Panama Update #137
February 22, 2009
We made reservations yesterday to go to San Jose, Costa Rica from March 5-8. I need to leave the country for 72 hours to renew my 90 day tourist visa. We finally picked Costa Rica because it is the closest and cheapest place to go. We also received an invitation to stay at a friend's house there. Her name is Indira and I have met her at the Meditation Center in Minneapolis, where she has visited the last couple of summers. One day we plan to tour around the city of San Jose and another day we plan to go on a nature tour outside of the city. We are currently researching the options with that.
It is Carnival week here in Panama, which means most of the people take a long weekend, at least through next Tuesday. The school where I work is closed through Wednesday. Many go out to the country where there are a lot of big parties and celebrations. There are also celebrations here in the city. Some people say it is like Mardi Gras. Mostly we are trying to avoid it as much as we can. There were some loud parties in our neighborhood, but thankfully they ended at a reasonable hour.
