Panama.......ahhhh, a country with a strong backbone, beaches on both sides, lotsa bananas and huge high rises gracing the vibrant metropolitan capital city. Ohhh, and also home to one of the world's greatest man made wonders......the Panama Canal. It's hard to pin down Panama, which basket it should fall into (bananas in one...sorry that's bad). On one hand the country is incredibly undeveloped with haphazard little villages that you pass through without a second look. Then, on the other hand the stark contrast with huge foreign development taking place in the city of Panama. The construction boom that the city is going through is incredible. Sky rises are gracing the water line in all directions and in varying states of construction. It's tempting to look at snapping up one of these apartments, but when you see the city at night, it's then you realize that half the finished apartments aren't lit up with occupancy, but rather dark with the overseas investors only coming down occasionally to stay. Still, the cities prospering for now. What happens when inflation rises like neighbouring Costa Rica....which it will, then its the people of the country...the backbone that suffer, not the investors that come down for their couple of weeks holidays a year. Anyway, enough of this cynicism......we've had a good time here. It all started with us entering Panama right up on the Caribbean coast, over a rickety one lane iron bridge that you had to squeeze yourself against when a truck rumbled past. What also made this route more challenging was the 50m drop to the piranha infested river below. So imagine stretching your legs between two wooden planks with nothing below except some hungry fish, sucking in the tummy with your back to the iron bridge in the sweltering heat...real Indiana Jones stuff!! (Ok, maybe I've gone a little overboard especially with the fish.....). Actually, the border crossing was quite pleasant...nice and quick, efficient and a waiting taxi to take us to our next destination. Boy, was it was hot though...and you can see why the bananas love it here! They grow the things everywhere. The famous Chiquita nanas come from this area. I love bananas, so this was probably as close to heaven on earth for me. Unfortunately, all the bananas were green as everything in the area is exported to our lovely fruit sections in our supermarkets, arriving nice and yellow. Eating green bananas just isn't right, unless they cut them up, fry them and call them "papa platanos"...yum yum yum. We jumped on a boat in the banana area and sped through lush jungle lined rivers to a place called "Boca's Del Toro", bisecting and putting to flight numerous bird species along the way. The Boca's are a series of Caribbean islands that all offer something different. Some islands are great for laying on beaches, others for surfing and others for restaurants/bars. We stayed on the main island of "Colon" which was quite a cool spot. The majority of buildings here are wooden, all in various states of degeneration. They've been built out over the water edge, so it's refreshing to sit out on the water sipping and eating away. Because all the buildings are so close (you can literally jump from one balcony to the next), the music scene is a mish mash of many genres. Imagine listening to (britneys) "opps, I did it again..." and "your poison running through my veins...yourrrrr poisonnnnn" (Alice Cooper) at the same time. Really hard to know what groove to get into $·$%$%&. We spent a day hopping around some of the islands and managed to see dolphins jumping and playing in our boats wake, went snorkeling, laid on a white sandy beach and also saw an Eagle Ray (a bit freaky seeing it by yourself snorkeling...). We also spent the rest of the night in a place called "the wreck bar". Rightly named as it is built over a ship wreck that you can hang over the rope railings and feed all the fish. What´s not good is wanting to swim late at night...... Anyway, we left the Boca's after a few days and headed into the interior of the country, the backbone....to a place called "Boquete". We both weren't feeling the best in Boquete and hadn't eaten anything for 30+ hours. We picked up something from the curries we had in the "Boca's" the night before (yeah right!). Combine that with drinking over a ship wreck, and well... There was a big celebration in Boquete for the couple of days we were there. They have a flower festival that lasts for 10 days and includes two massive dance tents. Needless to say, trying to get to sleep at 3am with a thummp, thummmp, thummmp and the snoring in the room next door isn't much fun. We bought ear plugs for our last night, which only succeeded in reducing the music and snoring to a dull rumble.... We left "Boquete" and headed to the "Los Santos" peninsula on the pacific coast where we spent 5 days chilling out and exploring the area. Our first stop was a place called "Chitre", which we aptly named "Shitre". Not that there was anything bad about the place, just not a place you'd spend a second night in. The only good thing about "Chitre" was we rented a car from here (a little Kia....cute, but gutless). We promptly got on the road and headed down into the peninsula to explore. We found a neat little place called "Pedasi". It was quiet, quaint, full of colonial buildings and really nice people. I ended up getting pulled over to a 92yr olds porch (the locals call him gringo Jose) and I had a perfect chat in English with him. It ended up that he was employed as a time keeper by the Americans when they started on the construction of the Panama Canal, as he was the only one that could speak English at the time. We also did two dives at an island close to Pedasi called "Isla Iguana". This was good fun and their slogan was..."The latitude with a laid-back attitude"... The area around Pedasi is really nice and we found an awesome B&B overlooking the water called "Playa El Ciruelo" that we stayed at for a couple of nights. Our first night at the B&B we had a visit from a Scorpion. It was one of those harmless small ones (so the ladies next door told me). Mind you they moved pretty quickly when I swept it their way!!!! After chilling out in and around the area watching surfers and drinking 60c beers we headed onto the capital of Panama....Panama City. This trip wasn't without its dramas either, as Julz left her bag at the B&B....so after a 3hr round trip we were finally on our way. You enter Panama City over the "Bridge to the Americas" and are swiftly thrown into big city chaos. Horns, fumes, erratic drivers, skyscrapers and slums all gel together in harmony. We must've drove around for 2hrs looking for a decent hotel with any vacancies. Due to the massive amount of construction and commerce going on at the moment, all the hotels are fully booked. We finally found a hotel downtown, showered and treated ourselves to a nice meal. The following day we spent at the "Mira Flores Locks" watching huge ships pass through the Panama Canal. What an amazing feat of engineering this is, but not without its unprecedented problems like tropical diseases, landslides, massive excavations needed etc. Ships pay according to length and weight with your typical cargo ship (see photos) paying around $200,000 - $300,000 USD to pass through. One bloke swam through and paid the lowest amount of 36c. Our dinner that night was pretty special. We managed to reserve a table overlooking the locks, so we munched out on a buffet dinner whilst waving to the captains and crew of these massive ships that passed almost at eye level.....very cool indeed. We've also enjoyed wandering around the old city full of rambling buildings and watching CNN repeat the US presidential preliminaries over and over again. Julz has loved the shopping in Panama City, leaving me at the cinema complexes in these huge shopping malls for hours at a time...great fun. Well that's about it. We´re off to Cuba tomorrow and can't wait to experience what that fascinating country has to offer. From talking to people that have been there, we´re definitely in for a treat. Until the next installment, ciao chicos.... Logz & Julz | 