finally got a piece of the pie

Hi everyone-

Jamey and I are movin' on up, definitely. We found a little apartment in a part of town that isnt right next door to the emergency room at the hospital in a sketchy neighborhood. Yay! Although, the hospital is convenient if we broke a bone but not convenient when the sirens blare all night during the Carnaval madness. Jamey did his research and found a place that a gringo, Eric, has bought and revamped to sell to some Panamanians. While he sets up his new place we are renting a room and paying him for the week about the same we would have to pay at the hotel/hospital emergency room that we were staying at upon arrival on Wednesday. And to top it off, it has a brand new desk for Jamey "The Writer" and a balcony that looks over the quiet street where pedestrians make their way to the Carnaval festivities.

Today we ventured up the street to find out where everyone was going and we landed in line to enter the parade for Carnaval. After the armed soldiers split us up by gender and searched us, we moseyed along the street admiring the beautiful floats and the native costumes. Each float blasted either salsa or meringue while mini-bands made up of tubas, snare drums, trombones and trumpets blared their music into the crowds. It was great! Today is the last day of Carnaval so the parades and the partying is peaking. We are trying to remain inconspicuous gringos so we dont get harrassed too badly but it seems impossible to dodge the handfuls of confetti to the face and the water guns being sprayed up your nose. Its all in good fun. Panamania.

I have attached some photos for your viewing pleasure. There are a lot of them, just to warn you, but I am trying to take a lot so I have a sample to pick from to submit to Rough Guides.

Any input would be great!

The one thing I think that I have learned about travel writing or guide book writing is that you have to be the ultimate tourist. You have no choice, you have to do everything and do it thoroughly to make sure you're getting the best and most comprehensive information. For example, last year when we were here we did some of the basic city stuff, we saw the ruins of Panama Viejo and ate at some pretty good restaurants and then we decided we had enough of the city so we left. Not so much this year. We are doing everything there is to do here and we are sometimes doing it twice becuase we forgot to write something down. Its tedious, hard work and I'm not joking. It may sound luxurious, and yes, it is a nice gig, but I haven't been to so many museums in my life and I grew up next to the Smithsonian. We do enjoy chatting with all the locals. We are using our spanish more and I can comfortably say that I understand about 80% of what they say to us. Which is good because I think Jamey catches about 20-30% so I tend to clarify the parts he missed.

We're like Starsky and Hutch or Captain and Tenille, you know, any power duo.

I will write more later this week when I can wrestle the computer from Jamey. I hope you all are staying warm this February! Happy Fat Tuesday!

Oh yeah! Check out the dude I met on our hike to the top of a forested hill in the Canal Zone. All last year I wished to see a Sloth but never found one and TA-DAAAA, a Three Toed Sloth, or I think it should be called a Three -Giant -Clawed- Eyeball- Puncturing Sloth. YAY!