We managed to find our way to the Mamallena Hostel in Via Espana with the help of a local man who went out of his way to guide us after we asked directions of him. The hostel is run by an Ozzy guy and even tho we had reservations it was full and they managed to find us one bed which, after all, is all we need. The dorm beds are $11 pppn but since we are sharing we are paying $16 which is excellent for us. We also found a friend here - Andrea, from Germany, who we spent time with at Lost and Found Lodge. The bed they gave us was on the top bunk and luckily Andrea had a bottom bed and swapped with us. Carol loves the top bunk but Kent finds it difficult to swing around like Tarzan when his leg is off.
We went out to dinner with Andrea as a treat from her and had a lovely proper restaurant meal with garlic bread basket, and desert after as well. Wow how good did that taste!
Carol and Andrea went out yesterday to the oldest part of the city where they saw the ruins of the old buildings which are being preserved and also looked through and artisan craft market. Carol had spent the whole night up sorting the blog and pics and only ended up getting a couple of hours sleep. She went outside the market and found some shade and promptly fell asleep, it took a while for Andrea to track her down...
The weather here is hot and muggy and, it being the start of the rainy season, there are storms and short periods of rain which clear the air.
Today we went to see the canal at a place called Miraflores. We caught a local bus and walked about 1km from where it dropped us to the canal. They have built, in 2000, a new building right next to the canal which houses a museum, eatery, theatre and observation deck. We arrived in time to see a huge container ship going thru the locks. The ship had a clearance of 2 feet on either side in the locks, they are building two new locks to take the latest even bigger cargo ships that are operating. It cost $8 entry which included going to the museum and film, for $5 you can miss the museum. A couple of tour groups arrived while we were there so the place was fairly humming. The museum is on 4 levels and was very interesting as was watching the ship go through.
We wandered around the Albrook Mall which is the biggest shopping centre in the city and bought Carol a couple of much needed items of clothing and while there drooled over the very small laptops that are now being produced. We figure the 9 inch Asus EEE would be perfect for us, it sells for just over $400 here. We would like the basic, 4g SD linux EEE which sells in the states for around $200 but here they only have the 160g hard drive model. It's always nice to have dreams :)
Tomorrow we fly to Cartagena in Colombia at 11.30am to start the South America leg of our wanderings, we are looking forward to that.
