Panama

Plaza Bolivar, Casco Viejo

Hector with Panama City in background

In Panama City now, on a work trip with Hector. Since it's summer, it's considerably more humid than when we were here in February. Every day it rains a bit in the afternoon. They've taken to referring to their seasons as the "Dry Season" and the "Green Season", which sounds a bit less wet, I suppose. Even with the humidity I like it here a lot. The people are very easy going.

Our Marriott is big and bustling, it has a nice gym, a lovely pool and, best yet, a casino. We went for dinner last night over to the old colonial part of the city, Casco Viejo, where things were pretty quiet. When we were here in February, they were filming a James Bond movie in some abandoned buildings down here. Panama is standing in for Bolivia, I believe, which is making the Panamanians irate. We caught no glimpse of Daniel, although we decided we might as well say we did. Who's to know?

We had planned to come home Thursday but decided to postpone a day so we could return through Dallas and avoid any weather delays that might stick us in Miami. That will give us a full day to goof off-- we want to go back to visit the Panama Canal.

Yesterday I took a taxi back to the hotel from a nearby shoppping mall around noon. The traffic was just horrendous- things would just stop dead for 10 minutes at a time and my driver was cursing at everybody and honking nonstop. The trip should have taken 10 minutes but took 40 and the poor old man was red and sweating, it had just stopped raining and I thought he was about to explode. At last we pulled up at the hotel and he turned around and looked at me like he was going to either kill me or start crying. I asked him how much and he said, "two dollars".