happy new year

i made it into panama city yesterday afternoon and met marnie at the lovely hostel we're staying at. we hopped in a cab to the old town where there are supposed to be interesting restaurants and bars, etc, but we couldn't find any of the places we'd heard of, so the cab driver took us out on the causeway to this TGI Fridays-esque outdoor restaurant where we rang in the new year with some excellent ceviche and cocktails and some pretty lame tourists. we decided to live it up anyways and ordered pina coladas and danced. afterwards we found where panamanians actually party and had a nightcap at this bar owned by these lebanese guys who ensured we had enough to drink. we did. got up early-ish today and headed to the parque natural metropolitano where there are hours of trails through the jungle. we watched a crew of anteaters for awhile and then made our way to the panama canal. the canal is incredible! we paid the full eight bucks to go up to the top of the visitors center and watch the ships go through the locks and then had lunch overlooking everything. we're going back out to the old town tonight and then getting on a plane tomorrow morning for bocas del toro, these islands in northwestern panama in the caribbean.

some of you have asked about the itinerary, so here's what i've got so far. it's definitely subject to change:

early january: panama city, bocas del toro and the pacific coast of panama, southern pacific coast of costa rica, perhaps zancudo (thanks desi!) and puerto jiminez and then hiking around in corcovado national park. (all with marnie)
mid january: heading up the pacific side of costa rica into nicaragua, enrolling at a spanish school in san juan del sur nicaragua
mid january: isla de ometepe in nicaragua (3 days?), then up to a week at a spanish school in grenada
late january/early february: about a week at a spanish school in leon and perhaps another week in esteli, nicaragua
mid february: meet rana in antigua, guatemala. we're going to travel through guatemala and belize -- heading to chichicastenango, lake atitlan, the tikal ruins, san ignacio in belize and caye caulker in belize.
early march: rana leaves and i head south on the coast in belize through possibly placencia and punta gorda, then back to guatemala for two months of spanish study in either xela, antigua, the lake or in flores, or a combination of some of those. i hope to make it to honduras and el salvador as well, we'll see what happens!

miss you all!