Panama Continued...

The island of Boca Brava was nice & relaxing. It rained on and off most of the time we were there but luckily we met some great people and made our own fun! Our new Jamaican friend shared the big game fish he caught daily with us and we enjoyed some fresh feasts of snapper, yellowtail & mackerel. We also played a lot of dominoes, in true Jamaican fashion. We toured around during a small break in the weather one day and discovered an abundance of howler monkeys inhabiting the island and black sand beaches.

The sunsets from the open-air, hill-top restaraunt were lovely as well.

From Boca Brava we made our way to Panama City, with a stop in Santiago for a night. We arrived to our hostel just in time to indulge in the Easter dinner (BBQ) they put on for the guests & made a night of it at Tantalo Hotel's rooftop bar, overlooking the lights of the city :) We ran into a nice Dutch couple we had met earlier in Panama and spent a couple days touring the city with them; the highlights included:

Casco Viejo (The Old City) - beautiful old buildings & architecture (both restored and abandoned), indigenous Kuna people selling their handmade goods, and great views of the ocean at low tide

Downtown Panama City - where we ducked into every air conditioned mall we could find to escape the intense heat & humidity (and maybe to do a little shopping!). We also saw the Hunger Games movie, which I thought was a great adaptation of the first book.

The Miraflores Locks at the Panama Canal - definitely lived up to the hype; so impressive & amazing. I would love to go back one day and see the expansion that is currently underway.

 The ruins at Panama Viejo (Old Panama) - it was pretty neat to see ruins 15 minutes from downtown Panama with high rise towers in the distance

We loved Panama City and may have even peaked at a few real estate options (for interest's sake...!); it was definitely a city I could return to one day.