Panama Pandemonium

So ... I went on a trip to lovely Panama. Some of you have probably already seen and heard a lot of this on Facebook so if you're bored I won't be offended (and won't know) if you don't finish reading this. I get it -- I've gotten blog bored a few times myself. Or if you're just not in the mood to read I'll put a slideshow at the end. Easy as that. But as for the rest of you ... here are some of my personal trip highlights:

+ Stopping in Dallas and having that old Mark Chesnutt song stuck in my head "... goin' through the big-D and don't mean Dallas ..."

+ Having that song stuck in my head until we reached Miami where the instant the flight attendant announced "We'd like to welcome you to Miami!" all I heard was a bunch of girls and Will Smith singing ".... buenvenido a Miami!"

+ Having both of those songs finally out of my head.

PANAMA CITY

The crazy drivers, humidity, ruins, some unidentified smells, Chiclets galore, riding school buses around the city for 25 cents, friendly people, and on and on.

+ PATACONES which became a regular for me throughout the trip. (Side note: when we got home I googled how to make patacones. Don't get me wrong -- I assumed they probably weren't the healthiest of food choices. But I discovered that they are friend for 20+ MINUTES. Really? 20 minutes? I feel sick thinking about just how many patacones I ate in the course of that week ... )

+ The beautiful Panama temple and it's green green grounds.

+ The Panama Canal where we watched a "historical" video about the canal which turned out to be one big advertisement for the new lanes they are opening up. But we kept watching because we were tired and it was dark in the theater. We even stayed to power nap through the Spanish version.

+ Flying in a small(er) plane. Over jungle and all sorts of beautiful things.

BOCAS DEL TORO

+ Pablo, our trusty guide. He is the father of six girls. Needless to say, he was very patient.

+ Watching the dolphins play and hearing Shanna shriek with excitement over it. Anyone ever have a Lisa Frank trapper keeper? It was like that. ONLY BETTER.

+ Snorkeling so much that we bruised the soft spot between our eyes. The most surreal thing was when we would come across jellyfish -- they're seriously beautiful. But they also sent me into panic mode a couple of times. Cause I've seen the Friends episode where Monica gets stung by a jellyfish and Joey has to pee on her to make it stop hurting. That's one favor I'd rather not EVER beg one of my friends for.

+ Playing in the massive waves and accidentally seeing more of Shanna than I (or we?) intended to.

+ Hangin' out with the starfish while drinking coconut milk out of fresh coconuts.

+ Eating Indian food and sipping soda from glass bottles.

+ Eating tons of Marias cookies and drinking PINEAPPLE JUICE!

+ Eavesdropping on funny Drunk German Guy. Almost witnessing Drunk German Guy's fight with Dutch Guy. Then listening to Drunk German Guy try to ponder the "sense of life" with tired American Guy who just wanted to go to sleep.

+ Eating the worst ice cream OF MY LIFE.

+ Walking around the more rural parts of the island at dusk.

+ Just showing up at church in one of Mike's old areas. Luckily he recognized people and vice versa. However, I'm not certain it would have mattered either way because the people were awesome. Incredibly warm and friendly, even though we didn't speak the same language.

+ Attending Primary. I cannot believe how sweet those children were -- language barrier and all. They just wanted to talk. Have pictures taken. Have us write them little notes in their scriptures. Recite their Articles of Faith (which was really funny because it just goes to show that no matter where you are, Article of Faith reciting is always super fast and as monotone as possible).

+ Jim being asked to read THE LONGEST SCRIPTURE EVER ... in Spanish. It was hilarious. Keep in mind -- Jim speaks Hmong. Far from Spanish. But he was a really good sport.

+ Being fed an early dinner by a very generous family .... complete with my patacones.

+ Walking through a banana plantation.

+ Taking the scariest 5+ hour bus ride ever. Beautiful scenery, but scary all the same. I'm still not certain how we didn't topple over on some of those corners. Then night hit and WOW. It was all foggy and kinda raining with random lightening. And then the lightening bugs started showing up everywhere which made the drive even more surreal. Definitely a memorable part of the trip that I'm sad I'm not able to describe in the way it deserves.

BOCA BRAVA

+ Choose Your Own Adventure Day! We hiked and explored for hours as we were wet (but warm), plastered in mud, falling a lot, not sure where exactly we were headed .... pretty much everything a 10-year old boy dreams about.

+ Our forever long "hike" along the beach. The tide was down and so we crawled and teetered across the rocks .... for what seemed like forever. Mike carried a kayak oar and Jim was merrily kayaking around the island, failing to notice us behind him.

+ The Jungle Incident on Choose Your Own Adventure Day. Creepy/hilarious/almost pee your pants terrifying. During a rainstorm Mike and I went jungle exploring and heard this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwQuGGFYZcA. I start running because, well, THAT THING IS GOING TO EAT ME. Mike tells me to stop running because of course That Thing is going to eat me if I'm running from it. So I took to hurriedly trotting instead, repeatedly sinking in the mud (and ruining my trusty hiking flip flops ... sad). We FINALLY got back to the beach where we see Shanna cautiously peering into the jungle and Michelle down by the ocean, also having run from the sound of That Thing. Meanwhile, Jim is still merrily kayaking around the island looking for us. Note: this story is much better told in person with hand actions and reenactments.

+ Sheepishly discovering that That Thing was a cute little howler monkey. Later that day we had the chance to see an entire family of them in the trees above the path we were on. This time there was only one scary howl that left me and Shanna clutching to Jim in some weird walking cluster. Reading this I'm sure we sound like total girls, but I need you to understand just how LOUD AND MEAN AND ECHOEY that sound is. Like something freakish off Lost ...

+ Shanna making eye contact with her fish as she ate it.

+ Our rooms. Cockroaches, mysterious brown footprints on the wall, seedy looking mattresses. We laughed about it all night.

+ Whale watching! Guys, they're huge. I mean -- don't get me wrong, I've seen Free Willy. I have it on VHS. But, shockingly, Free Willy wasn't even nearly as cool as catching a glimpse of the mama in real life. She was huuuge.

+ Beautiful beaches.

+ Being the only one in the entire group to find a bug in their empanada. TWICE. But .... when you're hungry you're hungry. And I do love empanadas.

+ Paying a quarter to use the restroom. I'm not certain this was a "highlight" because I felt it was unnecessary, but funny all the same. I'm surprised it's just a quarter, though, because when someone really needs to use the bathroom I imagine there wouldn't be much haggling with the price. People could make some good money that way.

+ The freakishly freezing cold night bus we took back to Panama City. Everyone else was clearly prepared with their hoodies and coats -- just not US. Thankfully Shanna's Spanish came rushing back as she looked at the bus driver with puppy dog eyes and sadly said "... mucho frio ...." When we stopped for a break he let us pull our bags from underneath and get Shanna's sheet. Thanks for saving us, Nice Bus Driver. Lesson learned.

+ And this man with his unintentional 'stache. Seeing him was the perfect ending to an awesome trip:

Phew .... this post is looong. Two thumbs up for making it to the end.

Oh, and the slideshow for all you lazy folks: