Panama: Day Two

Panama: Day Two

Off to Contadora Island!

We took the ferry from Panama City to Contadora Island today.  Its about an hour and a half boat ride; the island is about 30 miles off the coast.  

We didn't realize what a treat pulling out of Panama City would be.  We went out the very way all the huge ships come in and out of the Canal.  We were finally able to see just how big these ships were.  It was unreal! 

Panama City.  That hill is Ancon hill, the one we hiked the morning before.  We were all pretty proud of ourselves that we had hiked to the top of it.

A Japanese whaling ship we passed.  A guy we sat next to on the ferry does business on Contadora Island so he was familiar with the ferry ride and told us that this ship had been anchored for a few weeks.

When the ships arrive to go through the canal, they have to call in and reserve a time to go through (large ships and little ships have different times).  Most ships prefer they have to wait a day or so because Panama City is Party City.  They all go in and party the day/night away while they wait.  I guess its all a part of the Canal experience for them.  

Survivor films a lot on the small islands surrounding ours.  We passed this set.  Over time we realized that is was the Turkey Survivor they were filming.  All the set crew comes over to our Island and stays the night or they fly back to Panama City for the night.  We were wondering why they were all foreign and filming the American Survivor.  When we realized they were all from Turkey it all made sense.  

This is the main "dock" of the island.  There is no dock.  They ferry you from the ferry to the island on another small boat.  They do have a small air strip and that is mainly how they get all their resources on Contadora.

Our first meal on the Island.  Kevin asked around and found the local eatery where it only costs $5 a plate.  We ate there every day for lunch.  Once you got used to eating rice and beans (that mug is beans) for every meal, it was delicious and I was craving it long after we got home.  The only sad part was that we couldn't eat that delicious looking salad.  You couldn't drink the water on the island or anything that had been washed in un-boiled water. 

This was when we met Éric, our frenchman.  While we waited for our hotel to come pick us up at the beach with all our luggage, the boys noticed another man with a spear gun.  This got them all sorts of excited and Kevin went up to talk to him.  He then told us that the conversation was very awkward and that he wasn't sure what language the man had spoken to him.  Im sure Éric had thought the exact same thing.  Kevin was speaking spanish to him.  Éric was trying to understand him and speak portuguese back to him (since the two languages can have some similarities).  But really, Éric spoke french.  Oh it was fun getting used to this for the remainder of our trip.

We ended up talking more to him at our B&B and the boys figured out some language they could talk to each other in.  They decided that they would now be spear fishing buddies to save on cost for the boats.  And of course they decided they would go out that afternoon.  So while they went out for a few hours, me and Shalane went out to explore the beaches.

Our very own private beach that we soon found out to be the "nude beach".  Awesome.  Also, some crazy wild wave caught us of guard and put most of our stuff in the ocean.  We luckily didn't lose anything and with my crazy cat-like reflexes I grabbed our camera before anything horrible happened to it.  

Oh yeah and today was our 4 year anniversary!!  What a great way and place to celebrate it.  We tried to get a cute kissy picture and this is what we got:

Ok. Here is a better one.  

Love this adventure man of mine.

Next year we will have a baby (yikes!) but I still hope we are somewhere awesome celebrating. 

When the boys got back we decided to check out the whole island.  You can walk around the whole island in about 45 minutes.  It is tiny.  But we still didn't even get to see all of it.  

This is one of the 3 or 4 small hotels/ B&B's on the island.  We ate here for dinner every night and it was delicious!!

Villa Romantica