After breakfast we went to a room at the top floor of our hotel for a welcome meeting. One woman has been on 21 trips. This is my 10th and another couple’s 10th trip. There are about ten of us who have been on four or more trips with Grand Circle or Overseas Adventure Travel. Abdiel gave us an overview of the trip.
Then we went a bus tour of Panama City. We saw the tallest building in Panama. It reminds me of a fancy wooden box that I made for a college art project. We stopped at Iglesia de San Jose that had brilliant stained glass windows. This church has a huge wooden altar that is supposedly covered with two inches of gold. The English pirate, Morgan, had plans to steal it along with many other gold artifacts, so this church was built in such a way that the altar wouldn’t fit through the doors. We walked through French Park which was where the high level French lived when the French were trying to construct the canal.
After we walked through some of the old quarter, we had a delicious lunch at René Café which had a capacity of thirty diners at the most. Every dish was served family style. The salad had fresh tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, and a delicious Italian vinaigrette. Small loaves of sliced French bread were served with a garlic basil butter. Paul and I had fried cod for the main dish. They served a special rice that was the best rice I have ever eaten. I complimented the owner on it and asked him for the recipe. His English communication skills were about like my Spanish skills which left a little to be desired, so I asked Abdiel if he could get the recipe for us. The owner wrote out the recipe ingredients and orally gave Abdiel more specific instructions. Our guide said he would tell us more about the recipe later. For dessert we were served brownies with slivered almonds on top.
After lunch we went inside a second church with even more stained glass windows. Then we walked around an Indian market in the square. We drove to the canal administration building which was built on top of an 85-foot-high mound of dirt dug out of the canal, and piled up on level ground. We were lucky to be admitted into the building where we saw large murals depicting the building of the canal.
This evening we drove out to where the American military base used to be. The restaurant where we ate our welcoming dinner was near there. The food was delicious. One of our travel mates was having a birthday so we shared her birthday cake as well as eating the flan that came with our meal. Paul and I had Panamanian soup, mahi mahi, mashed potatoes, and veggies. We went back to the hotel in the bigger bus we will be using for the next few days.
The tallest building in Panama is on the right.
Altar in Iglesia de San Jose
Painter at the Indian Market
One of the four murals under the dome inside the canal administration building
One of the beautiful stained glass windows