School's out . . .

Wednesday and Thursday at school have been spent out and about with a non-English speaking teacher, Dayra.  Firstly we re-visited the canal and this time were very lucky to see five ships passing through which made up for a slightly disappointing first trip.  We visited the museum again, this time trying to read and understand the Spanish explanations. The only blot on our day was horrendous traffic on our return journey.

Thursday was spent visiting Avenida Centrale, which was the original main street of Panama City before the modern expansion.  The shops are all old and the mall, the first in the city, does not even have air conditioning. we walked the length of the street with Dayra pointing out the contents of stalls and the run down shops, again all in Spanish.Most of which we think our lessons have taught us to understand. We came back by bus.

Today, Friday, we have been promised an afternoon visit to the park followed by our graduation ceremony (with first class honours: gowns and mortars have been hired!).

Saturday will see us transferring to Isla Colon in the archipelago Bocas del Torro (which translates to Mouth of the Bull). Our hotel, the Bocas Inn, has 7 bedrooms and sits on stilts above the water. The wooden deck has sun chairs, a bar and dining room and the first floor has hammocks overlooking the bay. It is five minutes from the airport (an hours flight from Panama City). 

This morning on BBC World we could not believe a shot of David Cameron leaving Downing Street. It was snowing and there was so much snow on the car.  It all feels a million miles away!

Pencils sharpened, spatulas out!

This is the ILERI Spanish school. It is a bit of a hike from our homestay as we are sitting on our terrace taking this photograph! 

We arrived on Monday at 8.30am sharp to find we are the only two in the class.

Marianela (the owner) gave us an introduction and overview of the week.  She then introduced our teacher.

This is Melanie who taught us for the first two days.  We have been learning verbs, sentences and useful phrases like "Quero una copa Sauvignon Blanc - mucho grande por favor".  We don't think we need to translate for you.

Melanie has made the course fun and it has been good having her undivided attention.

Whilst RM has been busy in the classroom, HJ has found her way to the cocina (kitchen).  Here she is learning how to make 'pattacones'.  These are peeled and chopped green plantain which are fried, pressed into patties or pots and then re-fried, covered in salt and eaten with a tomato salsa usually containing meat, pork or fish.  We sat down with Stacey after cooking to practice our conversational Spanish. This was the end of day two.

This is our host family, Emilsa and Antonio (Emi and Tony). They are very friendly and fortunately Tony's English is very good which helps.  We are practising on Emi.

We have our desayuno and cena with them and last night cracked open a bottle of duty free prosecco with them which they loved.

RM behind Tony's bar - they had obviously heard about us!

Photo Gallery



RM and HJ on the bridge of the simulator



A close up of going through the lock from th simulator

Men at work in Casco Viejo - the whole place is a building site but will be lovely when finished

The view of the ruins from the Cathedral Tower in the orignal city



Shopping and Sunday lunch

Sunday was spent as if at home, some shopping and Sunday lunch.  The only difference being it was 28 degrees C.  Despite HJs general dislike of shopping, she managed to make a couple of purchases in the very first shop: a light day pack $5 and a pair of leather cream and tan loafers for the bargain price of $16. On the walk back from the plaza we spotted a rather nice french restaurant Petit Paris and so decided to have a rather nice lunch as options for eating out near the hotel in the evening are limited.  We even splashed out on a bottle of cava as it was much cheaper than SB. 

Although the official currency is the Balboa, it is tied to the US dollar and this is what they use for notes.  Coins are stamped in Balboas and they use both these and US currency.  Although in her change HJ got coins from Mexico and Ecuador.

We have just had breakfast and are now waiting to be picked up for our week at Spanish School.

Panama . . . not just a hat

Saturday, 12 January, was our first trip of the tour.  It was around the city and the highlight was finishing at the Panama Canal. 

Victor and his huge mini bus collected us at 9am and we headed for Panama Viejo.  This was the site of the 16th century ruins of the original city which was the main Spanish site for gold until it burnt down in an attack by the English pirate Henry Morgan in 1671.  Here we climbed the 22 metre cathedral tower which was undergoing restoration and were shown around the museum.

Our next stop was Casco Viejo which was founded in 1673 using many of the bricks from the original city.  This became the centre of Panama between the 17th and 19th century.  It fell into disrepair in the 1930s and parts of it reminded us of a crumbling Havana.  However, there is a huge amount of restoration taking place with many of the buildings being turned into hotels. We had lunch here in the Plaza Independencia with Victor who continued to provide us with lots of examples of life in Panama City. 

Post lunch, we headed for the canal via Amador Causeway, where we stopped for photographs at a huge marina, past the Frank Ghery designed Bio Diversity Museum (due to open later this year) and huge US military barracks many of which are being turned into discos. 

At Miraflores lock we were lucky enough to see the last ship of the day go through on its way to the Caribbean.  The gap either side is 60 cm and so requires skillful navigation.  A short 3D film followed which explained about the canal's development and the expansion project which will see new locks being opened in 2014. In the museum the highlight was a simulator where we stood on the bridge of a container ship as is was going through the locks.  It was assisted by mini trains on either side and then once out of the lock, it was buffeted by small, sturdy tugs who helped to keep it in line to enter the next lock. It was all massively impressive and we came away with a head full of facts and figures.

Back after a long day to snoozes before a light dinner back in Beirut.

Photos may follow if we sort out the IT: we also currently have no mobile coverage.

Fog on the wine . . .

After an early start, our flight from London was delayed by fog in Madrid.  We set off an hour late but had plenty of time to make our connecting flight to Panama City.  The ten and a half hour flight on Iberia was very good mainly because of the food and drink.  We were deciding what to chose from the  menu of five starters, when we realised it was a tapas style selection of all of them. A choice of three mains followed and then pudding all with copious amounts of wine.  After snoozes and films we found we'd landed.

We arrived at the Deville Hotel at 7pm local time (we are 5 hours behind) after having had a very interesting transfer where Andy our driver gave out lots of snippets.  For example, Panama's economy is very strong, based on the canal and tourism; there is no army and four women to every man; it is the second biggest duty free zone after Singapore and people love to shop (the shops are measured in miles and thousands).

We decided to eat in the hotel bar and had a selection of hot tapas with two large jugs of white sangria which were very refreshing and induced a sound nights sleep.

Our first morning in the city was disappointing because all we could see was a multitude of high rise buildings (many currently under construction), which all seemed to be banks.  We walked down to the marina having to negotiate crossing two four lane highways but when we got there, there was a dearth of much needed bars.  The weather is very hot and so we decided on a cab back to our hotel.  After a brief respite, we headed off in the other direction and found where all the action was.  Lunch was in Beirut where for $14 dollars we shared a very substantial mezze ($140 BOO luncheon vouchers remain).

We are now back in our hotel and having spent some time trying to master the blog again, RM has mustered an ice bucket and I can hear the pop of a cork as I type! 

As Peter, Paul and Mary said . . .

. . .  ‘I’m leaving on a jet plane’ . . . ‘All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go’.

After months of intense project planning, monthly, weekly and finally daily check-point meetings and never ending lists and ticks, we’re finally ready to set off tomorrow.  HJ had an excellent send off yesterday from colleagues but we awoke without sore heads.  This was just as well because despite all the plans this has been a very busy day.  It is now nearly 7pm and we are just about to open the truffles and bottle of champagne kindly provided by LB. 

Our trusty taxi driver, Fenton, is collecting us at 3am for our initial flight to Madrid where we’ll pick up our direct flight to Panama City.  We arrive about 5pm, just in time for a quick unpack (11kg won’t take long), an early dinner and hopefully a good nights sleep.  We’re staying at the Deville Hotel for four nights before starting Spanish School on Monday.  In Panama we have mostly free time where hopefully we’ll discover that there is more to the city than the Canal, Panama hats (although they originated in Ecuador) and being the home of ‘canoe man’, John Darwin after he faked his own death.