Beyond the city limits, exploring Panama
Pete and I had a week to take a mini-tour of some lovely spots on the southern coast and into the mountains. I'm going to spare you the beach shots since we've already seen plenty of that, haven't we? More of the mountains and other odd moments along the way. All in all, Panama has so much to offer!
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| Day trip to Isla Taboga off the coast of Panama City (this was a solo venture while I was killing a bit of time before Pete arrived). Tons of sardines washed up on the sand, so then tons of pelicans swooped in to eat. Not the most peaceful or attractive beach day but still kind of cool. |
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| Flash forward to the bus ride out of town. I know you've already seen my bus-interior shots but this one was interesting because there was a giant flat screen TV playing the utter masterpiece "Jack and Jill" starring Adam Sandler (in Spanish). This movie was weirdly popular in Panama. My teacher told me she had seen it four times. I don't get it. |
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| Ok, one more bus shot. There were several music videos playing including this one, featuring a little girl singing her heart out about what seemed to be political/nationalistic matters. It was simultaneously hilarious and disturbing, and kept cutting between shots of her and military men in the jungle. |
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| Our first stop was Santa Catalina, a beach town on the southern coast. Our digs by the beach featured livestock (chickens, pigs, horses)...these guys were watching their dinner being brought to the sty. I'm not much of a pig person but they were so cute I had to take a photo. |
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| So that's where pineapples come from! |
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| A night shot of the complex where we stayed by the beach...complete with full moon. One night we took a walk out towards the water (it was low tide) and just kept walking and walking through the sandy mud. It was apocalyptical. I felt like Tina Turner in Mad Max (sans hair and awesome shoulder pads). |
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| It's sort of hard to see but there are chickens up in this tree. They slept up there to keep away from a crocodile that was prowling. We kept looking for the croc but never saw her. Wah. |
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| Flash forward again to the mountains, several hours bus bus away from our beach locale. These pups were hanging out next to the hotel we stayed at. Doesn't this look like one of those corny greeting cards? If I was clever enough I would try to think of the obnoxiously saccharin caption that goes with this but I'm not. Ah well. |
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| The countryside in Guadalupe, Panama (the mountain town where we stayed for a couple nights). Tons of farms and fresh vegetables. It was super lush thanks to the volcanic soil...a little slice of paradise. |
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| Behold, the elusive Quetzal! Apparently this bird is really rare but we totally saw it on a hike through the cloud forest. It's pretty big and really colorful. If we cared about birds it would have been really cool. There were other people hiking with us that were serious birders (Pete liked to call them nerders) and they were pretty stoked. Huh. |
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| We also climbed the highest mountain in Panama...a dormant volcano called Baru. It murdered us. The view was pretty spectacular though...we were told you can see both the Carribean Sea and Pacific Ocean from this peak, but the stupid clouds were in the way. |
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| There's the mountain from the bottom, once we finished the hike. All we wanted was a cold beer at that point. There's Petey in the corner. He was wooped. |
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| Back in the city, the night before Pete flew back to New York. We went to a really nice rooftop bar that had a great view of the skyline. The NYU graduate that opened the place is going to make a killing. Sigh, if only I had the instinct for business. I went to NYU for drama. Boo. |
