want anything.
After lunch we started back to the hotel and had a couple of hours to rest before the included supper at the hotel. Supper was also not very good. We had a choice of one of four dishes. Each meal included everything, even the soup and dessert on one plate.
Monday, March 12—We had a reasonable schedule today in that we didn’t have to be ready to leave until 8:30 again. We were supposed to have an optional tour of a coffee plantation, but it seemed that in order to have the optional tour, all five of us had to go. Rich really wanted to hike the seven suspended bridges. Luis was able to work it out so that we didn’t go to the coffee farm as part of a GCT tour, but on a local tour so that just four of us could go and Rich could make his hike. We went in a car, and our guide was Raoul. It was a particularly interesting experience. Raoul was very knowledgeable. He had been associated with the plantation from the time he was a boy when he lived nearby. He left to go to high school and college and had become a tour guide. His father and grandfather had always worked with coffee, but he wanted to do something else. He spoke good English and explained every step of the coffee making procedure clearly and with enthusiasm. We all thought it was one of the best tours we had been on and all bought coffee. He gave us an email address to which we could write and maybe buy more coffee.
After Raoul drove us back to the hotel we loaded up to go for lunch and then go to the airport. Lunch today was much better than yesterday and only cost about $4-6 dollars. Our flight was quick and easy again although the landing was a little bit rough. When we reached our room, the bell man asked if we would like another luggage rack and brought us one. Lisa, Tom, and I were going to Segunda Moelle, but it was closed and the concierge suggested The Capitol Bistro. It turned out to be a wonderful meal. We took a taxi from the hotel. The cost of the taxi was $15, but Tom gave him a $20 and he didn’t have change. We were told to call him when we were ready to return, and we did. He wanted us to just pay $10, but we insisted on paying him the entire $15. We shared two appetizers—a truffled mushroom and salmon tartar. Each of us then had a different fish dish—sea bass, red snapper, and tuna. Our waiter was delightful and went out of his way to understand us and help.
Tuesday, March 13–We met to walk around Panama City first riding around the new part of the city and stopping near the formerly Trump Tower. From there, we looked one way and saw the old town with no tall buildings and the other way and saw the new town.
It was interesting to see that the name had been removed, but we could still see where it was. Inside was the Big Foot statue. There were people walking dogs, but no one seemed to pick up the poop so the streets were filthy even though we were in a very rich part of town.. Most of the residents were foreigners, but the dog walkers were Panamanian. We had lunch. We then walked to the old part of town and saw mostly churches. It was very hot and we soon became to tired to continue so we returned to the hotel until 4:30 when we started walking again. We saw more churches, including one with a wooden altar gilded with gold leaf in which was an outstanding nativity scene which had been built by one family over a period of 90 years and then donated to the church when it became too big for them.
We went on to the French Plaza with a huge ficus tree.
On the way we passed a young lady in native dress posing for something. We never found out what.
I needed to use the restroom desperately and finally went into a restaurant that was open and asked if I could use theirs. They said yes.. Carlos had told me to go the restaurant were we were eating, but it was closed. Lisa had waited for me and we returned dot the restaurant where we were eating. Tom decided not to go the second time and ate supper on his own at Segundo Muelle. The rest of us went to a family restaurant where we had the entire restaurant to ourselves. It was pretty good with a very good salad and sea bass. When we left, there was what appeared to be a fashion show going on in the square.Tom washed his clothes and put them on a line in the room. Tom spent his time alone to wash his clothes.
Wednesday, March 14—Tom woke up especially early and went to breakfast about the 6:15, but I slept later and went to breakfast about 7:00, but I put out my large suitcase before I went so that when I went back to the room all I had to do was brush my teeth and take my small suitcase. Tom came back after breakfast about 7:00 and packed and put his suitcase out. We left at 8:30 and drove in really horrible traffic to and across the Bridge of Americas so that we had our first glimpse of the Canal. After that we drove on to a town where Carlos gave us each a dollar and sent us to the market to bargain and see how much fruit or vegetables we could buy. Some of us had specific things to buy and some of us could buy anything. Tom, Lisa, and I pooled our dollars and talked a merchant to give us eight ripe plantains for a dollar rather than the six he first offered.
Showing our purchases
After shopping, we went to a house where a woman showed us how to cook the plantains..The green ones and the ripe ones were cooked in a different way. The green ones were sliced perpendicularly and then fried in olive oil for five minutes. They were then pressed and fried again. The ripe ones were cut at an angle and fried. There was a sauce for the ripe ones made of cilantro, garlic, and onions that’s I didn’t care for too much.
After tasting our cooking, we went to lunch. This was not one of our better lunches. It was pork chops and roasted chicken, both dry and stewed chicken which seemed better. After lunch we drove to the SOS Children’ts village where children who for some reason no longer could lie with their parents were given homes. Each home had lllfive to seven children with a “mother” and were encouraged to bond with this new family. When they were 18 apparently they were assisted to go to the university or helped to find jobs. We were not going to be able to go to a school as planned because all of the schools were being worked on for the Pope’s visit in January, 2019 so we left the presents we had brought here. After our visit we drove on to our hotel in Chitre. About 6:30 we drove into town, viewed a square and a church built by the town people, and a plaza where they used to have bull fights. There was a mass in the church. We then went on to have one of the best meals that we had had on the trip. Most of us had a steak, which was supposed to be their signature dish, but there was also fish. We had a delicious lemonade. The vegetables were the best we’ve had on the trip—perfectly cooked mixed vegetables. Dessert was a tiny tart. Our hotel is Cubita.
Thursday, March 15–Today was a disaster for Tom. We first went to watch Dario López make masks for the carnival that they have.
Then we drove to a place on the beach where we could take boats to an island for a box lunch and snorkeling. The ride in the boat was very rough and Tom was banged on the water many times so that he worried about his back. He decided that the would go home and not stay for the rest of the trip. I’m not sure at this point how he’s going home.
Friday, March 16—Tom’s back was no worse than it had been so he was not as worried about it and decided to stay. There was a walk in a National park leaving at 7:15 for those who wanted to go. Neither Tom nor I did. After that, when the walkers returned, most of us went to the bakery, which was just a short walk from the hotel.
Then part of our group went with Carlos and José to a local restaurant for lunch. I had managed to set up a massage at 1:00 so Io didn’t eat lunch. Tom went to the grocery store and found some low-sodium V8 juice and some granola bars. A young man who was waiting to sign a contract to wrk for the hotel helped me set up the massage. He told me that he was starting to work that day and was just waiting to sign the contract when the receptionist beckoned to him to help me. His English was better than most. At 2:30, most of us left to go to a dress making shop. These were the traditional dresses of Panama, made totally by hand and costing up to $12,000 each. The designs were done with crewel work and were beautiful. They used tatting for parts of the dress. Each dress was unique and they could only use a pattern for one dress. The work was done by a couple. The man had been truck driver when he decided to start working with his wife on the dresses. We watched him do some of the tatting for which he used up to about 15o bobbins at a time. They talked for about an hour and it was very hot.
Carlos kept telling us that he had a small surprise for us. It turned out to be six children from three to eleven years old who were learning to do the traditional dances for the carnival. We all enjoyed the three year old boy and the five year old girl who really had the hip movements down pat.
After watching the children for about an hour, we moved on to the house of a person who designed headpieces and dresses for the festival. It seeems that the town was founded by two groups of people—one group followed the cross and the other group followed the Virgin Mary. The town is still divided into two groups, but in order to have one church for the town they put the Virgin Mary on the cross in the church. Unfortunately, all the statues in the church were covered for Lent, so we couldn’t see that statue. Carlos had a picture of it on his iPhone and said he would sent it to us, which he did.
The queen of the festival is a coveted title and girls are trained to compete for it at a very early age. The queen goes through rigorour training including physical training so that she can carry the headdress and costume (about 60 pounds) while dancing most of the day. He also told us about the festival. It seems that Las Tapas, this town had the first festivals (before Lent) and that this festival started when the Spanish were here. Now, this town of 7,000 o swells to 350,000 on the fo9ur days of the festival. Once again, we were all In a small room which was very hot. We were right across from the restaurant in which we were to eat so some of us left a little early to get into the slight air conditioning that was in the restaurant. Our meal was hamburgers or chicken Caesar salad. Dessert was a brownie with vanilla ice cream.
Saturday, March 17—We left the hotel at 8:30, but didn’t have to put our luggage out because we were coming back for lunch. Our first stop was a salt farm where we were walked through the entire process of drying salt from the ocean. It was discouraging to learn that they can only do this during the approximately four month dry season and that if it rains before the salt is gathered, all that has been gathered is lost. The owner described the process to us and told there was about 150 acres in the entire farm, but each of his relatives owned part of it so no one had a really big part.
After that we drove to the workshop of a potter in Chitré. He makes large pots without the use of a wheel by building the pots with a succession of clay “ropes’ made from rolling out the clay. He showed us his oven, which was heated with wood, and some finished pots which his sister had decorated.
It was then time for lunch so we drove to the hotel where we finished packing and put our bags out. Our key had already been decommissioned so we had to ask a maid to let us in. As soon as we had our bags out, we went to the restaurant to eat. Tom and I both had the suckling pig which was quite dry. Tom asked for ketchup and said that that helped. Just as son as we all finished eating we went to the bus for a rather long afternoon of bus riding back to Panama City. We had two breaks on the ride back, and each driving segment was a little shorter than Carlos had said so the ride didn’t seem too bad. Right before we reached the hotel in Gamboa, we were able to get a look at the Canal.
We had supper at the Holiday Inn and it was pretty good. I had soup and Tom had a Caesar salad. The desserts were very good.
Sunday, March 18—We skipped the nature walk at 7:15 and slept late. Lisa and Carol and the Woods also skipped. I didn’t see any others, but there may have been others. Our day started with breakfast and then a visit to a botanical garden which was really a zoo for rescued animals. We saw toucans, a tapir, a jaguar, an arpi eagle, monkeys, and birds. We had a presentation about the eagle, which is the national bird of Panama.
Then on to an Embera Village on the Chagres River. We arrived at the village on a boat and divided into groups of three or four to have lunch in one of the houses. Tom and I went with Lisa to the home of an older woman who spoke almost no English. We were able to communicate a little and found that she had a husband and four children—three daughters and one son. The houses were built on stilts and had thatched roofs.
(Click on the image above for more pictures of the village.)
Our host and hostess
Our house seemed to be one large room in which we ate and two other rooms behind makeshift curtains. She said they slept in the large room. She also cooked our lunch of sea bass and plantain in a small pot over a fire on the floor. It was actually really good. After lunch Tom and I let her put tattoos on our hand for him and arm for me. His was a hummingbird and mine was a flower. After lunch we walked around just a little and then our “guide” told us a little about the village. We then went to a large covered area where they had put out many handmaid articles that they were selling. Tom and I bought a small basket (canasta) from our hostess. We didn’t have enough cash so Phyllis loaned us $75 with which to buy it. It was originally marked $90, but she seemed glad enough to sell it for $75. We then went to see the town of Gamboa and back to the hotel for supper at a nearby restaurant. I went on the Chagres River Nocturnal Safari with several others and enjoyed having Carlos point out sloths, a bat, and caimans. Our guide actually caught one of the small caimans and Carlos held it so we could see and touch it.
Then it was back to the hotel for bed. Tom was already asleep when I reached the room.
Monday, March 19–We had to have our luggage out by 7:30, but weren’t leaving the hotel until 8:30 so Tom got up early and went to have his breakfast at 6:30 then returned to the room to put his luggage out. I went to breakfast at a little after 7:00, but put my luggage out before I went. We drove to Colon where we stopped at the marina to unload our luggage to be put on the boat and then drove toward Fort Lorenzo where most of us walked through a rainforest for about a mile to reach the fort. We actually walked on the road because the forest was too thick to walk through. Carlos was able to point out birds and monkeys on the walk. We saw a couple of groups of monkeys jumping in the branches of the trees before we reached the fort. Carlos and José had packed fruit and water in an ice chest so we ate and drank after our walk.
We then drove to the marina where we had lunch at the Dock restaurant. Tom had octopus and I had shrimp in a garlic sauce. Mine was delicious, but the octopus was tough. At 2:30 we walked down the dock to our ship, the Discovery. We had a safety drill and then were escorted to our cabins. The cabins are tiny, but adequate. Ours was named after the Harpe (sp) eagle that is the national bird and had a picture of it on the wall.
The boat seems very clean and well run. As soon as our pilot loaded, we started down the Canal following our “twin” boat, which was a relatively large orange boat. “Mules" helped the larger boats in the locks. These are different from the original mules.
(See more lock pictures by clicking on this image.)
In each lock were our boat, our twin and its tug, and a sailboat that tied on to us in the lock. We went through three locks, each about 20+ feet to be raised 85 feet above sea level to Gatun Lake where we anchored to spend the next two night.
(Click on the image above to see many pictures of the Gatun locks and area before the locks.)
Supper was a 7:00 and was delicious. Obviously we’ll eat well here.
Tuesday, March 20—We didn’t have breakfast until 8:00 so that was wonderful. After breakfast we went to look at the new locks and were lucky enough to see a big ship pass through in each direction. We drove over one of the top of one of the locks.
(Click on the image to watch the ship pass through the locks.)
It was fascinating to watch the new lock doors slide back rather than swing. When they are closed, there is a road across the top. We came back to the ship for a nice salad for lunch. Tom and I had chosen to go kayaking at 3:30 and then on the boat ride at 4:30 so we had time for a nap. The kayaking was fun although we had a little trouble keeping it straight. Most people had gone at 3:00 so there were just two kayaks in our group—Rich and Eileen Egan were in the other kayak. The boat ride was interesting in that we saw more sloths, holler monkeys, and then some spider monkeys. Returning to the boat, it looked very large.
We returned to eat supper. I listened to a PowerPoint presentation by José, but Tom went right to bed. As soon as the presentation was over, I went to the cabin, took an shower, washed my hair, and went to bed.
Wednesday, March 21—I visited the brig and the captain demonstrated his “ living room.”
Later this morning we sailed through the Gaillard Cut, the narrowest section of the canal and the Continental Divide.
This is the section that was particularly difficult to build because of landslides, and they still have to work to avoid landslides. In the Milaflores locks we had a very large Ro-Ro ship (ride on/ride off) that contained cars behind us as our partner ship. We all had fun watching Lisa pretend to guide this enormous ship into the lock. It came very close and seemed really big from our viewpoine. (For more pictures of the Milaflores locks click here.)
In the second lock there was some excitement as a sailboat that was tied beside us somehow came unfastened and loose. It turned around completely and hit our boat. The sailboat was slightly damaged, but ours only lost a little paint. We passed under the Bridge of Americas and into the Pacific.
We were too late to go to Taboga Island, but I don’t think anyone was really sorry about that. Our farewell dinner was on the boat, which was nice because our best food was on the boat. We spent out last night on the boat.
Thursday, March 22—We disembarked in Panama City and walked around a little to see the Panama Canal Administration Building, which was opened one month before the canal. There were nice murals around the top of the building. (Click here to see them.)
We were bused over to a market with handmade goods from the area. Some, including Tom, decided to visit a BioMuseum with a very interesting building while most of us went to the market. I ended up buying necklace, but saw no baskets as nice as the one I had bought at the village we visited. We all met back sat the museum, which Tom said was really good. He considered it a highlight of the trip. Those of us who went to the market were able to see some of the museum that was open to the public in the open basement.
After lunch we returned to our rooms at the American Towers Hotel where our baggage had already been delivered and prepared for supper and packed.
Friday, March 23—Unfortunately our flight out was at 8:45 so we were supposed to be at the airport by 6:45. We had only a box “breakfast” consisting of a dry sandwich mostly. There were seven of us on the early flight—all going to Atlanta first on Delta. It was Susan and her daughter Kati Russell, Bruce and Sandy Boisvert, Phyllis Nicholson, and Tom and me. We had plenty of time at the airport and an uneventful flight. Entry at Atlanta was easy and even pleasant—a far cry from New York! Josiah picked us up at the airport and drove us home so we were home about 6:30. Tomorrow we drive to Starkville to get Zoe.