Finally after counting down the days Spring Break finally got here, but as soon as I was relieved for a break it is coming to an end. For the week the group decided to travel to Panama, the real Panama, not Panama Florida (some people who I will not mention their names were a little confused as to why we would go there).
Here is a brief run down of our days in Panama
Friday-We ran out of school as quick as the kids and made it home for dinner and packed our bags for Panama. That night we got on our bus at 11:00 and were anything but excited for 16 hours on a bus. Luckily, I thought ahead and bought some sleeping pills. They recommend you take 2 so I took 4 pills and was awake a total of one hour on that bus! There were some consequences though because when we got to the border and had to wait four hours to cross I felt like I was going to pass out from exhaustion the entire time.
Saturday-Not a very exciting day but we survived the bus ride, everyone successfully crossed the border and we made it to Panama City late that afternoon. Panama uses U.S. dollars, is pretty modern, and their public buses are old school buses that look like they went on Pimp My Ride. That night we went to a Panamanian baseball game. I rooted for the Los Santos, they wore orange, OSU is orange, it only made sense to root for them.
Sunday-We ventured out into the city and saw the “tourist spots” of the new and old part of Panama City. It was hot, really hot so after we cultured ourselves and got a little lunch we went back to our hostel to hang out. Then that night we went to some horse races in the area. It definitely was not a tourist place because at one point we could not find our group that came in the other taxi and we went around asking if they had seen any gringos (white people) and they would point us in the right direction. It was basically a place where people just hang out eat and drink, basically tailgating.
Monday-You can’t go to Panama and not see the Panama Canal, so we went. I don’t know what I expected but it just looked like Lewisville Lake water in a river. No actually I did learn a lot. Here are a few facts for those of you who care…
1. 14,000 boats go through the Canal every year.
2. The big ships cost up to $250,000 to go through. Wow, that’s a lot of dough.
3. It takes a ship 8 hours to go through the canal.
4. The US gave Panama full control of the canal December 31, 2000. Because of this Panama City has become the fastest growing city in the Americas and the USA has gotten poor (and many other reasons, but that is not necessary to talk about). You are welcome Panama.
5. Jimmy Carter signed the treaty to give over the Canal to Panama in 1977. He seemed to be a hero in Panama. Our taxi driver asked if we knew him once he found out were from the US.
Anyways, after going to the Canal we did not have anything else planned for the day so we decided to walk and see where the sidewalk took us. Thankfully, it led us to a casino where I gambled for the first time in my life and fell in love. I put in $5 to a slot machine and won $23. I was so excited and pictured myself winning millions so I continued to play. Things didn’t really turn out like I wished and I lost it all. Oh well 5 bucks well spent.
Tuesday-We decided it was finally time to check out the Panama beaches! We researched and found this awesome beach where we were going to learn to surf and hang out for the day. Apparently the Internet lies because we got there only to see the ugliest beach I have ever see, but don’t worry you have to cross a river that is only waist deep to get to it. Awesome. So we went with plan B and went to another beach 15 minutes down the road. As the taxi driver drops us off he then tells us good luck that taxis don’t run down here so we will have to walk to the highway, but it’s only about a 30-minute walk. So this beach was just as ugly, but no river to cross. We walk and walk to find a decent spot to put our stuff and that is where we spotted this huge condo with a pool. So basically we snuck in there and used their pool for the day. Even though the day started out pretty horrible we found this great condo and ate McDonalds so it ended up being a good day!
Wednesday-Our last day. We had already ventured everywhere in Panama City so we just decided to sleep in, go to the mall and see a movie. We saw Sueno Posible or The Blind Side. It was a nice relaxing day before we got on the bus that night for another 16-hour adventure home.
Panama was a lot of fun and I am glad I got to see another country while I am down here. We met a lot of people from other parts of the US and Europe at our hostel, so it was really fun talking with them. I liked Panama, but I am glad to be back “home” in Costa Rica. Now time to catch up on some sleep and nurse my sun burn from the pool today. It’s been a rough day and tomorrow even worse, a day to the beach. Life is rough.
Happy Good Friday!
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