Yesterday Haley, Nanna and I went to visit Casco Viejo – the second oldest part of Panama City. Daniel stayed back at the hotel with Zoe who was not feeling well (more on that later). It was really neat to see the old buildings and all the monuments dedicated to the significant contributors to the building of the Panama Canal. Mom and I had just finished reading a very long book detailing every aspect of the Panama Canal so it was really cool to see the original buildings built for the workers and officers over 100 years ago.
For the first time since I’ve been to Panama I found good shopping! Of course we go shopping near our home in Pedasi but that’s just for necessities. It’s rarely fun and I rarely find any treasures. But in Casco Viejo they had a bunch of little shops with treasures from the indigenous people, including lots of fabrics with pretty colors, which would brighten up our white concrete bunker significantly. Daniel bought me a very nice colorful anniversary gift completely unbeknownst to him.
After we were dripping with sweat from walking outside we hopped back in our taxi with our driver, Marc (wonderful guide!) and headed up to Ancon Hill, where we could get a fabulous view of the entire city. It was really neat and Marc was very knowledgeable about all the history. I was so fascinated that some parts of Panama City are extremely well planned out. That concept has not reached the interior quite yet.
After our outing it was great to get back to the hotel for a good lunch and a long swim with the girls. Zoe had perked up by then but that was not the end of the story.
After our down time and Mom’s siesta we headed over to Albrook mall for dinner and hopefully some new swimsuits for the girls. Well, we got dinner but by now Zoe started to really go downhill and the largest mall of Latin America is also the Most Overwhelming Mall in Latin America. Add to that we only saw swimsuits that have very little fabric and should not be worn by any 13 year old, anywhere. Within 90 minutes we were ready to flee.
Traffic on the way back from the mall was very heavy and our nav system was taking us all over the place trying to avoid the big backups. It was dark, our heavily tinted windshield did not allow us to see well, we didn’t know where we were going and Zoe was in the backseat moaning. Top that off with Daniel driving without his passport in the car. We were all praying that we would not be stopped by police. No es bueno to drive with no passport.
We finally made it back from the mall and in the meantime determined Zoe’s fever to be 102.4 and there was significant complaining about a painful neck and back. My mind heads straight to something like spinal meningitis or acute kidney failure (logic is not welcome here) so we barely had parked the car at the hotel before we were loading Zoe into a cab with Daniel and I to take her to the hospital.
The next chapter will be in another PP post. Spoiler alert: it ends well.
