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Official Itinerary:
You depart from the U.S. today and fly to Panama City, Panama's capital and largest city. Or, join fellow travelers who took our optional pre-trip extension, Chiriqui Highlands, Panama.
Your Trip Leader or a member of our local staff will meet your flight at the airport and help you transfer to your hotel. Dinner is on your own this evening. Your Trip Leader will be happy to suggest a restaurant.
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Disclaimer=
This is what I wrote probably on 9-30: This is very frustrating. I thought I was finally able to finish this blog but after posting the photos were nowhere. No I will try to put them all in the beginning and have to rearrange when we are home.
Today 10-11: We are back home and one day at a time I will try to catch up with the blogs. Internet and gadgets just didn't want to cooperate. Besides, the days were very very full with activities so I just wrote everyday the text. Otherwise I would not know what we did when. It was a great experience.
So here it goes now!!!
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As we arranged our own transportation, most of this itinerary does not really apply. We came a day earlier and paid for the first night ourselves. Later we checked out and then checked in again as OAT group. We stayed in the same room but got new keys. How the system works. Btw I probably should mention that President Teddy Roosevelt and also President Clinton have stayed here in this hotel.
We had a pretty good sleep and took it easy. We might have been for breakfast after eight. I had brought my large special cup to have a good cup of tea. Perfect. It’s coffee-drinking country and those little cups just will not do for tea. The food was buffet of course but plentiful. We went to the omelette station. We were proud of ourselves that we did not overdo it.
Back to the room and then off to do some investigating. Our hotel could not be in a better location. It’s in the middle of the old town across from the Cathedral at the plaza which was buzzing this morning with people.
The cathedral is under renovation and we will not be able to go inside. The pope is coming next year so everything must be made ready for him.
VIDEO! (0:38)
James bought his Panama hat he had wanted in Henley at the regatta but had been so expensive there. Of course there are knock-offs everywhere here too but what he found looks very nice and genuine (at least to us).
We have seen this in several churches. People pray for a house or about something about their house and bring little houses to this saint.
The staircase is made from beautiful wood and our room is only one story higher I love going up it whenever my knee lets me.
Our tour guide Octavio found us and introduced himself. He had a folder for us with some maps and info about the next day. When we brought the folder to the room we also decided to quickly go up to the 4th floor to have a look at the pool. We were told you have a very nice view from there.
But right next to it was a glass blower. He had heard what I had bought. Guess what? He had an even tinier nativity. Oh well, you need to support the local economy. It was only $4. I just hope I can get it home in one piece.
Later we decided we should go out again. It was dark now and towns/cities look so different then. We were not really hungry but Octavio had told us about a place with tapas called Tantalo. We thought that would be perfect. It also had a rooftop. It wasn’t far and we found it without any problem. The rooftop was on the 4th floor. The breeze was lovely up there but the music was very loud and not our taste so we went down again to the street level floor. It had a nice atmosphere there. We decided to start with two tapas and ordered the Signature Octopus (sautéed with coconut milk, tomatoes, onions, garlic, ginger, and creamy yellow Peruvian chili, topped with fresh roasted coconut) and Steamed Green Mussels (on a pineapple green curry cream sauce). That with some wine was just incredible I would have never expected it.
I had walked 10000+ steps today and it didn’t take us long to fall asleep.