A world of city adventures
A few little entertaining things about the city.
-Prices are obsolete. I helped a guy order a stoli (vodka) on the rocks and the bartender told me it would be $2.48 when I questioned the reasoning of $2.48 he said, ¨Fine $2.50 then.¨ We have been charged $2.00, $1.75, and $1.65 for the exact same distance in a taxi.
-There are no such thing as traffic laws only horns. The honk of a horn can say ¨Im passing you so dont veer into me,¨ ¨No one better be coming because I am running this stop sign,¨ ¨Hey George hows it going, check it out I got gringas in my car¨and a world of other odd interpretations.
An overview of our little street in Casco Viejo San Felipe.
We look out our Balocony of our little room and can see everything that is needed to be seen. Its just like that big city scene in the movies, we have all the essentials. The barber shop that is a local hang out for little kids to dance, old men to gossip and teens to meet and talk about the night. We have the local ¨street guy¨ Jimmy, who reports the happeneing to the locals, helps direct the few moments of traffic, runs errands that any local business needs and is there for general ambiance. The street is very narrow and very energetic. One noght I got to witness a little police teenage shoutoff. Actually they were more like 12 year old girls. It got pretty heated and we are not quite sure of the background information but it was an interesting scene.
We became very good friends with the son of the owner of our hotel and his Friend. Our experience in Panama City was as far from touristy as we could get. It was nice to feel like we were just hanging out with friends everyday.
Our most ridiculous adventure: Seven of us loaded up in Ian Carlos ´73Volkswagon van to head over to the beach where everyone hangs out during the independence. It took like 2 hours and the rain never gave up. We got to spend about 20min at the beach but the rain didnt stop and the tide was so high that there wasn´t much space for all the people. From there we basically were brought from place to place never really understanding where we were going or why we were there. OUr friends who were taking us for some reason seemed just as confused as un when they were the ones driving. We ended up at this little party in El Valle about another hour drive from the beach because ¨La Tortuga¨(the van) had quite the time getting over the hills and managing through the rain. Becuase of the weather Ian Carlos had fears of driving back in the rain.
He claimed to have a family friend close who had a hotel that they were cleaning up so there were plenty of beds. We arrived there tired, wet and a little bewildered. The place looked like either a horror movie scene or a cartel house though we never found where the coke was being stored. To top of the experience a friendly little cockraoch leaped from the wall to one of the mattressed and sped across as fast as its little legs carried him. I do not believe that anyone slept that night cause we were all up bright and early eager to make our way back to the city.
As I had mentioned before we did not do many touristy things. I fell in love with the city however. Casco Viejo has beautiful architecture and on eof our friends that we had met in Bocas who is fromt he city gave us a little tour of the history of the small area. He had so much information in his head that we never got board.
Our time in the city was primarily to wait for a boat to go to Colombia which came sooner than expected. We met a captain on saturday who was leaving on monday morning so we signed up. Our friends were sad to see us go as I was sad to be leaving Panama. I know that I will return there is much more of the country that I want to see. I dont know if it will be this trip or not all I know is I will return.
-Prices are obsolete. I helped a guy order a stoli (vodka) on the rocks and the bartender told me it would be $2.48 when I questioned the reasoning of $2.48 he said, ¨Fine $2.50 then.¨ We have been charged $2.00, $1.75, and $1.65 for the exact same distance in a taxi.
-There are no such thing as traffic laws only horns. The honk of a horn can say ¨Im passing you so dont veer into me,¨ ¨No one better be coming because I am running this stop sign,¨ ¨Hey George hows it going, check it out I got gringas in my car¨and a world of other odd interpretations.
An overview of our little street in Casco Viejo San Felipe.
We look out our Balocony of our little room and can see everything that is needed to be seen. Its just like that big city scene in the movies, we have all the essentials. The barber shop that is a local hang out for little kids to dance, old men to gossip and teens to meet and talk about the night. We have the local ¨street guy¨ Jimmy, who reports the happeneing to the locals, helps direct the few moments of traffic, runs errands that any local business needs and is there for general ambiance. The street is very narrow and very energetic. One noght I got to witness a little police teenage shoutoff. Actually they were more like 12 year old girls. It got pretty heated and we are not quite sure of the background information but it was an interesting scene.
We became very good friends with the son of the owner of our hotel and his Friend. Our experience in Panama City was as far from touristy as we could get. It was nice to feel like we were just hanging out with friends everyday.
Our most ridiculous adventure: Seven of us loaded up in Ian Carlos ´73Volkswagon van to head over to the beach where everyone hangs out during the independence. It took like 2 hours and the rain never gave up. We got to spend about 20min at the beach but the rain didnt stop and the tide was so high that there wasn´t much space for all the people. From there we basically were brought from place to place never really understanding where we were going or why we were there. OUr friends who were taking us for some reason seemed just as confused as un when they were the ones driving. We ended up at this little party in El Valle about another hour drive from the beach because ¨La Tortuga¨(the van) had quite the time getting over the hills and managing through the rain. Becuase of the weather Ian Carlos had fears of driving back in the rain.
He claimed to have a family friend close who had a hotel that they were cleaning up so there were plenty of beds. We arrived there tired, wet and a little bewildered. The place looked like either a horror movie scene or a cartel house though we never found where the coke was being stored. To top of the experience a friendly little cockraoch leaped from the wall to one of the mattressed and sped across as fast as its little legs carried him. I do not believe that anyone slept that night cause we were all up bright and early eager to make our way back to the city.
As I had mentioned before we did not do many touristy things. I fell in love with the city however. Casco Viejo has beautiful architecture and on eof our friends that we had met in Bocas who is fromt he city gave us a little tour of the history of the small area. He had so much information in his head that we never got board.
Our time in the city was primarily to wait for a boat to go to Colombia which came sooner than expected. We met a captain on saturday who was leaving on monday morning so we signed up. Our friends were sad to see us go as I was sad to be leaving Panama. I know that I will return there is much more of the country that I want to see. I dont know if it will be this trip or not all I know is I will return.
posted by Megatron @ 10:26 AM
1 Comments:
At 7:34 PM,
Anonymous said…
wow. so much happening. pics are GREAT. that must be the most beautiful beach scene i've ever seen. congrats
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