We’re here! We made it to Punta Chame, 90 min southwest of Panama City (20 min as the crow flies). We have our rental car, we’re in the house, and I even made us a gourmet breakfast!

But let me back up a bit. We found out on Sunday night that our flight from RDU to Miami was delayed 75 min. We would be arriving in Miami at 9:43 and our flight to Panamá was scheduled to take off at 9:44. No bueno. This meant taking the next flight from Miami, arriving in Panamá at 4:00 pm. Perfect! That way we could get our rental car and get on the road by rush hour!!!

We began the day/night with 3:30 am wake-up call to ensure that American Airlines hadn’t suddenly found a well-rested crew in order to keep our flight on time, followed by a 45 min snooze (Eric in a whiny voice: “I can’t sleeeeep!”), then a 4:15 alarm, and 5 am departure for the airport. The first flight was BUMPY. And Eric was checking for the airsick bag in his seatback pocket by the time we were over Florida. Luckily, we landed (hard) with empty airsick bags and had 3 hours in Miami to recover.

The next flight was fairly uneventful, though it was on a smaller plane than we are used to. This change made the trip about 3.5 hours instead of maybe 2.5 or 2.75. Whatever, we made it.

Next step: car rental. I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that rental car insurance is expensive and a big pain in this country. I argued my way out of $500 worth of unnecessary insurance (which our credit card company already covered and which the sales guy tried to slip by us after I told him we didn’t want it), and we set off towards our Kia Picanto. Don’t get too jealous. Petey, as we’ve named him, is pretty rockin’. Unrelated question: can cars run on 2 cylinders?

We went to the home of the Uruguayan owners of our rental house next and spent a lovely 30 min or so with them signing final papers and giving them money. It never ceases to amaze me (wait for it, this is going to sound SO American and white) how many differences there are among each of the Latin American countries. I’m not particularly proud of that fact, but there it is. In just this short visit, we learned about mate (pronounced “mah-tay”), or yerba mate, a highly caffeinated tea-like beverage that is essential to Uruguayans and drunk in varying quantities by Argentinos, Bolivianos, and southern Brazilians. This guy was serious about his mate. He drank it from the traditional small gourd with a straw that looked like the stem of a pipe. He explained to us that you’ll usually see Uruguayans carrying a thermos of hot water under one arm and the gourd in that hand, so they do a lot of things one-handed.

Although the wife, Marcela, has been alternately communicating with me in Spanish and perfect English, the couple spoke only rapidfire Spanish to us. Eric kept up impressively well, although he noted that the husband’s slower, relaxed speech was easier to understand, at least until Marcela entered the room. I loved their accents and clarity of speech, although that could be due to their formality in our company in comparison to my capoeira friends.

**Sidenote: As I’m writing this, I am discovering more and more blog-worthy things about this house. Stay tuned. It will get more interesting.

We decided to delay our battle with traffic until after dinner and grocery shopping. We sat down at Habibi’s, a Lebanese restaurant that we regularly frequented last year. They have a nice outside patio, passable curry chicken, decent hummus, and a bi-weekly belly dancer. You know, the usual.

So we are seated next to a large tv. No sooner do we order when we saw this:

We were there in perfect time for tip-off! Crazy, huh? Now Eric, being the kind and loving man that he is, immediately offered to trade seats with me so I wouldn’t have to see Satan’s face (some of you call him Coach K…but those who do have simply not had the pleasure of a proper education by yours truly) during dinner. I declined and just sat in complete shock that a game being played not 20 min from where we had been that morning was on, over 1000 miles away. So bizarre.

Another strange thing at dinner was this:

I know it may look completely normal to many of you. Many of you are wrong. Green salads just don’t happen here in Panamá, as you may remember from last year’s blog. This is the most lettuce I’ve seen together on a plate in this country, ever. Super exciting.

I’ll spare you my whining about being dehydrated and actually shivering a little at dinner (Eric: “did you bring long sleeves?” Me: “I don’t understand.”) because I think I’m getting a cold and chances are I’ll wine whine about that later.

We had no trouble getting out of town and over the Bridge of the Americas, which leads west towards Punta Chame and eventually, Costa Rica. 90 min later we pulled up at the locked gate of our house for the next two months: Casa Ukaiki. Watch for our first impressions, surprises, uninvited visitors, and more photos in the next post.