Panama

Hello All! I arrived in Panama yesterday afternoon. We got to our hotel and were exhausted from the lack of sleep and jet lag. We decided to relax at our hotel that night and order a pizza. I ended up going to bed just before 8pm, which would actually be 5pm pacific time. I slept for 13 hours, waking up just before 9am! But I felt much better and ready to go see the canal. By the way, the area where our hotel is located reminds me a lot of the Presidio in San Fransisco, which makes sense because the Presidio used to be a military base that now has private residences and is a large park and quiet place just out of the city. And our taxi driver told us that this area used to be a US military base.

This morning, we took a taxi to Miraflores Locks, which is one of the locks systems at the canal where there is a visitors center. We actually got to see one of the huge cargo ships going through. Here are some pictures I took and a video of the ship going through.

Oh yeah, we also saw an alligator in the water!

Then this afternoon, we went to Casco Viejo, which is an old part of Panama City. Here are some pictures from there.

As I was typing this, I noticed a tiny little iguana on the wall in front of me. It climbed down and then jumped on my hand, which startled me and made me gasp. But then I thought he was extremely cute of course, and here is his picture on my elbow.

And one little thing I surely can't leave out about this trip is that right off the balcony of our hotel, there are monkeys! Yes, that right, monkeys! Last night I was hoping to see some, and I did see some different looking squirrels and some oppossums eating the banana, and then this morning as we were eating breakfast we saw the monkeys. Right now there are tons of them out there! That's how I know we picked a good spot! I took a video of the monkeys too, but it's taking forever to upload the videos, so I'll try and post that and the one of the canal when I get home.