A 5 month adventure on land and sea

Monday, January 28 Fuerte Amador, Panama----Panama City 80 degrees-Partly sunny

Fuerte Amador is the cruise port located about 10 miles outside of Panama City. There is no docking area for big ships, so tendering it was. Lots of construction was going on so maybe in the future there will be a proper dock for cruise ships.
The Amador Causeway is the breakwater built from the materials excavated during the construction of the canal. It was built to keep the swift currents from silting up the canal entrance. It is now a 3 mile walking, jogging, biking path, lined with restaurants and the cruise ship terminal. The best views of the Panama City skyline are from there.....It's impressive.
We did not have any tours planned...we were just going to see how the day progressed. We were going to take the free shuttle to a mall, but I really wanted to see, and go into Panama City. We were offered all sorts of 2 hour tours from the persistent and ambitious taxi drivers, but then I spied a HOHO (hop on hop off) bus. 20 dollars each and we were on our way....much cheaper than what the charming fellows at the taxi stand offered. The HOHO guide assured us that we would be back at the port in 3 hrs....we just wanted to sightsee and not get off the bus. We stopped in Old Panama, and just as we were warned, it did not look safe at all. Very poor living conditions and poverty. We drove into downtown Panama City....What a contrast! Miles of high-rises, tons of traffic, huge yachts in the harbor, and still construction zones on every block. Panama City has been booming the last 5 years, and it doesn't look like it's going to slow down anytime soon. After we drove out of the city we ended up at the mall anyway...I guess it was break-time for the driver and guide. We didn't mind in the least. we had 45 minutes to explore the biggest mall in Central America before break-time was over. It was huge....blocks and blocks long, with all of the familiar stores that you would find in any US shopping mall. We walked around and then realized that we were lost in the biggest Mall in Central America. It was like a maze in there. There were no maps...just animals as location points at every entrance. When we asked directions on how to get back to the store that WE used as a location point, the response was always which animal door did you use? When we entered the mall we did not think much about the huge Koala Bear that was at our entrance, we just thought he was cute. After realizing that was our marker, we made it back to the bus on time....Geesh. We drove around for the next few hours enjoying the humid breeze from the top deck of the bus...at least it was covered, and stopped at various points of interest with the last stop at the cruise port. We made it back in plenty of time before the ship sailed. It was a great afternoon and I think we are finally getting used to the heat and humidity. Looking forward to 2 sea days before Peru.