Panama - The Adventure Begins

Huh?
What the heck?
What's that sound?
The alarm?
Why's it going off at 2:27 in the blessed AM?
Pana-what?
Oh, yea!

Panama!!!

Yea, baby! Get up, take a shower, get ready. Three o'clock taxi. At Dulles Airport by 4. Check in, through security (take off your shoes, Alice!), hurry up and wait at the gate for a couple of hours and then on the plane by 6 and out of the US by noon. Early morning to be sure. We were all dog-tired, as evidenced by the picture to the left, but as the next few blog entries should attest, it was so, so worth it!

The first stop on our itinerary was Miami. Very nice airport with trains and everything, but boy is it crowded. So many ants endeavoring to get to their own hills. After a few hours of layover, we got on our plane and headed over the Caribbean Sea (first time I've ever seen Cuba) toward Panama. Flying in there was all kinds of rain. It's the start of the rainy season in Panama, and my heart sank a little when I saw how much rain there actually was. Not to worry. It hardly rained at all while we were there, and I don't remember it once coming down in buckets.

After claiming our bags, we headed to customs. Now, if you're a local, all it took to get through customs was your driver's license and a smile. Walk on through, brotha, and get on home. If you're not Panamanian, however, well, that's another story. See the photo to the right? That's the Disney line to get to customs for Los Yanquis. It's kind of a blurry picture, but it gives you the idea. Once we were at the front of the line we had our pictures taken as well as our fingerprints. See that cop standing over there? That's an Uzi he's got in his hand. Dude, there's no messing with the Panamanians.

Once the government had exacted their pound of flesh, we got our rental car and headed out. To say that this car was small is to say that Paul Bunyon was an average sized guy. Just a little bit of a understatement. Just a little. I called this thing our clown car. There were four of us who rode in this car most of the time. Each of us had an average of 2 1/2 bags, one of which you could almost crawl into and shut the lid. When we were in this car without any bags, like when we were going birding or something like that, the people in the back seat could almost literally read the tag in the back of the driver's shirt. I mean, it was SMALL!

You couldn't have fit more than 10 clowns in that thing, and some of them would have had to be kids. Good thing the other four of us had a larger car in which we could put a sizable amount of our bags. Still, the two people in the back had to sit nearly on top of each other. It was awful. I just laughed when I looked at it for the first time.

After we used a borrowed shoe horn to get everyone in the two cars, we broke out the GPS I'd brought from home and high-tailed it to our first Bed and Breakfast. More like a Bed and once-in-a-while Breakfast, but a nice place, nonetheless. Pool. Tennis court. Basketball goal. Outdoor kitchen/dining area. Beautiful. You can see Jacob lounging by the pool in the photo on the right. That is the house we stayed in. The rest of our party (Kelly's mom and her husband, and Kelly's brother and his wife) stayed in the main house. The solitary life was very nice. Lots to be said for privacy.

We used the rest of that first day (Friday) to rest up from our trip, to get acquainted with our surroundings and enjoy the hospitality of our hosts. Nice folks at the Coconut Lodge.

But I must mention here that Panamanian drivers are NUTS! If they are in the next lane and are ahead of you by two millimeters, they are going to try and come over in front of you, mostly without signals. Pedestrians just walk out into traffic without the slightest worry. Motorcycles driver between cars. My mouth is still agape that we didn't see anyone killed. Dogs sleep right next to the road. Kids walk to and from school IN THE ROAD. People ride their bikes in the middle of the lane. It's absolutely amazing. It seems there are no rules whatsoever. I will give you one piece of advice, though. ALWAYS carry your drivers license. I got stopped three times and once didn't have it. Almost landed me a ticket. Lucky for me I have a cute body. Ba ha ha ha ha ha!! Anyway, view the video here as evidence that I lie not.

Coming soon - Day Two - Parque Metropolitano

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