Hot and Muggy!

Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2012--Panama City

Unfortunately, the air conditioner blows right onto my bed.  Most of last night, I slept with covers mostly over my head.  But no air conditioning is even worse.  This is a hot, muggy city.  Even though this is the dry season here, there is very high humidity.  It's impossible to be outside and be comfortable.

We caught a bus to to the main terminal this morning where we switched to a bus to the Miraflores Visitor Center, the Panama Canal overview sight and museum.  We saw three different ships going through the canal while we were there.  We also saw a 3-D film about the canal and toured a 4-floor museum.  The most interesting experience was a room in the museum with projected images of going through the canal as if you were up in the bridge of the ship.  It was speeded up so that in a few minutes you got the entire experience of going through the locks, across the lake, and through the other locks with all the tug boats and small guidance trains doing their jobs.  Virtual Tour:  http://www.panamatours.com/Pancanal/Canal_pics.htm

When we got back to the main bus terminal, we walked through the Albrook Mall just so we could be in air conditioning for a while.  It is a HUGE mall, though.  We kept expecting it to end, and it would just make a slight turn to a different direction over and over again.

The big surprise was trying to get back to our part of town at 4:30.  All of a sudden, instead of a bus every couple of minutes, there was maybe one every 20 minutes.  Then we saw a man with a news camera.  Wes guessed that a strike was occurring.  Fortunately, we squeezed onto a bus going our way.  I had to watch carefully, however, because it wasn't going back exactly as we came.  I could tell when we were near our area and told Wes to watch out for Av. Brazil.  Two men sitting by where I was standing told me we should get off at the next stop and go to the right.  Sure enough, it was the perfect place for us to find our way to our hotel.  Back in the room later, sure enough all the news was about a bus strike causing thousands to have trouble getting home.

We ate at Jap Jap, a place near our hotel that specializes in grilled chicken.  We bought a whole chicken and a baked potato and shared it for dinner.  It was very tasty with a very nice dipping sauce for the chicken.  Then we walked to the nearby supermarket to buy a cola.  Each of us drank an entire 1.25 liter cola within an hour.  We were so dehydrated from the heat.