Red-faced in Panama

Breakfast in the hotel this morning. It’s included but not very good – white bread, processed cheese and orange juice from a box.

We’ve been warned that Panamanians are notoriously bad time-keepers, so much so that our guide normally tells them an earlier time than we actually need. Our pick-up is due at 9:20, they arrive about 20 minutes late, we could have walked to the jetty in about five minutes.

Today is a day on the water, in the water and under the water. We start by visiting a mangrove lagoon where dolphins are known to hang out. We do see a few but there are lots of boats there and it’s not a good experience for us and certainly not for the dolphins – although our captain is thankfully keeping a safe distance. There are lots of starfish in this area. We cruise slowly along the edge of the mangroves, the sea floor is covered with bright orange stars, some of them as big as 6 inches across.

After a brief stop to order lunch – or not – we head off for an hour and a half on the beach. We stop at a small island, there’s sand all along the edge with trees behind it. At the end of the island, the trees end and the sand carries on into the sea. There are a few other boats there but it’s not at all busy. The time passes quickly with a walk to end of the island, a swim and a chat.

Back to the restaurant for lunch. Most of us aren’t bothering and just have a drink. My pineapple juice comes from freshly juiced fruit – it’s lovely. Florence has a Mango Colado and expresses surprise that it has rum in it. Looks like we made a good choice, the food doesn’t look too appetising.

After lunch it’s time for a snorkel, there’s nothing like the variety we saw in Belize but there are a few interesting corals and fish to keep us occupied. Final stop is an island with some tall trees where some sloths live. We do see one but it’s quite high up and obviously asleep.

Back to town. We have a quick dip in the hotel pool to cool off. The sun has been strong all day and although we’d used quite a lot of suncream (factor 50), we both have some glowing red areas – particularly my face! Hopefully it will turn a shade of brown soon but I doubt it.

Out for the evening. We start with a cocktail at La Buena Vista – the good view – probably would be in the daytime but anyway it’s cooler by the water. The strong Margueritas go down well, with some black bean dip and tacos to help. Join the rest of the group for dinner, salad and beer for me. Florence has pasta and beer. Our group now has two Americans, one Kiwi, one Aussie and us. We spend dinner talking about how hard it is for Brian to cater for all flavours of English – if somebody asks for chips do they want deep-fried potatoes, crisps or tortillas? An English traveller before asked where she could find the ladies, the guide told her it was company policy not to offer this service – she had to explain the misunderstanding.