Panamanian Girl

Flushing toilets, running water, hot water, U.S. products, insane Carnivale costumes, and everyone's bodyshape looks like mine-- I must be in Panama! Am finally off antibiotics, and feeling fully recovered in the Panama heat! We our staying with my lovely Aunt Carmen, who has already seen to it that we visited The Panama Canal (at Miraflores locks), The Panama Canal Museum, Ft. Clayton (where my father was born), The Panama Viejo Ruins, Casco Viejo, Mis Pueblitos (a collection of re-enactment villages consisting of the Spanish, Jamaican and Indigenous villages around Panama), and a number of family reunions held everywhere from local pubs to top brunch clubs! It's nice to know you like your family...and we all look like each other-- freaky. Carmen also took us to "Pelyhe's Place", her sprawling beach home in Santa Clara, and I got to see where Margot Fonteyn lived with her Panamanian husband!!! On Wednesday we are heading to the the Carribbean archipelgo, Bocas del Toro, to see the most famous beaches, wildlife and jungle islands Panama has to offer. It is one of the few times Raph and I will be alone on this trip and it intersects with both Valentine's Day and main Carnivale days (South America's excuse to party 24/7)!