Our friends Dan and Sarah came to visit us from Raleigh this week! They flew in on Sunday around noon, and after a couple hours of settling in to our place, we carted them off to Casco Viejo for…you guessed it…a capoeira presentation. It was raining for a decent portion of the afternoon – not just our usual afternoon downpour. Luckily the roda was in a large covered gazebo in one of the plazas. I was so excited to have them there! And Eric was very sweet to take photos throughout the whole thing. He got some great shots. I also had the honor of starting the roda with Mono, which was a nice surprise.
Although he had planned to take the whole week off, Eric ended up having to work all day on Monday, which was frustrating for him. He had just returned the day before Dan and Sarah arrived from a conference in Seattle, so he had to catch up with what was going on in the office. That meant that he was unable to join us on our trip to the Canal. Boo. But the three of us enjoyed the museum, the viewing platform, the empeñadas from the little coffee shop, and the 15 min 3D movie about the Canal.
We then went out to the Amador Causeway – long skinny road out to three small islands just past Casco Viejo – for lunch. We had to settle for the Italian place since my favorite seafood place was closed for lunch, but it ended up being very good.
Then we were off to Panamá Viejo, the ruins of the former capital of Panamá (think 1500s-1600s), which was attacked and destroyed by Captain Morgan (yes, like the rum) in 1671. Unfortunately, Monday is the one day of the week when they close for maintenance, so we had to try that again on Tuesday. We returned home, then went out to Maito for dinner. Maito is a fabulous restaurant with this amazing ceviche in passion fruit sauce. Sarah took my advice and got the salmon with a honey mustard crust over polenta…just amazing. The guys tried the kimchi tuna, and while it was good and well-cooked, it was pretty obvious that the ladies won the ordering game.
Tuesday was…well…Panamanian. The country really brought out its A-game for our visitors. Our first stop was Panamá Viejo. It looked cloudy when we left, but it’s the rainy season, so we don’t get any completely cloudless days. We figured that if it rained for the usual 20 minutes, we’d be okay. We armed ourselves with raincoats and set out…Eric in tow this time.
We gone about halfway through the first floor of the museum when we realized that the noise all around us wasn’t the poor fans trying desperately to circulate a little air in the stuffy building, but rather a massive rainstorm. Tons of water. Nothing that my Tom’s were going to handle well. We waited it out for maybe 30 minutes. In the end, we gave Eric all our phones to take back to the car to stay dry, pulled up our hoods, and set off walking down the long muddy road towards the ruins in the rain.
As it turns out, the rain wasn’t the worst of our worries. The mosquitos were HORRIBLE! I had about 6 on my legs at one point. I have never had bug trouble here before, aside from at capoeira practice, and this was the WORST! Everyone besides Sarah got viciously attacked, but we were on a mission, so we ventured on. We saw each of the 6 or so former convent buildings on the grounds. We climbed the 115 steps to the top of the bell tower of the cathedral – a major symbol of Panamá. We read the plaques and saw the sights. Then we shuffled back down the mud road with wet shoes, slapping our legs as we went…and passing a maintenance guy wearing a shirt that said “The scent of sex.” Good showing, Panamá. You look awesome for our guests.
The good news? We were heading to the Playa Blanca that night! We rented a gorgeous house with a private pool, and after our rainy excursion we were ready to get on our way. Panamá, however, had other plans for us. After grabbing lunch at a fondo (small local restaurant) down the road that we lovingly refer to as “Mullet Man’s Place” because of the owner’s amazing hairstyle (yes, he’s an American…’murica!), we went home to find that the elevators were out in our tower of the building.
Can I remind you that we live on the 44th floor? Oh, and ps, Dan is recovering from hip surgery! All we wanted was to eat a quick lunch, pack, and get on the road before traffic…but that didn’t happen.
We went up to the social area since the two towers share that space and we could ride the other elevators to the 9th floor, and that’s where we ate lunch. Maybe 10 minutes later, Eric and I decided we were going to make the hike up 35 flights of stairs to get packed. I’m not going to say it was fun, but I was very proud of both of us for not being all that horribly winded after our climb! My knees, however, complained the whole way and made us take a few rests. Sarah kept Dan company for a while, but she later made the climb as well. Eric went back down to be with Dan while Sarah packed, then she hauled two backpacks and a bag all the way down.
Not 15 minutes after Sarah left to go back down, all three of them showed up at the door ready to hit the road! Were the elevators working again?! Nope. But the building staff was getting creative about how to get people back upstairs. Turns out, they had ridden the elevator in the other tower to our floor with one of the maintenance guys. He had then led them through Apartment C on our floor, in the other tower. Luckily it was empty. Apartment B (in our tower) was also empty, and the wall between the balconies of B & C had been removed. So they walked through C, out onto the balcony, crossed to the balcony of B, then exited B to the hall in front of our apartment. Jeez.
All we had to do to get back out, Eric thought, was use a credit card to pick the lock of B again, then reverse their trip up with all of our stuff to go to the beach. Problem was…the maintenance guy locked the deadbolt after he led them upstairs. So we were stuck again.
By some miracle, the elevators started working maybe 30 minutes later, and we got on the road. In a big city. At 6 pm. When everyone else was leaving the city. It took about an hour to get from our place to the Bridge of the Americas, which I can nearly see from our house (only buildings block it – it’s not far away at all). Not a fun way to start a trip.
We made it to the beach house a couple of hours later after battling traffic, hitting up the grocery store, talking our way through two guard gates, and finding house #1008 on a dirt road in a country that doesn’t have addresses. But behold! The house was BEAUTIFUL!
We didn’t see exactly how beautiful until the following morning, but we were just thrilled to be there. And I was excited to take a shower…until we realized that there wasn’t any water. No problem, I would just talk to the live-in housekeeper/groundskeeper Sergio, a 20 year old kid who had a pretty good gig living on the beach, and let him know what was going on. He assured me he would fix it. It didn’t come on. I asked him again. He said he’d try something else. It still didn’t come on. By 10:30 I was exhausted and ready for bed. I texted him one more time to let him know that we still didn’t have water, and heard from the American homeowner a few minutes later via text. She, however, was in a chatty mood and wanted to relate to me as an American in Panamá and trash talk Panamanians, while I just wanted to sleep…and for my guests to have water. Somewhere around midnight, everyone heard the water come on and we sleepily rejoiced for a brief moment before falling back asleep.
Wednesday, luckily, was heavenly! Dan and Sarah spent some time on the beach while Eric and I ran out to the store. We sat in our private pool so we didn’t have to walk the 75 yards to the community pool and share it with….no one. The sun was out, there were barely any clouds, and we had plenty of sunscreen.
In the afternoon, we took a walk to the beach, picked up shells, and Eric took a few pics of me practicing some capoeira moves.
On Thursday, we enjoyed a late checkout, then headed up to El Valle de Antón, the same little mountain town where Eric and I took my Aunt Angela and cousin Ashley and where I had my capoeira retreat a few weeks ago. We had an incredible lunch at La Casa de Lourdes, then headed back home without any traffic problems. Amazing!
Sadly, we had to put Dan and Sarah back on a plane on Friday afternoon. Great visit with them though! Thanks for visiting, guys!
Now we’re looking forward to Matty’s visit on Thursday!
