Panama City

22/08/2011

Today we decided to go to the Metropolitan national park to…hike! That had been a long time without doing it jajaja. When we went out of our hostel we were amazed to see the view of the city. Even if yesterday we had a glimpse and thought if looked like New York, we were shocked to face a Shanghai or New York kind of town.

We took a taxi to go to the park which drive us through a bit of the town. We were also able to see the disparity between the poor part of the town and the big towers.

 

 

It was a nice rising hike where we were able to see Titi Monkeys, frogs and even a Tattoo! We were quite lucky!

 

 

 

  

Frog

 

 Titi Monkey

 Tattoo

We arrived at the top and had a wonderful view of Panama City.

 

 

 

 

 

Once we finished the hike, we decided to do another one and after this one yet another one…3 hours hike: cool to do some sport, less cool to go it with a tendinitis jajaja. We didn’t see a lot of animals in the other hikes apart from a spider. BUT we saw Hugo Boss campaign to show they are green: they planted 60 trees…but you can plant a tree with a 1$ donation… thanks Hugo Boss!

 

Once we had done all the hikes the park offered, we headed to Miraflores to see the Canal. It was a very interesting visit and we learnt a lot about its construction, history and development. We were able to see 2 huge boats crossing the locks and we were not the only one to enjoy the show.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The taxi had charge us 7$ to go from the park to the canal and the public bus going back charged us 0.70$ : Viva los buses! :-) Especially as I sat next to a man and asked him confirmation about the way we were going. We started speaking together about a bit of everything and by luck he told me he worked as Real Estate Planner and was in charge of the opening of the new hotels. He gave me his business card: nice! I’ve got a contact in Panama if I want to do some business here!

From the “Plaza del 5 de Mayo” we wanted to walk…well not true…my dad wanted to walk to la Cabalza and even if I tried to explain him it would be hard and long to get there, I didn’t manage to change his mind. We went off, crosses streets after streets, asking the way at each corner and finally got to a bakery where the man told us it was dangerous to go there walking during day time and even more dangerous by night. He told us it would be mad to go there walking. We took a cab to go there and it took us 20 minutes by cab…I don’t want to imagine how long it would have taken to go there by foot!

The driver was very nice and gave us a brief history of Panama, its independence, the changes brought by the Canal…etc. It was a very interesting ride. He dropped us at the end of La Cabalza and we headed back on foot to admire the beautiful view.

 

 

 THE joke!

 

 The light of the left are all the boats waiting to enter the Canal

We stopped at a restaurant where we had a wonderful view of the city by night.

 It was time to go back home to rest or write the blog. I have the impression it took me ever to write what we did today :-( My dad must have been bored seeing me behind my computer so he took a picture of me to have a proof jajaja

 

Tomorrow: Casco Viejo and maybe museums!