It's Like We Know What We Are Doing

June 1st, 2017 When Adele and I travel, one of our first pieces of research is the San Pellegrino’s Top 50 Restaurants site.   If a restaurant is on the list, there’s a reason for it to be there.   Whether a restaurant is #5 or #50 doesn’t really matter.   The restaurant is On. The. List.   And i t gives us a place to start in a city . Panama doesn’t have any restaurants on the Top 50 list.   But on the Top 50 Latin America list, Panama’s entry is at #36.   And we were going there for lunch. The post-dining glow. It could be because of the wine. Maito is located a bit off of one of the main drags in Panama.   We spent most of our time in Casco Viejo, so we called an Uber after hiding in the Panama Canal museum during a rainstorm.   We could have taken a train to a bus.   Or we could have taken a bus.   But I’m not great at busses.   And it was $7 to Uber halfway across the city to the restaurant.   It wasn’t...

May 29th, 2017 Adele and I were the only overnight guests during the second night of our stay at the Jungle Land Lodge.   While it might seem creepy, it ended up being pretty fantastic to be there solo.   We could do what we wanted when we wanted.   And the excursions were set to our level of fun.   Even if our level of fun was to nap in a hammock with a glass of wine in hand. On our first night we were taken on a night safari after dinner.   We didn't know what to expect on a night safari.   Adele and I piled into an open-air boat and drove out into the night.   Captain Carl found a few baby crocodiles and the sky opened.   I donned my Walt Disney World poncho and was a bit miserable, because poncho (I hate ponchos).   I was still ready to go out a second time.   But I not so secretly hoped I wouldn't need the poncho again. Luiz was our guide for our second night.   Where Captain Carl was snarky and lackadaisical (which ...

May 28-30, 2017 I knew I should have paid more attention to what we were doing in Panama.  I mean, I had a general idea of what was going down.  We were staying "in the jungle" for two nights and "at the beach" for four nights.  But I didn't actually take into account what staying "in the jungle" really meant. Before we arrived at the lodge, I updated my status on Facebook.  "I don't know where we're going, but everything will be ok as long as there's WiFi and a hair dryer."  Oh, I was so young back then. Adele found the Jungle Land Floating Resort on TripAdvisor one day.  It checked off all of the boxes.  Going into Panama for the first time, we didn't want to just stay in the city (or beach, as it turned out).  We wanted to see nature and animals.  We wanted to visit the jungle.  With a name like Jungle Land, it seemed like the best option. The cool thing about Jungle Land is that if you stay overnight, a...