April twenty-seventh: dogs and flowers.

Casco Viejo

The Square or whatever. Lots of beautiful buildings, lots of crumbly buildings with trees growing out of the walls. Lots of balconies that we declined to walk under due to iffy support beams or complete lack thereof.

My brother's friend, overlooking the Bahia (tide out) from the top of an old building being restored.

An obelisk... with a rooster... I have no idea what that is supposed to represent.

Wikipedia sez: "The city was founded on August 15, 1519. Within years of its founding, the city became a launching point for the exploration and conquest of Peru and a transit point for gold and silver headed towards Spain. In 1671, the Welsh pirate Henry Morgan, with the help of a band of 1400 men, attacked and looted the city, which was subsequently destroyed by fire. The ruins of the old city still remain and are a popular tourist attraction known as Panamá la Vieja (Old Panama). It was rebuilt in 1673 in a new location approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) southwest of the orignal city. This location is now known as the Casco Viejo (Old Quarter) of the city."

Since the public school I was going to start at this week is on strike (apparently this is a common problem around here) I've had this week off, entirely to myself as pretty much everyone else in the house is off at work or their own functioning school. Yesterday I took the bus into the city on my own and met up with one of my brother's friends who happens to live in Panama, a botanist; http://anthrome.wordpress.com/ and we wandered around the old quarter of Panama City for a couple of hours, including going to the Museo del Canal Interoceanico de Panama (Panama Canal Museum). It was very hot and humid, and I think I've made up for the lack of sunlight I may have suffered from growing up in Oregon.

The Critters Here

This iguana was spotted outside a window in the house, moseying slowly down a tree. There are a lot of iguanas here, usually I see them sunning themselves on sidewalks in the morning.
I also see coatimundis, gatosolos in Spanish, trotting alongside the road into the city.

And, guess what! I saw a sloth! We were driving down the highway and I thought to myself, "That stick by the side of the road looks funny... oh god, it has a face." I hope it changed its mind about trying to cross the highway...

A bus ride around Panama

Pass through towns and suburbs.

All the buses are painted like this.Fruit!bottles hanging from a tree...

Aww, pericos!

Some colorful visitors to our birdfeeder one morning.