Our Bus Driver

Day 7: Today was our last tour day before going home the next day. And the last day for being driven around by our bus driver, Mr. Rivas, who always gave us plenty of bottled water to drink. This was really nice as most tours give you only one bottle of water a day, but we could have as much as we wanted.

Kuna Marketplace

Our first stop was at the Kuna Marketplace in Panama City. The Kuna are an indigenous people of Panama and Colombia. About 50,000 Kuna live on the San Blas Islands located on Panama’s Caribbean side. Others live in small villages in Colombia and in some of Panama’s cities. There were many tourist items for sale at the marketplace.

Molas

The Kuna are known for their molas: embroidered tapestries, which they wear as part of their blouses. I had bought some molas as wall decorations in Colombia, but the selection here was so much larger and I bought a few more of them.

Kuna Dress

The Kuna women’s outfits consists of a patterned skirt, a red and yellow headscarf, arm and leg beads, a gold nose ring, earrings, and a mola blouse. This woman has everything on but the nose ring and the headscarf.

Desserts

We next went to have lunch at our new hotel, the Intercontinental Miramar in Panama City, where we would spend one night. Photo is some of the desserts offered at lunch. We had fancy desserts throughout Panama and also throughout Guatemala where I had just been. Either there are a great number of great pastry chefs in these two countries or else bakeries pack them for sale for the hotels and restaurants.

Desserts

My choice of desserts. The best one was one with coconut that is farthest to the right.

Intercontinental Miramar

The pool at the Intercontinental. It was a very nice hotel.

Panama City Skyline

We are back on the road again and on the Amador Causeway that connects four islands to Panama City.

Museum of Biodiversity

Our next stop was at the Biomuseo, the Museum of Biodiversity, which was designed by Frank Gehry and was his first design in Latin America. The museum opened in 2014.

Museum of Biodiversity

Inside the Museum of Biodiversity. Biodiversity is the variety of life in the world. The museum has eight galleries of permanent exhibits and space for temporary exhibits.

Museum of Biodiversity

In this room was a display entitled “Perdemos biodiversidad: somos la causa”: “We lost biodiversity. We are the cause.” Biodiversity is the variety of life in the world. There were display posters in other rooms. We also saw a movie called the Panamarama featuring Panama’s natural wonders.

Museum of Biodiversity

The Living Web: “A large sculpture, part plant, animal, insect and microorganism will give the visitor the experience in a dimension where all creatures have the same importance.” The scupture was quite large.

I have put my photos of the Kuna Marketplace and of the Museum of Biodiversity on the same slideshow. Go to

http://www.peggysphotos.com/kuna–marketplace–biodiversity–museum/

(Slide Shows, Central America, Panama, “Kuna Marketplace; Biodiversity Museum”).

Panama City Skyline

Photo taken in front of the Biodiversity Museum. One part of the skyline is in the shade and the other part is in the sun. Interesting contrast. You can see the causeway in the photo. We went back to our hotel from here.

Musical Group at Our Hotel–MOVIE

After dinner at the Intercontinental, we were treated to a musical and dancing group. Here are the music makers.

Youtube: https://youtu.be/y2FNuPMb8EM

Panama City Dancers-1–MOVIE

A folk dance. The traditional dress worn by the men is a white shirt called a Camisilla, black pants, and straw hat. Here the women are wearing white blouses and long skirts.

Youtube: https://youtu.be/Eaf8L8IGqSY

Diablo Mask Dancers–MOVIE

A devil dance.

Youtube: https://youtu.be/V5ySJtE–wDk

Panama City Dancers-2-MOVIE

The women dancers are dressed in pollera––long embroidered skirts, which can cost from $300 to $3,000. They wear rosaries around their necks and, on their hair, golden crowns attached with hand–beaded temblques and flowers in their hair.

Youtube: https://youtu.be/2ER9XHFttG4

Leaving Panama City

Day 8: Today, I flew from Panama City to San Franciso on Copa Airlines, flying past Los Angeles, and then from San Francisco to Los Angeles on United Airlines. You don’t always get the best flights when you go on airmiles as I did. I didn’t find San Francisco to be a good airport to come into on an international flight to transfer to a domestic flight as the walk from the international terminal to the domestic terminal is very long. Even though I had over 2 hours before my domestic flight and have Global Entry which makes both immigration and customs very quick to go through, when I made it to my domestic flight gate, passengers were already being loaded onto the plane. I was very glad when I finally landed in Los Angeles. I had a very good trip to both Guatemala and then Panama, but it was a long trip and I was happy to be home.