From Nicaragua, we went straight to Panama and bypassed Costa Rica. This was because we had to meet our friend Chris Wells for Carnaval on March 4th. When we got to Panama City, we found our hostel, Mamallena and walked around to familiarize ourselves with the city a little bit. Chris was coming the next day and we wanted to have an idea of what restaurants and shops were around the hostel. It turned out we were right in the middle of things with lots of restaurants, shops, grocery stores (with New Mexico chili pods!), and the major bus line right there!
The next day before Chris arrived, we decided to go to the causeway to ride bikes. We got a cab over to the little strip of land that you can see the entire skyline from. The only problem was that none of the bike rental shops opened until 1 (?!?) We ended up walking it in the scorching heat and almost unbearable humidity, but we didn't mind too much because the view was so gorgeous! And at the end of the causeway, there was a HUGE yacht docking point that we kind of snuck into and admired all of the incredible yachts. Pretty soon it was time to head to the hostel and wait for Chris.
There was some confusion about which hostel we were staying at (even though Chris made the reservations...) and he was kind of lost for a couple of hours but he eventually found up and we spent the rest of the day visiting and catching up because we hadn't seen each other in over a year since he moved to LA to go to grad school. But that was the first day of Carnaval so around 8:00, we needed to get ready for the party!
Everyone in the hostel was just as excited as we were for Carnaval and we all got ready and went together. None of us had any idea what to expect, but we were not disappointed when we got there. There were thousands of people in the blocked off street and a huge stage set up with Latin American artists playing. It seemed like the entire city was there- infants, children, people our age, all the way to 90 year old men and women! And everybody had these bags of dots (now we know where all the paper goes from 3 hole punches...) and shaving cream like stuff in a can they sprayed you with. And EVERYBODY sprayed and dotted EVERYBODY, it didn't matter if you were old, young, if it went in your face, down your shirt... all that mattered was that everybody got decorated. This was pretty much the experience of every night at Carnaval. One night we were able to see the floats with the queens that I suppose every other night we were too late to see. The floats were huge and colorful, and there were bands and different singing groups in between the floats.
***Random but super cool- In the Gatun Canal Tour blog, we told you to remember that the guide told us that the croaking noise that we heard was actually a Toucan that we weren't able to find. Well, one day we were walking to an ATM in the middle of Panama City when Darren heard that noise. He thought to himself, "Ha, that sounds like the sound the guide said a Toucan makes... Wait a minute... It's coming from up in the tree?!?!?" He looked up and sure enough... There is a huge Toucan in a tree in the middle of the city!!! We were pointing and some of the locals came out from their shops to see and were totally shocked that there was really a Toucan in the middle of Panama City! We all just watched it for a while, amazed that we saw such an exotic bird in the wild. Needless to say, Darren got VERY good at spotting wildlife on our trip, he could spot crocodiles, iguanas, crazy birds, you name it!!
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| The Toucan was up in this tree in the middle of Panama City!!! |
From Nicaragua, we went straight to Panama and bypassed Costa Rica. This was because we had to meet our friend Chris Wells for Carnaval on March 4th. When we got to Panama City, we found our hostel, Mamallena and walked around to familiarize ourselves with the city a little bit. Chris was coming the next day and we wanted to have an idea of what restaurants and shops were around the hostel. It turned out we were right in the middle of things with lots of restaurants, shops, grocery stores (with New Mexico chili pods!), and the major bus line right there!
There was some confusion about which hostel we were staying at (even though Chris made the reservations...) and he was kind of lost for a couple of hours but he eventually found up and we spent the rest of the day visiting and catching up because we hadn't seen each other in over a year since he moved to LA to go to grad school. But that was the first day of Carnaval so around 8:00, we needed to get ready for the party!
Everyone in the hostel was just as excited as we were for Carnaval and we all got ready and went together. None of us had any idea what to expect, but we were not disappointed when we got there. There were thousands of people in the blocked off street and a huge stage set up with Latin American artists playing. It seemed like the entire city was there- infants, children, people our age, all the way to 90 year old men and women! And everybody had these bags of dots (now we know where all the paper goes from 3 hole punches...) and shaving cream like stuff in a can they sprayed you with. And EVERYBODY sprayed and dotted EVERYBODY, it didn't matter if you were old, young, if it went in your face, down your shirt... all that mattered was that everybody got decorated. This was pretty much the experience of every night at Carnaval. One night we were able to see the floats with the queens that I suppose every other night we were too late to see. The floats were huge and colorful, and there were bands and different singing groups in between the floats.
***Random but super cool- In the Gatun Canal Tour blog, we told you to remember that the guide told us that the croaking noise that we heard was actually a Toucan that we weren't able to find. Well, one day we were walking to an ATM in the middle of Panama City when Darren heard that noise. He thought to himself, "Ha, that sounds like the sound the guide said a Toucan makes... Wait a minute... It's coming from up in the tree?!?!?" He looked up and sure enough... There is a huge Toucan in a tree in the middle of the city!!! We were pointing and some of the locals came out from their shops to see and were totally shocked that there was really a Toucan in the middle of Panama City! We all just watched it for a while, amazed that we saw such an exotic bird in the wild. Needless to say, Darren got VERY good at spotting wildlife on our trip, he could spot crocodiles, iguanas, crazy birds, you name it!!
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