Panama at Last

In September, Scott and Wendy left Quinn with Grandma Jan and Grandpa Glen and travelled all the way down to Panama to go surfing, see the sights, and remember what it was they used to talk about before the little man came along. We can't thank Grandma and Grandpa enough for coming down from Portland to let us do that. You guys are way cool awesome (and other adjectival contrivances too horrifying for Jan's English class to tolerate).

The journey down to the surf camp was a marathon. We arose at o'dark-thirty for the flight to Houston followed by the flight into Panama City where we met up with five dudes on a bachelor party surf trip and were transported to a bus terminal. Hanging out in a bus terminal waiting to catch a midnight bus for a 4-5 hour trip could have been much worse. Instead, we all bonded, drank some Panama beer (that's the brand) and watched the clock. At last we boarded our bus and immediately were chilled to the bone. They are serious about their air conditioning. By the time we got picked up and transported to the boat launch area we were zombies. However, once we hit the island, had breakfast, and got our room, Wendy was ready to hit the surf. Scott was actually a little hesitant and considered just staying in the room and sleeping. Thank goodness he didn't because that first morning's surf was the best of the week. We headed over to a rivermouth on the other side of the island and after a LONG LONG paddle, we started tucking into some juicy peaks with just enough peal to make things interesting. Since there were only seven of us and plenty of peaks, everyone got tons of waves. At last we called it a morning and headed in. If only we'd known, we would have stayed out there until we couldn't move any longer.

The rest of the week was spent waking early for breakfast then heading out in search of waves. After that first day size steadily decreased we even got hit with a crazy lightning storm that dropped at least 5in of rain in an evening (the rain gauge was completely full). Then the afternoons were spent doing yoga on the deck overlooking the local break, hiking to one of the disney-esque waterfalls, or just hanging out reading, playing scrabble or cribbage, or snoozing in the hammocks. We really lucked out in getting a week with some very cool Santa Cruz/San Francisco area people. One guy injured his arm the first day and spent the rest of the time fishing, providing some VERY tasty supplements to our meals. Even better was getting surfer muscle-oriented massages during the week to ease the strain of surfing so many hours at a time. By the end of the week we were ready for some hot showers and some more variety.

The journey back was slightly less grueling than the ride in; the air conditioning wasn't as powerful and there was an amazing storm to watch out the window. Panama's landscape is incredibly rugged yet covered with lush jungle in the west, giving way to more rolling hillsides closer to the capital. There are signs everywhere proclaiming the success of Panama's governmental programs in action, presumably funded by the fees from the Canal. Once we got back to the City, our taxi driver from the ride in met us at the bus terminal and took us to our hotel; a modest but serviceable place that had excellent #s of satellite tv stations. Wendy even got to watch the last few innings of a Padres/Rockies game (a portent of the end of the season to come since the Padres lost in 14 innings).

Panama City is crazy with new high-rise developments, international business of all stripes, typical Latin American crazy taxi drivers, and scary-looking slums. Fortunately, all taxi rides are $2, wherever you go.

We checked out the museum at the locks and found Scott's great-grandfather's employment record. We had lunch at the ritzy restaurant on site (yum!) and drank a bottle of wine while watching the boats go through.

We hiked ALL the trails in the municipal park and ran into Rich and Claudia from the island (of course!) after seeing amazing butterflies, hidden frogs, and troops of coatimundis. We saw many lovely songbirds, frigatebirds and hummingbirds but never caught a glimpse of any toucans or quetzals (next time).

We visited the OLD part of town from the days of the conquistadores and heard about some English explorers in a VERY different light. They were all pirates.


During our time away we spoke to Quinn on the phone a couple times and he really didn't miss us much at all. We missed him but we had a great time being a couple once again. Hopefully we'll be able to do it again next year. Have to admit, though, that the smile Quinn gave us when we walked through the door at last was one of the best memories of the trip.