June 18- Yes, that is a crocodile under the bridge/Panama City Part 2

Last week, Annika (the other intern on my project) and I had a chance to spend the whole day exploring Panama City.  We took the 6:30 water taxi from BCI to Gamboa, and then spent a while wandering the area by the canal in search of the Saca Bus stop.  (We discovered 45 minutes later, upon getting on at a stop 3 kilometers away, that the bus will just pull over any time it sees people on the side of the road.  Good to know).  Getting to the bus stop involved crossing the most nerve-wracking bridge ever here.  I do NOT enjoy driving over it when we take STRI shuttles to and from the city.

Yes, that is just a line of wood planks for cars to drive along.  Yes, there is no sidewalk and we had to press against the railing whenever a car went by.  And yes, that is a crocodile under the bridge (shoutout to Annika for the picture). The bridge is in a constant state of construction that seems to be necessary to keep it from collapsing into the canal.

The bus took us to the Albrook Mall, the largest mall in the Americas.  It makes the King of Prussia mall look small!  We had a fun morning shopping (and in my case, delighting over having a doughnut for the first time in three weeks), before taking a taxi to Casco Viejo.  Taxis in Panama are definitely an experience- they don't have meters, so you need to negotiate a price (in Spanish) with the driver before you get in.  My favorite offer was 'four dollars and a kiss'.  

We had a great time wandering the historical areas and streetside markets of Casco Viejo.  We saw an incredible old church- built in the 1600's!  Annika took some great pictures.

We eventually ended up at the waterfront, where we got some great views of a storm rolling on over Panama City (said storm trapped us in a restaurant for over an hour- at least there was a soccer game on!)  We met up with the rest of the BCI group at the Smithsonian's facilities in Panama City later in the afternoon for a research talk, and then all went out to dinner that night.