Bienvenidos a Panama

May 20, 2011

The day had finally arrived! At six in the morning, I would be leaving for Panama. I’ve heard so many so many stories about this experience from friends, both good and bad. Ranging from the excursions they went on like climbing a volcano and ziplining, to having no hot water and air conditioner. When they informed me about having no hot water and air conditioner, I wasn’t bummed about it at all. I wanted to get the most out of this experience as possible. So if going without either of these for the next three weeks, then I’m all for it.

We finally arrived in Panama after a four hour flight. The weather was humid and a lot hotter compared to Florida. After going through customs and getting our bags, we were all welcomed by a few Panamanians holding a “USF HEALTH” sign. Then we all got on a bus. Most of us thought we weren’t going to be able to fit all twenty-five of us in this bus because it was compact. Not to mention, our bags used the last two back rows of seats. But we managed to fit all of us in. As we headed to the city towards where we were going to stay for the next couple of days, the “City of Knowledge”, we got the chance to enjoy the scenery. There were so many buildings compared to what I was used to. I was also surprised by the amount of people that drove. I was expecting everyone to be on foot walking to their destination. Additionally, gas prices were relatively the same as well compared to Florida, which was at $3.83 for regular. Moreover, we got to see the Panamanian flag at its highest point. When we arrived at the City of Knowledge, the area was huge. My instructor told me that it used to be a military base. The place where we were living was spacious as well. There were three bedrooms and two bathrooms. Each bedroom had two beds. Furthermore, it had a full sized kitchen along with a dining and living room area. After we all got settled in, we had some leisure time to do whatever. A group of us went out to one of the two soccer fields that they had and played ultimate frisbee. After we got all sweaty from the game, we headed to the Olympic-sized pool. All the girls had to wear a cap. The guys, including myself, were chuckling and making jokes saying that they need to do some synchronized swimming. Furthermore, they had this diving board that was about 30 feet high, where some of us jumped off of. One girl unfortunately lost part of her toenail from the dive. Luckily, she was okay. After cooling off at the pool, we had dinner at our instructor’s place. She along with another instructor cooked us spaghetti, bread, and salad, which was phenomenal. Overall, my first day in Panama was amazing!

The following day, we all went on a city tour. Describing what we saw does not do it justice, so here are a few pictures that I took:

The beautiful city in the background

Panama Canal

A group of us went to go check out a waterfall. The man who took the picture apparently missed the memo when I said to get the waterfall in the background. Oh well, still a great picture.

One of the many streets we walked along

After our city tour, we went back to the “City of Knowledge”, which was the place where we were staying, and got dressed for dinner. We had some free time before dinner, so some of us went on a quick stroll around the complex. We ended up taking some pictures in front of the City of Knowledge sign and walked along the railroad tracks to bypass the time. When dinner came around, we went to this nice restaurant. The service was a little slow, but the food was well worth the wait. I ordered the fajitas and they were amazing. To top off the night, there was a firework display going on as we were eating. Fortunately, we were eating outside, so we had a great view of the light show. The first two days spent in Panama were amazing. Hopefully there will be more days like this to come.

Cuidad del Saber in English means City of Knowledge

Trying to maintain their balance on the railroad track