Today, we decided to venture outside of the Gamboa boundary and to an area called Colon. We passed Chilibre, Sabatinos to Portobello. The Moon Handbooks, Panama, written by William Friar, said that the journey would last an hour. It took us more than two hours!
We traveled through small towns where people roamed the streets. We also saw herds of people hovering at a bus stop where the bus was nowhere to be found and we saw three legged dogs and malnourished cows grazing in the fields.
When we finally found the Portobelo Ruins, which date back to 1753, parked our car and was bombarded by a group of boys helping us park our car which we didn’t need help doing. Obviously, they were looking for something so we told them that when we were finished they would receive their “dinero.”
The ruins were pretty cool for a moment. We climbed to the top and saw a magnificent view of the Atlantic Ocean. The hills that surrounded the area, were also worth seeing.
Panama is a beautiful country. It’s very different than what we are used to. The people, we saw on the outskirts of the towns, seemed to be very poor and it made me wonder about the immigrants who come to our country. How different they must see things and how although everything is somewhat bilingual, it’s still predominantly English in our country.
We ate at an interesting place off the side of the road that was highly recommended in the book. The place was called, Restaurante Los Canones. We had some interesting dishes ranging from octopus to lobster. It was the first time that we had seen shrimp served with the head too, which made us feel uneasy. The Panama beer was pretty mild and smoothed the way for the mixture of seafood.
The day ended with a stroll through a zoo on the edge of the rainforest. It had the most unusual animals that I had never seen before – Gato Solo o cuati, Gallinazo rey, Tucans and Tayra.
Tomorrow we leave the rainforest but before we do that, we’re going for a hike through the jungle! Then off to the beach…
