Back to Panama City

Last night was the worse night of sleep for me thus far of the trip. I think I went to bed at midnight and I was up at 4:00 needing to go to the bathroom. I came back to bed but I couldn’t fall asleep. Last night when I made the spaghetti, without thinking I rinsed the noodles with tap water. I don’t know if that gave me my stomach issues or if was something else, but my gut was not happy. After giving some time for my stomach to settle we left the AirBnb around 10:15. We walked down to the beach to snap our traditional trip photo and headed to Portobelo which was about 30 minutes away.

In Portobelo there were two geocaches that I wanted to do. One was a mystery cache where the mystery was figuring out where the path/steps were that would lead to a high vantage point overlooking the Fuerte Santiago ruins. After walking around the ruins and taking some pictuers I gave a quick look for where said path might be but couldn’t find it. We moved on to the next fort, Fuerte San Fernando, which thankfully the cache there was a virtual cache. Simply take a picture and log. Nice and simple. We went back to the car and I read the guidebook to see if there was anything else we should see in the town and it mentioned the Black Christ at Iglesia de San Felipe. The church was just a few steps from where we parked so we walked over to take a look. Also reading the book I read about a staircase behind the fort that led to Mirador Peru, a lookout over the bay. That is where they mystery cache is located! We had to pass Fuerte Santiago on the way out of town anyway, so we stopped again and I walked along the road looking for said staircase, and still didn’t come up with it (I even walked up the hill a bit, but didn’t want to wander too far). Another geocache attempt abandoned. Darn!

On the road again for the 1 1/2 drive back to Panama City. We stopped in Sabanitas at a McDonald’s so I could use the bathroom and Tom got himself a Chicken McNugget meal. I still couldn’t stomach the thought of eating anything so I just watched him eat. Getting back to the city was no issue and the GPS took us right to the hotel, the Megapolis Hotel (formerly the Hard Rock). The hotel only has complimentary valet parking, so I was more than happy to ditch the car for someone else to park it. It was 2:35 when we arrived so we tried to check-in, even though we knew check-in was at 3:00. Boy are they stickler’s for that check-in time. We had to give our bags to the bellman and find some comfy couches in the lobby to wait the 25 minutes. At 2:55 we got back in the check-in line. We finally made it to the front desk and was assigned our room on the 18th floor. I don’t know why, but they gave us a free up-grade to a suite. We have a full living room, and kitchen type area that is separate from the bedroom along with a powder room and a bathroom, and a balcony off the bedroom and living room. It’s a pretty sweet suite.

Having only had about 4 hours of sleep I was exhausted and I was the one suggesting a nap for a change. It felt so good to lay down for about an hour. After nap time we checked-out the pool and breakfast area, as well as went up to the 62nd floor for the rooftop view. The rooftop used to have bars, but they are no longer operating them. The balconies on the rooftop are available to wander and take pictures. Getting our fill of photo opportunities we came back to the room to get our swim stuff on to take a quick dip in the pool.

After my nap I was starting to feel better, but after I took a shower I really started to feel more like myself, but not quite 100%. We decided to walk to a second Panama sign. I thought it was only 1 mile away, but I think it might have been more then that. It was dark when we got there, but luckily there was a couple who sells photos with the sign using their huge flash to illuminate. The price was $4 for 3 digital photos. I thought this was incredibly reasonable compared to some of the other digital photo packages we have bought on vacation before. The guy took his time and edited the picture with his phone to give us the best versions and then sent them to my WhatsApp account. As a fellow photographer Tom was impressed with their operation and gave them $10.

We continued to walk to Casco Viejo (the old town) for dinner. I was slowing down for sure, so I could tell I was still not at 100%. We sat on a park bench to Google something for dinner. I told Tom I felt like pizza (European kind) and he found a great place is Casco Viejo. We order an appetizer of mushroom bruschetta and tomato bruschetta, and a small pizza with red sauce, cheese, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, arugula, parmesan and balsamic cream. Both dishes were outstanding!! I think this was the best meal of the trip so far. My only regret is that I could only eat my 2 pieces of bruschetta and 2 pieces of pizza due to not wanting to push my stomach. I would have loved to eaten a couple of more.

The last stop for the evening was to a rooftop bar called Salina’s for a nightcap. Tom ordered our favorite nightcap of Amaretto and Bailey’s, and I had a water. It was nice way to end the night. We got an Uber and were back in our room by 10:00.

Even though I’m exhausted I wanted to knock out this blog entry as I know if I get behind, it might be too hard to get caught up. Tomorrow Tom will take an Uber to the airport, and I will make the 6 hour drive to meet back up with Pete, Laurie, and Linda in Santa Cantalina.

Stats of the Day:

Steps: 14,724
Trips to the Bathroom: Too many to count because of all the water I was drinking trying to re-hydrate.
Geocaches: 1 attempted and logged/1 attempted and abandoned