catch-up!
san jose, panama city
23/01/2008 - 14/02/2008
33 °C
hello everyone....right sorry i haven't blogged for so long! first a brief round-up of what happened after managua:
we went to San Jose in Costa Rica, was very nice, but quite expensive and americanised. I decided to be cultured for a day, and visited the columbian gold museum which was very interesting and also had a fantastic exhibition about the use of animals in art which had some amazing sculpture.
stayed in San Jose a few days, then got the tica bus to Panama City - a wonderfully fun 16 hours on a bus, arriving at 5am into Panama City. luckily we managed to get into a hostel, Zuly's Backpackers, which was a pretty friendly place, lots of nice people.
we visited the canal at Miraflores Locks - most of the people we were with had never seen a canal before, and had no idea what locks were....but it was a fun day, we saw a cruise ship go through and also a huge cargo ship, the largest that can actually pass through which was lucky, you dont get to see them everyday! unfortunately we turned up too late to see the visitor centre but i went back another day and fond that it was actually really interesting - it's not just about the canal, there is a lot about the surrounding wildlife and their habitats.
we also visited causeway, which is a man-made causeway that joins together a few islands to the mainland of Panama City - i think it was built with all the rock that they dug out to make the canal. its a nice place, you can rollerskate, cycle etc along it during the day and there are lots of restaurants and shops as well. we visited it in the evening, and saw an amazing view of panama city all lit up against the night sky, it was really beautiful.
for those of you who dont know, i actually came back to England for 10 days to visit family - Ian wasn't bored while i was away though, because Carnaval was here! he and a couple of friends from the hostel travelled to a town a few hours from panama city ( called tablas i think....will check that), where they had a great time! i will hopefully persuade ian to either write about this himself or dictate something to me so you can all hear about it....hopefully soon....
he also went to David and Bocas del Toro....will hopefully get some detail about this too....
anyway, i got back on the 12th February to panama city. we visited the Old town (Cusco Viejo), which as the name suggests is the older part of the city. it's very pretty, with old colonial buildings and much less concrete! aaaaaand......they were filming the new james bond film there!!! there were vans everywhere with the 007 logo, and lights and cameras....unfortunately we didn't see daniel craig tho 
they seemed to be just gearing up to start filming at around sunset when we were leaving....bummer....
right sorry have run out of time on the computer, will write more soon but thats got you up to date up until about 10 days ago! more soon!
Posted by ericurly 23/02/2008 12:49 Archived in Panama Tagged backpacking
That day on the beach you had Erika with those children to me seemed a day never to forget wow! sometimes the simple joys are the most rewarding. Ian hope we get some pics of the carnival? And Panama wow! all in all enjoying the diary thanks
05/05/2008 by el greco