Panama City Sept. 20, 2022
I am still sleeping over 15 hours a day, and due to the Panama City Sauna Season, we are not getting out much in the 9 hours I am awake and semi-active. Therefore, I am not bubbling over with wonderous observations yet. But, soon!
Joseph has upgraded my understanding and our access. Everyone on this list has a subscription to the blog that I set up - and that subscription is plopping these posts into your email. If you want to see back-dated posts, you can go to this site and see the list and see our history:
https://seattletopanama.digitalpress.blog/page/2/
Ta-da! And thank you, Joseph!
Panamanians think of this as Rainy Season, but it is Sauna Season to me. Most of the day, it is 85-87 degrees, and the clouds have either just dropped a deluge or are going to if you step out the door. Occasionally, there are sun breaks, but that is if you look in one direction - the clouds are moving fast enough to clear the sun break by the time you get down the 12 floors to the lobby door. For excitement and tropical drama, thunderstorms punctuate the day. Right now, to the north is a sun break, and because of the heat, the streets dry quickly in anticipation of the next rain - but the window to the west shows the fast-moving clouds coming from the south will soon wipe out our pretty sun break.
When it is overcast, the city looks a bit dingy - who wouldn't - so I took a photo of a typical nearby building to the northwest of our view.
At night, for dinner, the building puts on its cocktail dress and makeup and struts its stuff until 10:00, when the makeup fades, and then the dress comes off at 11:00 and she retires for the night. A bit of Hollywood that is considerate of the neighbors!
We have made daily trips to the local pharmacies to collect items we forgot to bring from Seattle. My first adventure was to find myself a toothbrush, and the first pharmacy I visited only had medium stiffness, no soft bristle brushes. In two days, my gums were ground up and bleeding - I wouldn't have guessed so harsh a result. We found a pharmacy with soft brushes, and it will take a couple days to nurse my gums back to their happy health, but no time at all to recover my gummy appreciation. We found tiny containers of 48 Tums for $8.18 versus a Canadian product called Sal Andrews with similar chalky effectiveness at 100 chewables for $2.35. Shampoo in a USA brand is $9.00 for a small bottle versus $3.00 for a Central American or Canadian brand. Why are Canadian brands less expensive? Perhaps they have less international marketing or lower export taxes; I don't know why, but I appreciate the savings.
We plan to spend the day Thursday in Casco Viejo, the Old Town of Panama City - our favorite part of our Panama City trip in January. I am starting to spend more extended periods awake and be able to walk further as the days go by, so I will have some good photos to share as we visit again.
Friday, we travel to David (Dah-veed) via plane, and we have someone picking us up at the airport to take us to our AirBnB to begin our month of reviewing rentals around Boquete. We plan to rent in at least three neighborhoods for 6 months before deciding what to do longer term.
Our adventure is begun!
Aloha from Panama City!