Helen: We´re in the Pacific!!! Our skipper was really ecstatic about this on Friday afternoon when we finally made it through the last lock of the Panama Canal - C and I were both too exhausted then to really take it on board and be excited...but now it´s sunk in that we really have just crossed into a different ocean and through THE PANAMA CANAL. Ok, so it is just a larger version of the Kennet and Avon Canal really, but it was v cool to be in the lock as the same time as a super tanker. Actually, on the way down, it was just us and one other yacht (acting as a giant starboard side fender) in the lock together, with huge expanses of empty space infront and behind. Our own personal transit :)
We´re back in Panama City today and I´ve been tour guide - we wandered around the colonial part - same style architecture as Cartagena except very dilapadated. Some buildings are being done up (and the President´s Palace (complete with teenagers with machine guns to guard it) is very swanky) - C and Stuart kept eyeing buildings and musing on their development potential...
We also went to the Smithsonian Institute research centre and saw week old tiny teeny turtles and a two toed sloth in a tree - C says that´s what I´d be if I was an animal - sleeps 20 hours a day and moves slowly when awake - sounds ideal :) We also saw white faced capuchin monkeys and howler monkeys in the wild in Colon (which make sounds like a pack of angry dogs - very eerie in a jungle when you´re all by yourself - kinda like hearing foxes in London in the middle of the night - their shrieking always made me think someone was being murdered...). The monkeys were in the jungle on the site of an old American army base - lots of deserted buildings and bunkers - just the sort of place you might set a horror film...
Final bit of wildlife we´ve seen isn´t quite so romantic I´m afraid - I spent yesterday picking weevils out of our rice!! C won the sweepstake - he guessed at 37 and there were 38 (makes me think maybe he knew how many there were cos he put them in there!).
Both v pleased with how our Spanish is coming on - C much better than me (he´s reading Roald Dahl´s The Witches in Spanish at the moment) - we managed to communicate with a taxi driver last night and got him to take us to a cinema where they show films in English - we saw There Will Be Blood (there was nearly blood - I nearly knawed my arm off to get out of there it was so dull!). Had to kill an hour or so before the film started though, so we went to the games arcade in the shopping mall (where else would you find a multiplex cinema?) - C won at shooty game and air hockey...but I beat him at the drivey game :)
Right, quite enough waffling - time to go back to the boat. Lots of chores/provisioning to do - we set off for the Las Perlas islands and then the Galapagos on Weds...
Hxx
PS forgot to say - guess who was in Shelter Bay Marina in Colon same time as us? Rumour has it a certain Mr Bond of Universal Exports was there too, in a huge big gin palace filming for the next film...
PPS I have a Panama Hat!! (well, not technically a bona fide Panama Hat, but a hat that comes from Panama - good enough for me¨:) )
No comments:
Post a Comment