Panama

Panama Day 8, Canopy Tower & The Panama City Fish Market

September 7, 2010

July 17

Canopy Tower to Panama City

Mornings come early at the Canopy Tower. What’s that saying? The early bird gets the worm. Here, the early riser gets the bird.

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Panama, Day 7- Canopy Tower

August 24, 2010

July 16

Panama City to Canopy Tower

We wake to more rain and low clouds and we’re really hoping the weather gives us a break later in the day. Breakfast was in the club lounge and included a large selection of items from omelettes made to order, to fruit and cereals, to french toast. There’s also decent coffee served with a pitcher of steamed milk at the table (loved that!). The service here is excellent.

We remembered we still had the phone number of Pedro, the taxi driver we’d used to go to the locks and decided to call him to see what he’d charge to take us out to the Canopy Tower. He didn’t know where it was, but once David explained, we settled on $40 round trip and he agreed to take us out there at 10:30am today and pick us up tomorrow at 9am (checkout time at the Canopy Tower) and return us to the Sheraton.

The drive out to the Canopy Tower was easy and took about 30 minutes and it finally stopped raining about half way there. When we got to the road leading up to the tower, we were a little confused because the gate was shut. Fortunately, it wasn’t locked, so we opened it, drove through and shut it behind us. Note; the Tower’s website says if you want to take public transportation out here, there is a bus which will drop you off on the main road leading up to the Lodge. I would not recommend this. It’s a long drive uphill and I cannot imagine hiking up it carrying a backpack or dragging luggage.

We arrived at another gate at the compound at the top of the hill. I wish I had a photo of the tower, but you can see it on

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Panama Day 6-How To Make the Best Of A Bad Situation

August 13, 2010

July 15

Isla Contadora to Panama City

Today our plan was to leave Isla Contadora on the 9:30 plane, pick up a rental car at Albrook airport, and drive to the Canopy Tower to be there in time for lunch and the afternoon bird watching walk. Tomorrow we’d check out at 9am, drive to the Caribbean coast and check out the ruins of the Spanish forts at Portobello, and then make our way back to Sierra Llorona Lodge for another afternoon of wildlife watching. Alas, none of this was to happen as planned.

It was dumping rain when we woke up. The fountain in the middle of the courtyard was overflowing and turning the breakfast area into a lake. By 8am we knew our plane would not be coming at 9:30. A giant storm was sitting directly over the Bay of Panama, purple on the radar map, and moving slowly toward Panama City.

Here’s how hard it was raining:

“Thank Heavens, For Little…Computers”

We waited to hear news. Nothing. We waited some more. Finally, around 11am, we decided to cut our losses and reconfigure as best we could.

Fortunately, we still had intermittent internet access, going in and out with the storm. I got on the netbook and did my best at vacation damage control.

Because the Canopy Tower was prepaid, I emailed them first, asking if we could push our arrival by a day as we were stuck. There was no point in arriving there late even if we could get off the island because we would miss our only chance for a nature walk if we did so. I heard back from them within a couple of hours and they said they had space available for the next day so we could move our reservation.
Next I

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Isla Contadora- Panama Day 5-Diving, Snorkeling and Rain

August 9, 2010

July 14, 2010

Isla Contadora

After yesterday’s boat adventure, David really wanted to go diving and had made plans to go out very early with Guillermo on a 2 dive trip. I had considered going along for the ride, but decided against it when when we woke to cloudy skies. Even though I’m certified to dive, I hadn’t brought my card and the thought of sitting on a rocking boat for an hour or two, didn’t appeal.

Picked up at 7 and returned by 8:30, David was exhilarated by the dive. They ended up doing only 1 dive, albeit a long one of almost an hour, and David hadn’t used his full tank, a point of pride for divers.

He took a rest and then we walked into town (checking on the kitten who was still there and being fed) to rent some snorkel gear to do some snorkeling from the shore. The hotel says it has gear for guests, but the other four guests had been hogging the few good pieces available the entire time we’d been here.

It was beastly hot because much of the cloud cover had moved away, but we were hoping the sunshine would lend itself to some good snorkeling. We picked up the gear at Coral Divers and then decided to get some lunch first. There aren’t a lot of options and we checked Fonda Clarita and another local place to see what was available that day. None of it appealed to David, so somehow we ended up back at Gerald’s where I had some shrimp scampi, David had sausage, and it took forever to get our food even though we were the only people there.

From there, we walked over the the old, abandoned Hotel Contadora. This place is creepy even …

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Isla Contadora, Panama Day 3

July 29, 2010

July 12, 2010

Panama City to Isla Contadora

When researching where to go outside of Panama City, I found myself overwhelmed with choice. We knew we wanted some beach time and the Bocas del Toro islands, San Blas Islands, Pacific Coast beaches, and the Pearl Islands all looked interesting. Ultimately it came down to cost, weather, and ease of access. I’d read that Bocas was very rainy in July and the airfare there was more expensive so, out. The San Blas Islands were “rustic” but did not come with a rustic price tag so, out. The Pacific cost beaches, specifically Santa Catalina were very appealing but a six hour drive to get there was not. Out. That left the Pearl Islands in the Bay of Panama on the Pacific side of the country. If you are a fan of the TV show Survivor you might recognize the name as a few of the shows were shot here.

Isla Contadora is only about a mile long and less than half as wide and is home to about 350 full time residents. There are two airlines which fly there; Aero Perlas and Air Panama. We were told by more than one person that Air Panama has a horrible reputation and is known for redirecting flights based on cargo, not passengers. Meaning, you might get on the plane, expecting to go to Panama City and end up making two other unscheduled stops on other islands before you get there. There used to be a ferry service from Panama City, but it’s not currently running.

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Panama City-The Canal Locks, Casco Viejo, World Cup Madness

July 27, 2010

July 11, 2010

Panama City, Panama

We woke to cloudy skies and a desire to get out for the day, but first, breakfast.
The Toscana Inn hotel includes breakfast with the rate in a room off the lobby and unfortunately this is probably the hotel’s weakest point. It’s not for lack of choice either, it’s just that none of it was particularly appetizing. The hot choices included an odd re-fried bean/meat/green olive concoction, limp bacon, scary pale things which looked like fingers but were probably sausages and overcooked hard boiled eggs. There was cold cereal and milk, fruit, and toast. Coffee and tea or $3 extra for a badly made cappuccino.

Our loose plan for the day was to check out the Miraflores Locks and then find some place to watch the World Cup Final game, possibly in a bar either near the hotel or in Casco Viejo.

First, a note about Panama City:

Panama City is a huge, sprawling, modern city filled with skyscrapers and varying states of construction. I didn’t realize this until I saw pictures when researching for the trip. This is no quaint, Central American small city with low slung buildings. It reminds me more of Bangkok in the spread of high rises than even Los Angeles where the tall buildings are clustered in “downtown.”

Unlike Bangkok, I didn’t see any big open markets and there’s no street food visible anywhere. Like Los Angeles, it seems that things are spread out all over, and there’s no good public transportation system like a subway. Yes, there are buses, but as a tourist and not a local I was hard pressed to find a bus map, let along figure out where they went and how to use them. That means that cabs are the way to go, and again, being from LA, jumping …

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Flight to Panama City on Copa, Toscana Inn Hotel, Dinner at El Trapiche

July 23, 2010

July 10, 2010

Copa flight #473 LAX to Panama City

I should have known when the two tickets purchased at the same time were charged to our credit card individually, one month apart.

I should have known when I got an error message trying to check in online. Twice.

Maybe when I called the airline for help and “pressed 3 for web help” and it disconnected me I should have known to expect the unexpected from Copa. But no, I assumed that when it said, go straight to the gate if you check in online that was what we should do.

We arrived at LAX to the usual chaos that greets any international departure and debated what to do. I said to David, “the website said we could go to the gate.” But, given the issues above, we were uncertain if that was the right thing to do. Plus, we couldn’t find the gate listed anywhere, nor any roaming Copa agents to ask. Finally, there was a gap at the web check-in counter and there, we discovered that contrary to the web site’s instructions, we did need to check in with them even if we had no luggage to check. This makes sense of course, because they have to see our passports, but what would have happened if we had not?

One of the good things about Copa was that I was able to select our seats in advance and choose row 14, the exit row. Many airlines will not let you choose exit row seats in advance. This afforded us much more breathing room, about an extra 6″ of leg room. The flight was late departing, mostly because they had to bus every passenger out to the plane, one busload at a time, to a remote part of the airport I’ve never even seen. It’s as if they …