Monday, August 21, 2006

Bare Naked in Panama

Rachelle and I are starting our second full day in Panama City. We hired a driver/guide yesterday to drive us around the city. We were actually just looking for a taxi to the Panama Canal, but this guy was waiting outside the hotel looking for tourists. We probably could have gotten a cab for quite a bit cheaper, but we saw a whole lot more with this guy. Considering we don't speak a whole lot of Spanish (read,yes; speak, not much), we probably wouldn't have considered going around the armed Panamanian guards at the Presidential Palace. Turns out you can walk right up to the place. Pretty cool. I'll post pictures when we get back. The guy hauled us around for 5 hours and charged us $40. Like I said, we probably overpaid, but it was definitely worth it. The only bad part about yesterday was the cool brew pub across the street was closed because it was Sunday. At least we hope it was closed because it was Sunday. It was the first place we went when we got in Saturday night and it was great. The beer was marginal, but the atmosphere rocked. And I was able to get a bottle of Cuban beer. FYI, Bucanero Fuerte tastes a lot like Budweiser. More later. Rachelle wants to do some "vacationing".