El Valle, Panama

Hey!

Well Panama City was so much fun seeing the place and catching up with Vance and having so much to catch-up on. I never knew where the rime from Rio to Lima went, and then the time in Panama seemed to dissapear just as fast, so then it was on to make my way through Panama stopping briefly at Santiago and David for transfers on my way to Ell Valle.

I've met up some people I'll be travelling throughout Central America with, and it's me one and other guy who's around 55 and I'm sharing a room with him, so Dan hes got big shoes to fill mate! The rest are four girls ranging from 25 - 35, so all pretty close knit and havent quite seen the sights of Panama, as I've have nearly 2 weeks to kick back and do it all at a very leisurely pace which was awesome and the break I needed. This time Im catching everything from cabs, buses and ferry's to get where we have to be, which is good and gives you a bit of freedom to go with the group, or own your own without the roll calls, and meet them up at a later town which is neat.

We arrived in El Valle, and its a sleepy little Panamanian town inside a Volcano crater, with not much to do but hike the surrounding mountains, oh and of course go to the local discotech! After doing a low key hike of La India Dormida and a swim in the waterfalls, I treked down the road to check out the discotech. It felt like highschool all over again, with everyone sitting around waiting for everyone else to shake their latin butts to the Regaton and Merengue grooves pumping throughout the place, and I mean pumping where you could head the corregated iron roof on the huge big shed rattling ALL NIGHT! The local latin lads rocked up tanked and barely able to stand, but it didnt stop them taking the lead to show the gringas a move or two on the sparsely populated dancefloor. Nothing in Central America is ever subtle, and that included the moves of the latin guys on the ladies, and the hands were exploring the ladies faster than you can say teen steam Rich D! :-) Before they knew it they'd scared the ladies off back onto their seats to remain wall flowers, and these poor hapless latino guys where left scratching their heads wondering what they did wrong. Aside from their total lack of tact with gringas, they were nice guys who constantly shouted the table beers, and for 50c a stubby and with $1 Cuba Libres I'd be doing the same. Monica and Rachel, the Zouk moves were fresh in my head still after all this time, but Merengae and salsa are the only dances anyone recognises in South and Central America, with Regaton coming in to be the closest relative of Zouk, but absolutely no one dances Lambada here ANYWHERE! Where in Costa Rica, Nicuragua, Homdurus, Guatemala or Mexico would you find a Lambada club?

Anyhow, keep on truckin. Adam