The flight left at 8am. I was up at 4:30am. Not the greatest state to begin when I needed to understand Spanish. So, the long and short of the morning was that, in the airport bookstore, I FOUND THE GUIDE! There is a God.
I spent about an hour in the airport after I arrived in Panama waiting for them to find my box of stuff to send and trying to find a courier in the airport to send it. No luck sending it from the airport. I ended up finding the local post office after I'd checked in at the hostel. $36 USD for 5 kilos in 2 weeks. Better than Fed-Ex for more than $100 USD. I also found an authentic Chinese noodle house in the area. Yum.
That afternoon, I walked along the main shopping district where tops start at $1 USD each. Nice stuff but can't be bothered to lug it.
The next day, I went hunting for a digital camera. Found a Samsung A502, whatever that means, for about $200 USD. Same price as it would have been at home and I haven't found anything cheaper in my travels.
Day 3. I finally go and see the canal. One of my roomates, Jennifer, and I took a taxi to the Miraflores locks, where the boats go through. We had negotiated $2 USD with the the cab driver, but when we arrived, he said $10. What pissed me off most is that he had indicated with his finger before we got in, $2 dollars. We ended up just giving him another buck each.
Right pissed, we headed up the stairs to the entrance. They wanted $8 each. No way. We walked back to the highway to take a bus to another area to take a look at the canal.
After waiting for about 30 mins in the 30+ degree heat, we ended up hitching a ride to the opposite side of the locks and saw everything for free. Well, I spent $0.35 on a popsicle. And then another $0.35 on the bus ride back to town.
That evening a bunch of us went for dinner in an older part of town. There's a boardwalk where you can see the skyline of Panama city. While we were having dinner, in the nearby park, people were on a stage having a dress rehearsal, performing classic songs from Latin America, live. What a way to enjoy dinner.
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