Navidad en Panamá 2017 - The Itinerary

Thursday 12/21 – Panama City

• Late, late arrival after a easy four-hour flight from Atlanta, but yay! Same time zone and no currency exchange required!
• Pickup rental car 
• Warning: only do this if you are a a true stunt driving professional! Panamanians drive like crazy people and the roads are very complicated. I personally have my PhD in defensive driving after living in LA and Atlanta, so we took on the challenge! Do this at your own risk
• Check into inexpensive hotel in city just to crash for the night

Friday 12/22 – Casco Viejo

• Check out of inexpensive hotel in the city and be totally surprised by the city skyline and in awe at just how wealthy this country really is! Apparently, it's called "the little Dubai" for a reason!
• Head over to the Miraflores Visitor Center and Observatory to watch the ships moving through the Panama Canal locks and learn about its history
• Check into Hotel Casa Antigua in Casco Viejo - the gorgeous Spanish Colonial district
• Tour all of the historic sites around Casco Viejo and be sure to check out the cathedrals' grand nativity scenes!
• Have lunch at a cute little café - there are so many to choose from! 
• Experience Casco Viejo nightlife at rooftop bars and lounges (El Gato!) P.S. The party doesn't get started until after 11:00 PM. Dance your butt off to the reggatone music you know all the lyrics to and enjoy dancing around men who actually respect you and your space and are just there to dance and have fun! No weirdos here? I couldn't believe it! 

Saturday 12/23 – Panama Canal Tour and Casco Viejo

• Do the Partial Transit Panama Canal Tour and take a boat through the Panama Canal, learning its history, how the French tricked people into building parts of it for them and so on... Crack up constantly because your tour guide is totally hilarious
• Enjoy a lunch buffet on the boat and keep going back for more! Also, take some bananas and apples for later
• Get a free ride back from the tour by your lawyer-turned-tour guide who was super sweet to even offer you the ride back to your hotel! Try some interesting new candy he gives you way too much of, which, like fruit cake, you give away because Central American candy is just always disappointing. But its the thought that counts!
• Re-experience Casco Viejo nightlife, this time, doing the Latin American time frame of going out very, very late. Find a bar with swinging chairs and explore all of the lights around the city! Dance, dance dance!

Sunday 12/24 – Christmas Eve! – Anton Valley

• Check out of Casa Antigua and head to Valle de Anton (Anton Valley) up the mountains
• Check in to Hotel y Restaurante Valle Verde
• Go for a hike, walk across suspension bridges, find waterfalls and swimming pools
• Drive by beautiful haciendas and mansions - there are some very wealthy people here!
• Visit the hot springs and do the mud facials

Monday 12/25 – Christmas! – Playa Coronado

• Check out of Hotel y Restaurante Valle Verde
• Drive south to the beach at Playa Coronado
• Check into Arganama Guesthouse and be floored at how gorgeous it is! I want to stay here forever!

Tuesday 12/26 – Playa Coronado

• Continue to work on tan and be spoiled rotten with your own personal staff cooking for you and bringing you drinks poolside whenever you want
• Have them pack you a cooler full of food and beer and give you umbrellas and chairs and head to the beach. We are in the lap of luxury! We are so in love with our new Mamasita Yvonne y Papasita Jorge! Can I just be adopted?

Wednesday 12/27 – Panama City

• Check out of Arganama Guesthouse and head back to Panama City - it was so hard to say goodbye to Mamasita Yvonne y Papasita Jorge! We just loved them! #sadmoment 
• Visit the Panama Viejo Ruins in the Old City - this is the town that Captain Morgan and his pirates pillaged and plundered and left asunder!
• Drop off the rental car since its not needed anymore and boy oh boy! You thought you had a PhD in defensive driving, but these people have you beat! Deal with the insurance claim because a coconut fell on your rental car.... Thanks American Express for taking care of that one! 
• Check into Global Hotel Panama
• Walk the Cinta Costera beltway and take a picture at the #visitpanama sign
• Do a bit of shopping at the Multiplaza mall
• Check out the Calle Uruguay nightlife!

These city lights - just wow!

Thursday 12/28 – San Blas Day Trip (Ok, seriously, the BEST DAY EVER!)

• Wake up super, super early to meet your driver
• Join a caravan of Land Cruisers and 4 x 4 vehicles and spend 2.5 hours driving through the jungle at lightening speeds on the scariest roads you have ever been on - again, Panamanian drivers are certifiably insane! 
• Pass the Guna Yalla territory checkpoints and head to the Port of Carti where you meet up with your Guna Yalla indigenous guides who speak better English than Panamanians and are so cute and boisterous and fun!
• Take another 45 minute boat ride past the Guna Yalla island homes out to the San Blas archipelago

• Be totally mesmerized by the incredible blue color of the water and secretly wish you'd booked a stay at one of the island huts or an overnight stay on the sailboats and catamarans you saw on AirBNB

• Mix and mingle with fellow travelers from Germany (so many Germans!), the UK, India, Japan, etc. and connect over a traditional Guna Yalla meal, and then play some volleyball
• Drink and be merry, continue island hopping around the archipelago, partying it up with your new friends, tell everyone you want to stay here forever and laugh it up when they take you all to a tiny little island with nothing but sand and booze! 
• And then crash...
• Head back to Panama City, surprising yourself that you can find a way to sleep through that drive up and down mountains and through the jungles and then more sleep back at the hotel! 

Friday 12/29

• Check out of the Global Hotel Panama
• Do the sunrise hike of Ancon Hill 
• Check in to the Westin Hotel for a last luxurious, birthday hurrah! 
• Think of yourself as wealthy if only for a day: buy pretty things, lay by the pool or the beach and have pina coladas and chocolate monkeys (so yum!) #daydrinking #cuzwerich
• Beach, spa, drinks all day. Treat yo' self!

Saturday 12/30

• Wake up early
• Fly out
• Sigh - its hard to go back. I hate leaving places I love! #instantsad #aftervacationblues #idontwanttogohome

Magic Friends

Almost five years ago to the day, I left all of those bright horizons I'd been running to out in Hollywood, CA. Sadly, I ended up leaving some wonderful people behind - including a very dear friend of mind: an all-around, ah-mazing woman named Angela.

Truth be told, I'm a very discerning person when it comes to friends. Very discerning. In fact, there may very well be people in this world who think that we are the best of chums, but who I haven't really quite made my mind up about yet.

While I can play the part of an outgoing people person, I am still very much an introvert: highly analytical, deeply introspective, and always observing. Behind all of those girlish smiles, hair flips and giggles, is a pretty sharp brain that is always scanning, always assessing you: your integrity, your morals, your motives, the way you raise your eyebrows when you greet someone - I'm assessing whether or not that was a real eyebrow flash or if you are trying to use body language tactics for some kind of ulterior motive...  Basically, I'm a suspicious type - always watching out for wolves in sheep's clothing, and that makes me, well, hard to really get to know.

What can I say? We are who we are. Its a part of my nature.

So when someone passes my meticulous screening process and I actually feel drawn to build a close friendship with them, it is always because there is something very special about that person.

Angela is one of those people. Of course it helps that she's an actress, singer, musician, yoga teacher, business woman and all of the above which makes her creative, fun to be around, and interesting, but I think more than anything, its because I respect her.

She never went to college, but she has extracted more wisdom from life and life experience than anyone I know. She's humble and really, really funny. She can observe herself from the 3rd person and laugh at her shortcomings. She also never seems to lose her sense of wonder and amazement, yet is firmly grounded in reality and anyone who can crack up with me about the fake "woo-woo" you find in Hollywood is already moving up my list.

She's an easy friend to be with. She's at peace in herself. Her emotions are not up and down, riding waves of blood sugar levels, but are constant, consistent, steady and change only according to context... when its time to be quiet, she's quiet; when its time to carry the conversation, she carries it.

She does what she says she's going to do. When she gives you her word, you can count on her.

She has a "plug and play" personality. You could drop her in a group of C-level executives and she'd win them over. You could drop her in another group of let's say, a really scary motorcycle gang and she'd win them over just the same. You could put her anywhere - in any subculture, any socioeconomic group, anywhere and she'd fit right in.

She doesn't speak negatively about anyone and I think because of that, she has a pretty drama-free existence. She doesn't take up your space or deplete your energy; in fact, she gives it you. She seems to give energy - its a little like she brings her own sun to your gloomy day.

She also just seems to have a lot of magic around her - mostly because she's open to the possibilities and I think that's what I love about her best. She reminds me that over something as simple as a 3 minute phone call, a layover or an email, life can change just like that into something so much better.

She left Los Angeles about six months after I left, sold everything, went to Moscow to do a show, and then decided she'd use her last little bit of money to go to Italy, where she met her now husband. And they lived happily ever after.

I've learned a lot from her. She is a very deep, bright soul - an incredibly special person.

And as life would have it, she and her husband are coming home to live in Atlanta! Who would have thought in a million years we'd be living in the same city again! I couldn't be more thrilled!

Life, huh? What a ride! This deserves a shot of Absinthe!

Blue Skies,