Bienvenidos!
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Pirates and El Valle
Well, Mario's sis didn't even make it through the first elimination round. Can't say I thought much to those who did, but oh well. At least now it means she'll stop driving her parents up the wall with all the 'Miss' stuff.
My sunburn started to peel yesterday. Amazingly though, this time I've actually kept a bit of colour, which I'm sneakily augmenting with that fake tan moisturiser stuff so I look like most normal people who've spent six weeks in the tropics. (ie not ghostly pale)
It's the start of my last week here now. It's been fun, but I'm looking forward to getting home, where I don't have to ask for translations of what everyone is saying, where I don't get stared at for being pale and blue-eyed, and where getting out of bed doesn't cause you to sweat like you've just run a marathon. Yes, home! To the land of kettles and real cheese! Not sure what we'll be doing for the rest of the week as we lose the car tomorrow, so will have to fall back on borrowing various family members' when they're not in use. I think we're still going to see Portobelo, the Typico show and the craft fair, but apart from that, not sure.
We didn't do much on Friday; just slept in, lazed around, and later we went out for dessert at Crepes and Waffles. On Saturday we had a look round this store Sol de la India - it sells Indian, Chinese and Panamanian trinkets. Was quite cool. After that we went to the Baha'i temple, which looks like some enormous bird laid a giant egg on top of one of the mountains near the city. There's not really that much to see inside, but the views from outside are pretty nice. In the evening Mario's brother picked us up and we went to Mass at the big church in the city. It's so beautiful inside; completely puts the one in Hucknall to shame. I just sat there as they did all the stand up, sit down, recite this, sing that thing, and tried to look inconspicuous when they did the shaking hands bit. On the way out we bumped into Marlo (one of Mario's friends) and her Mom, so they stood and chatted for a bit. We then headed out to go see Pirates of the Caribbean 2. We had food first, then joined the queue to get in. It was a good job Joe had already picked up tickets as after about 10 minutes the line curled all the way around the stairwell. We managed to get fairly good seats, and the best thing about the theatre here is that the armrests flip up so I was able to curl up to Mario while we watched. I really enjoyed it - the spanish subtitles were a bit distracting sometimes so I may go and see it again when I get home. Lots of fun though, and a bloody infuriating ending!
Yesterday we overslept a bit by accident - we were supposed to get up at seven to leave for 9 to go to El Valle, but we didn't leave until 10:15, then got a bit lost on the way there, so didn't get there until 1pm. It was nice up there, but the winding road on the way in made me feel a bit queasy. Being up in the mountain though the air was a lot cooler and more comfortable. We wandered around the market and I saw lots of stuff I wanted but couldn't really afford. I still want a couple of big molas to take home and put on the walls. Mario bought two small ones and some huevitos de leche, then we went to have lunch at this little hotel restaurant he knows. There were only two tables inside, and the other was occupied by this annoying american woman, her brat and a man who seemed to be their guide. Ah well. The food was lovely and I made a complete mess of my quarter chicken (it's a good job I don't want to be a surgeon...). After eating we headed out to go see the zoo. I felt a bit bad for some of the animals as they were in cages far too small, but at least they didn't have any bears or elephants in 6-foot boxes. All the animals they had were pretty small, except for the tapirs. The big one was lying down when we got there but it stood up when more people arrived, and let down the biggest willy I've ever seen! It was about a foot and a half long! Poor lady tapirs... There was also a capuchin monkey who was such a meanie to the little Geoffery's Tamarin in the next cage; whenever the little guy went close to the floor or the front mesh the capuchin would jump onto the dividing mesh and scare the poor lttle thing back up onto its branch. The animals here have learned that people bring food, so whenever anyone went by the capuchin cage it would stick its hand through the bars to take a sunflower seed. It was actually quite interesting to watch. It has really long fingers, and would take the seed from you, roll it a couple of times, bite open the husk and then pick out the nut with its fingers. Then ask for more. Cheeky little bugger.
Anything else there was to do up there would have cost far too much, so we headed home at about five. Mario stopped on the way back to buy 'sand bread' - small bread rolls with a bit of a grainy texture, but they taste really good. Then in the evening we were supposed to go to Marie-Gabi's to watch the pageant, but Joe never came to pick us up. Alex was eliminated along with 60-odd others within the first five minutes, so there wasn't much point watching the rest anyway. And I maintain what I've always thought - beauty pageants are stupid and take themselves far too seriously. Give me the Eurovision every time - at least old Tel brings a bit of humour to the proceedings... We turned it off and watched Pirates of the Caribbean instead. It was in spanish, but I've watched it that many times on DVD to know pretty much what they're saying anyway. I still want the soundtracks. Will probably order them from Amazon when I get my loan.
Not sure if we'll be doing anything today, but I should go and shower soon anyway. Laters all xxx
10:47 a.m. - 2006-07-24
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