Sheep Guarding Llama

Today’s adventure in Panama City was to go visit the hot new museum in the city, the BioMuseo – the Panamanian museum of biodiversity.  We started our day, as we have since Friday, by having a huge breakfast in the DoubleTree’s restaurant.  They have a pretty good breakfast and we are very thankful that, for some reason, we were given breakfast for the weekend.

The trip out to the BioMuseo was nice.  We found our way there pretty easily.  The museum is out on the peninsula sticking out into the ocean on the west side of the city hear the Bridge of the Americas and just before the causeway going out to the islands that were the primary offloading point for the ships coming from Peru in the old days when the Spanish Empire was shipping gold through Panamá.

The museum was very nice.  It was quite modern and well done.  It was really focused on exploring biodiversity in Panamá and the isthmus’ key role in the dispersion of species going from South America to North America and vice versa.  It was not very big, however, and so we went through it relatively quickly.  The girls had a good time.

We got coffee and then ice cream at the museum.  While we were there a big rainstorm came which was really neat.  The outdoor seating at the cafe was wonderful and we had great views of the ocean, islands the bridge as well as the other direction to the city which we got to see the storm come over as it headed towards us.

The girls did a little shopping in the gift shop.  We took a quick drive out the causeway and went to the islands just to see them.  They were pretty neat.  They are all restaurants, marinas and hotels these days.  Nothing like what they used to be centuries ago.

On the way back to the hotel we saw a restaurant that really looked good along the way not far from the BioMuseo.  We mentioned it as we went past and thought that it would be a nice place to go for dinner but it was far too early to be eating at this point.

We went to the hotel and relaxed for a while in the afternoon.  These hot days are exhausting and the kids can only do so much before they want to go back and just play with their toys.

We took the girls up to the rooftop pool and did some swimming for quite some time.  Dominica spent the evening in the hot tub while I swam in the big pool with the girls.  This is one of the first times that I really got to swim with Liesl now that she is actually swimming.  She had a lot of fun.

In the evening, when it was dark, we drove out to the peninsula again to go to the Italian restaurant that we had seen there.  We ended up having a wonderful dinner that we were so happy with sitting out on the ocean front.  There was a great breeze and the sound of the ocean and we were in an all outdoor restaurant with good food and service.  It was not busy at all.  A great decision.

It is our weekend in Panama City and we are going sight seeing today. Our first thing to do was to go out for a drive to the east and explore Panama Viejo, the archæological site of the first settlement of Panama City settled by the Spanish in 1519 and served as the key point through which the gold of the new world flowed to Spain during the sixteenth century.

It was insanely hot today and we seriously considered just driving past Panama Viejo and not stopping because it was just too hot to stop.  But we ended up right at the parking lot and took the opportunity to check it out.  We were drenched in sweat in no time.  The heat was oppressive.  It was easily in the high nineties and the humidity was so thick that the water was pretty much running down everything.

Seeing the Panama Viejo site was very cool and while the family waited down on the ground I climbed the old tower there which was really awesome.  They had a neat setup showing what the shoreline would have been like in each direction back when the tower was built and the views were really great too sitting right between Panama City proper and Costa Este.

We had a good time in Panama Viejo but had to cut it short from the heat.  We just could not stand it any longer.  Had it been cooler and not so humid we would have spent a lot more time there.

From Panama Viejo we drove up to the Miraflores Lock on the Panama Canal.  Driving up there was quite a challenge.  The highway going up to the Miraflores was extremely complicated to follow and we had some real struggles.  But we finally managed to get up there and we had a good time.  Parking was pretty confusing.  Once we got parked and got up to the lock museum we spent some time watching ships going through the locks, which was neat.  It was too hot to do that for long, though.

Luciana was really hungry so we hit the cafe and got some snacks and coffee and watched some more ships go through.  Then we went in and spent a lot of time in the museum exhibit inside which the girls both really liked.  It was a nice museum with exhibits on water, the locks, the country, the wildlife there and more.  It was well done and we all were quite happy with it.

After the museum we watched the 3D movie about the Panama Canal which the girls also really liked.  It was a nice day.

After visiting the locks we went back to the hotel and ordered room service and just hung out in the hotel relaxing and watching shows on the laptop all evening.

It is Friday and we are in Panama City today.  I am working from the hotel all day.  We decided that we were going to come out a day early so that we would be able to have casual time here in the city and not have to drive out here on a Friday night when the traffic would likely be bad and we did not want to lose out on having a Friday night in the city.  Today is also Dominica’s 37th birthday so we are celebrating that here in Panama City as well.

Dominica and the girls did school today while I worked.  It was a quiet day in the hotel.  A little more comfortable than working from the apartment out in Rio Hato.

This evening for dinner we just walked down the street to the Executive Cafe at the Executive Hotel which I have been telling Dominica about.  She wanted a simple, but tasty, dinner.  We have not gone to a normal restaurant like this together for quite some time.  It was great to get to go out to one.

We had a really nice time at the restaurant.  Dominica and I split the Nachos Gringo which was awesome.  The girls enjoyed their food too.  It is a nice, relaxed atmosphere.  We got cake to go to take back to the hotel since this was the only chance to get a cake for Dominica’s birthday.

Back at the hotel we hooked up the laptop and watched a little Modern Family and got to bed.  Tomorrow begins our sight seeing of Panama City.

Got up early this morning and got to watch the sun rise over the Pacific.  That was really nice.

Once the little store at the resort was open this morning I took a walk over there to pick up milk as we had run out at the house.  We are very thankful that we have figured out that there is a little shop there and a way for us to get the most basic supplies or little things like running out of milk would be more like fair sized disasters.

We had a bit of a credit card emergency today.  We were supposed to get a rental car this morning and when I went over to pick it up we found that my one credit card had been turned off and we had accidentally brought expired cards from the other bank!  And, of course, the car rental place is not allowed to take debit cards at all.  This was a disaster.  They had to drive me back to the house.

I spent a bunch of time on the phone with banks trying to figure out what could be done.  We have no way to address the one until we are back in the States which is some time away.  I managed to get the other turned on, just in time, to get the car rented at the end of the day.   It was a close call and we got the car just before it was too late.  We almost did not have a car to go to Panama City this weekend.  We were starting to panic.

After work this evening we piled into the rented Toyota Yaris (we seem to get a Yaris, but a different one, with every rental) and we headed east to Panama City.  Tonight’s drive went really well.  No issues at all.  It was fast getting out there and we had little problem getting onto the right bridge or finding the hotel.  I am starting to learn how to navigate around the city.

We are staying at the Hilton DoubleTree downtown in El Carmen where I was staying two weeks ago.  This time Dominica managed to upgrade us to a suite on the Hilton Honors floor (the fifth floor) which made a huge difference.  We have a three room suite with a huge living room where the girls will sleep, a bedroom with an office for Dominica and me and a large bathroom.  The girls love that the rooms connect in a circle and that they can round around the whole place.  We are very impressed with this room.  So glad that we sprung for a suite.

I got set up with my laptop in the office of the suite and found a huge cache of awesome classic games had released on GOG.  The old Dungeons & Dragons games from my childhood were all available now.  So, of course, I bought them all.

I was awake around six this morning.  I seem to be getting up earlier and earlier which is odd as my normal pattern is to naturally get up later and later each day if left to my own devices.  I have no idea what is making me wake up so early every day.  We do not even keep the blinds open in the bedroom so it is quite dark when I am first waking up.

It was not as hot today, still quite warm but not the brutal heat that we had yesterday.  That was a bit much.

Very windy day today and had some Internet problems.  Never lost access but the connection was not the best and everything was really slow and painful to use.

The girls took a shower tonight.  They love the shower here.  It is so big that they can go in there with tons of their toys, spread out and use it like a play room, but with water.  There is no way to use it as a bath tub, it is just a large tiled shower.  It’s the most modern shower that we have had in a very long time.

I played a little bit of Moebius: Empire Rising tonight but just about half an hour.  Dominica decided that she wanted to check out one of the new games that we have: Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective The Case of the Mummy.  The SHCD series is a FMV (Full Motion Video) from the 1990s on the SegaCD platform remastered in HD for the PC.  It is hilariously silly but still fun.  We tried hooking my MacBook Pro up to the television to play it that way but that did not work.  We ended up having to play it on Dominica’s laptop.

We ended up moving into the bedroom and climbing into bed to play on the shared laptop screen which is pretty small.  The game is very silly but we had a good time.  It is a funny premise for making a game.  There are three in the series.  Good for family game nights.