Greetings from lovely Panama. It is super hot and sweaty here, but I would like to take this opportunity to applaud the Panamanian dedication to mask wearing. Everyone, and I mean everyone is wearing them in the streets despite the heat and humidity. Groups of teenagers hanging out in the park. Families sitting in the grass admiring the ocean view. Construction workers walking down empty streets. People playing basketball and volleyball in the parks. Old ladies that have fallen asleep on park benches. Taxi drivers with no passengers. I don’t know how they do it in this heat, but if they can do it, I can too!

Yesterday morning started out with thetwinsontour leaving the house at 4am. Artichoke was only slightly confused, but it did not bother her one bit to eat her breakfast 4 hours early. The only thing that gets thetwinsontour out of the house at 4am is international travel (or a really good Black Friday sale at Kohls)! A flight at 6:35am to Houston, a 43 minute layover, and then a flight to Panama. Oh wait, that 43 minute layover has you worried too? I don’t know why. We landed at 8:52am and boarding started at 8:55 for our next flight. United sent me a text stating that it would take 16 minutes to get to the gate, so we were hauling it to get there. Either all of our 3.0 treadmill walking has turned us into Olympic caliber speed walkers or it was only about a 5 minute walk. I prefer to believe the former rather than the latter, but its hard to say. Anyways we made it to our gate right as they were boarding group 2, and we were group 3. So it all worked out perfectly.

There was some kind of mix-up with our hotel reservation. They had our reservation down for December 1 instead of November 14. We booked this trip through a travel website as a package trip– so I know we didn’t do it! Then they started to tell us that they were at full occupancy. Say what? Fortunately, they had a solution! They gave us a suite!! Yes, thetwinsontour have a suite! There are 2 bedrooms! We each have our own room! Yes! I don’t have to listen to my sister snore! And, we have a balcony! Only the suites have a balcony! This is the life! The suite life that is! Ha! See what I did there? Please don’t unfollow us.

Once we got situated at the hotel, we started walking towards the old town in search of something to eat and do. Now this is where I begin to doubt my Olympic speed walking abilities. The lady at the front desk told us it was about a 30 minute walk from the hotel. Now it’s a straight shot from the hotel, you just walk along the coastal promenade with all the other mask-wearing Panamanians out for a stroll, but it took us way longer than half an hour. And then we got to where we could see the old town across some very busy streets with no crosswalk anywhere to be seen. So we asked the security guard, and he’s like follow me. The next thing we know, he’s stopping traffic so we can jaywalk across the street. However, once we got there we weren’t sure if we were just in the wrong spot or if everything was just closed because it was Sunday. At any rate we wandered around a bit and couldn’t find any restaurants. But, we did find a way to get back to the coastal promenade without having to cross the busy street without our own personal crossing guard.

We gave up hope of finding anything else because we were so hungry, hot, and tired, so we settled for the fish market–a food court of restaurants specializing in sea food and ceviche. Don’t worry! We found the one restaurant that has chuletas (pork chops) on the menu. You didn’t really think thetwinsontour were going to eat fish “cooked” in lemon juice or seafood with eyes in it did you? And the best part is that I got a side of patacones (fried green plantains) and my sister got a side of yummy fried yucca. Never pass up fried bananas in any form–that’s thetwinsontour motto–we even have it cross stitched on a throw pillow! Not really, but if I ever saw such a magnificent pillow, it would be coming home with me! The pork chops were only so so, and impossible to eat with the plastic silverware. Finger food!

After that we had a long walk back to the hotel, but don’t worry we did stop along the way and buy stuff from the street vendors. Our faithful readers know that thetwinsontour cannot resist a little shopping. And over 14,000 steps later (18k for the day) we were back at the hotel.

So now for today, we figured we should go see the Panama Canal even though I saw it out the window of the airplane, it is an engineering marvel even today. Guess what? The visitors center is closed on Mondays! There goes that plan. We also thought about going to Panama Viejo, which is the ruins of the original Panama that was destroyed by pirates in the 1600s, but it is also closed on Mondays.

What to do, what to do? Back to the Casco Viejo to see if we can find the interesting bits, but this time in an Uber. Uber was a much better idea and less than $3! Gustavo, our driver from New York, told us we needed a hat because by 9:30 or 10 it was going to be pretty hot (he tells us this at 9am). And he was correct. The sun was sweltering all day long. Sweat was pouring off us by the gallon. Our goal was to walk around and see the sights and grab an ice cream. It was a great plan! But we kept stopping along the way to shop. We did finally make it to the Gelato place just in time for lunch, with delicious lemon Gelato for dessert. Then a lot more wandering around (shopping), until the monsoon rains stranded us a souvenir shop for a while. The sun was shining so bright this morning, we decided it was safe to leave the umbrellas behind. Rookie mistake. It lasted about 20 minutes, and then it was done just like Disney World.

For dinner it was back to the Casco Viejo to dine at a restaurant with Panamanian food other than ceviche. We went with the house special, Pechuga de Pollo Diablica (chicken breast named after the restaurant)

We really need to work on our culinary writing skills if we are going to become world-renowned food critics because right now I have no words to describe this deliciousness. It was so good. Like moths to a flame, like holiday shoppers to a sale at Kohls, like Artichoke’s muddy feet to a freshly mopped floor, we were helpless to order anything else. Why? BECAUSE IT HAD MASHED PLANTAINS ON TOP OF THE CHICKEN. MASHED PLANTAINS I SAID! Our newest motto is if it has MASHED PLANTAINS, EAT IT! Seriously, that’s the best life advice you can ever get.

The end!

Love,

thetwinsontour

• 

• 

• 

•