Hi everyone!

As I said before, I went away for a few days this past weekend.  This trip was the going away trip for Sara, a Panamanian/Mexican girl who is working on a PhD on weevil's in London, associated with the Natural History Museum (she didn't know you, Uncle Paul, but admitted that she doesn't make it out of the beetle world at the Museum very much!).  Along with Sara, the two dutch girls (Masters students working on the black palm, a particularily nasty and smelly plant!), and Lindsey, one of the monkey girls.  We also met up with Danielly, who is a plant physiology PhD student, for some of the trip.

We spent the first night and Sara's family's house in Panama City, the Pinzon's are definitely Panama upper class.  In fact, her Mexican mother was not allowed into the family circle (not allowed into photo's, etc.) for many many years.  Sara will not ride the bus, will not go to certain parts of the city, and has various other classist attitudes that she was simply raised to have.  Us Americans and Europeans who were not raised with any classist attitudes, found her very amusing!

The first night we went back to the same beach I visited the week before, though unforunately it rained a lot.  Still, it was really nice to be there.  We brought food to cook (we called them quesadillas, but Sara informed us that they were not!  ;) At least we didn't try to make tacos, the Mexican in her is horrified by our tex-mex recipes!), and a bottle of rum and some coke (definitely the cheapest way to go!).  We ended up on the beach until well after midnight watching shooting stars.  Pretty fantastic!

The next day we headed up to El Valle (buses are very frequent around here, and a 2 hour trip costs only $3), which means the Valley.  This area used to be a huge volcano that blew of it's entire top, and left a big crater.  It's a very popular spot for day trips for tourists and Panamanians alike, largely due to the market, and also now because of the canopy adventure zip line, which we did not do since it cost $42!  We went to the zoo (I held hands with the Spider Monkey, definitely violating the Zoo New England primate protocol).  It was a nice zoo for south american standards, but still pretty crappy.  Very pretty grounds, though.  We also wandered around the markets, which are full of Panama kitsch, aka Panama hats, Kuna goods (the native peoples of Panama, they make beautiful colorful cloths from layering fabrics, called molas, and also very nice carvings), and loads of generic tropical kitsch like sarongs and cowrie shell necklaces.

The only bars, it so happened, and luckily we had a native speaker to translate, were a whorehouse (or flower garden in the spanish) and a cockfight.  So, we got some more rum and played Dutch card games on the roof of our hotel.

Then next day we wandered back to Panama City, and went to the very fancy mall again, had dinner at Crepes and Waffles (pretty self-explanatory and super delicious!) and saw X-Men 3.  Very American end to our trip!

So, now I've returned to Gamboa.  It's taking a little adjusting since I'd gotten used to the compact life of BCI (this is an actual town and the distances to the places I need to get to are much further).  I'm pretty sad to be leaving BCI, especially since I've now found good friends there....  Oh well, I can still visit!  Dad very kindly mailed me my computer, and it arrived very conveniently last tuesday, since the IT guy is on the island on Wendesday.  He set it up, but then the next day, more IT guys were around, said there was a problem since I had a dynamic connection or something, and now it won't work (since we are operating under the Smithsonian, there is incredible red tape and ridiculous firewalls and security measures!).  So, no more computer access for me, but hopefully this is something I canresolve over the phone!

Well, I've got to run and go do that!  Then this evening we are headed into Panama City again to go to a tapas restaraunt in Casco Viejo, the old town for Sara's going away dinner (she's already had a party and a trip!).  I'm driving!  Yesterday was my first experience driving alone, home from the City.  This week Rachel is away, and I am able to use her lab's truck, which is old, diesel, and stick shift.  I made one huge mistake and almost ended up on the big north highway, which has tolls and not many exits, but after an extremely illegal move (standard here, stop signs are more advice than mandate) I was on the correct street!  Hopefully today will be smoother!

:)
Loads of love!
Miranda