Panama 2
Blue Sky's Voyage
George & Michael
Sun 12 Jul 2009 21:02
|
Hello
Friends
"09:22.1N 79:57.1W"
Just a quick blog - we're back
in the water and all is OK, though we found some of the itemisation on the
boatyard invoice unusually frank...
 The Sol Melia hotel Gatun
Lake http://www.meliapanamacanal.com/ is a pleasant hotel in an attractive
and peaceful setting. It is also distinguished as being the only hotel I have
ever stayed at which, to our astonishment, failed to provide toilet paper
in the bathroom when we arrived!
Sadly this set the tone for a number
of other, er, idiosyncrasies, such as removing all towels in the morning and not
providing any replacements until late afternoon (plainly you are not supposed to
wash your hands before lunch). After the hopeless failed attempt to serve wine
with dinner on the first night, I made such a fuss (we're talking WMD here) that
after that there was no problem, at least they knew who we were...
After a while it became amusing
rather than merely irritating: it wasn't that expensive (everything seems good
value here in Panama) and the final response to a polite request to procure a
taxi ("sorry, we don't have any taxis right now") was equally
comical.
After we checked out, another cruiser
advised us that in fact we'd been staying in what had been the infamous
"Building 400" officially known as 'the school of the americas' aka.
'school of the assassins' where, amongst other things, interrogation techniques
were taught. I'll leave you to google 'building 400
panama' if you want - at least we only found out it had been a torturers'
training camp after we left!
We're now on board in Shelter Bay and
over the next two weeks we're taking Spanish lessons from the Mum of one of the
girls in the office here. Joanne is a charming, retired schoolteacher and if
anyone can teach us, she'll manage. We're taking lessons together with Petr and
Rebecca on 'Endless' and they've decided that we need exercise, so we're
starting the day with a short jog through the jungle. And we do mean 'jungle' -
monkeys and anteaters on the path, hopefully not too many pythons.
We're still looking for a new Cabin
Boy, so Michael's doing the chores right now.
Best Wishes
George & Michael
|