Day 128, Year1: Shop ‘Til You Drop
Date: Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Weather: More Sunshine
Location: Balboa Yacht Club, Balboa, Panama
I started my day by going on a shopping “excursion” with Barbara from Octagon. She is British and has been here for some time and took Margaret from Aqua Magic, Sylvia from Wind Castle, and I on an early morning shopping explore. We hopped on a provado (mini-bus van) for 25 cents and went to the Cinco de Mayo plaza. We then walked at Barbara’s very fast pace (and this woman must be at least 60 or more) to the fresh fish market. The city is not particularly clean, but the fish market was clean and the prices were unbelievable. I bought a pound of the biggest shrimp I have ever seen for $1.25. We then headed to the meat market and then on to the fresh vegetable market. Barbara was doing her weekly shopping and showing us the way for future shopping trips. We then went to a six-story department store that had everything from food to clothes to tools and more. Margaret and I will be going back to provision as this looks like the place with really good prices. FYI–Margaret and Barbara are both from England and Sylvia is from Mexico City. Sylvia told me that Mexico City is the largest city in the world with a population of 20 million, but that Panama City has only a population of 1 million.
When we were all as heavily loaded with provisions as we could carry, we hailed a taxi and headed back to the Balboa Yacht Club. When I returned to the boat, Mark was sewing away making the sun screens for the boat. Mark is an incredible seamstress and is doing a great job of getting us protected from the sun. Unfortunately, he discovered that we had not bought enough Texalena to complete the job, so he and Patrick from Aqua Magic headed into town mid-afternoon to buy the extra material. I stayed aboard Windbird and worked on editing and labeling photographs from our Canal transit. I did send those to Justin tonight, so they should be posted on the website in the next couple of days.
We are hearing that many things will be closed here from this Friday through next Wednesday due to Carnival and then Bank Day next Wednesday. This could mean that our next couple of days could be a little hectic trying to get everything done before Carnival is in full swing. Some things never change. We always seem to be rushing around to get things done.
