we went to panama!

In October, Bart and I took our first international trip together to Panama!  For me, it was my first time out of the country (unless you count the few hours I spent in Tijuana, Mexico when I was a teenager, but I'm not sure it counts if you walk across the border).  For Bart, it was a return to the country he lived in for 2 years while he served his mission there 18 years ago.  

Our first day in Panama was a Sunday.  After dropping our luggage off at the resort we would be staying at for most of the week, we headed to church.  We purposely went to a building where Bart had served during his mission, and we were able to see some people that remembers teaching more than 18 years ago. My favorite part was that he had brought a photo that was taken of him as a missionary with a man and his little girl.  We saw that same girl, she was all grown up. It was pretty special.  Bart got to share his testimony with the congregation, and even though I couldn't understand most of what he was saying, it was powerful. 

This is the family that was in the photo Bart brought.  They invited us to their house after church for lunch.  

This is their backyard.  I couldn't get over how jungle-like it was.  It was beautiful!

Their little girl was 5 years old and wanted to play with me.  The only problem is we speak different languages, and she kept getting frustrated with me that I couldn't understand what she was trying to tell me.  So, we played with snapchat filters on my phone, because there is no language barrier for silly photos!

After visiting with them (which was amazing and exactly what we wanted that part of trip to be.  Although it was exhausting not understanding what anyone was saying for that many hours), we headed to the resort and found our room.  This is the view from the balcony of our hotel room!  It was spectacular!

The resort had dancing lessons most evenings we were there, so we learned some awesome latin ballroom dances from these two.  It was so much fun!

This area is where we ate breakfast most mornings.  Bart is checking out the view.

The next day we headed to the city, to Casco Viejo.  It is a really old part of the city that has recently been revived and cleaned up.  It has some super upscale shops, restaurants, and hotels, and had a very trendy, hip vibe.  It was awesome!

We ran into a tour guide and we decided to let him show us around.  He told us a lot of the history of the area, and showed us some cool landmarks, churches, and other fun things.

These snow cones were amazing!  Like nothing I've ever had before!  I wish we would have had even more that we did.

After we cut our tour guide loose, we headed to the fish market for lunch.  This meal is very traditional Panamanian cuisine.  It was yummy!

Next, we hiked up Cerro Ancon, which is this huge hill in the city.  It felt very remote and once we got to the top we had amazing views of both the city and the canal.

We saw lots of cool animals, but my favorite was the toucan we saw in the trees.

This was the beach at our resort.  It was beautiful!  Funny story, Bart really wanted to go swimming in the water, but we hadn't seen anyone else out in the water.  He decided to ask some of the resort staff if there was anything dangerous in the water he should be worried about.  They said there are often sting rays right along the shore, and that it was likely that he would get stung.  He walked right out to the water, and while contemplating whether or not to risk it, a crocodile swam past, about 10 yards in from the beach!  I think they should have warned us about the crocodile, not just sting rays!!

Another day we went back to Casco Viejo for lunch, and to walk around without the tour guide.  It was a little rainy, but that just added to the cool atmosphere that was there.

One of the only yummy desserts we had the whole trip was this coconut ice cream.  This shop tried so hard to appeal to American tourists, but the whole menu said "balls of ice cream" instead of "scoops of ice cream,"  I loved it!

That evening, we headed out to the causeway.  We decided to call this day our "Bachelor" date because we had spent the afternoon walking around, exploring the city, and then in the evening, we rented electric scooters and rode around.  

Because we were on this narrow causeway, every view was absolutely stunning! I wish we had some of these electric scooters at home because they were so much fun!

One morning we took a ferry boat ride out to Taboga Island.  This may have been my favorite day, but it's hard to say.  Even the ferry ride was fun because we were zipping past huge ships waiting for their turn to go through the canal.  It was thrilling to see them so close.

We spent so much time on this beach.  It was this narrow bit of land where the waves were crashing up on the beach from both sides.  Plus, there was almost no one there.  It felt like we were on our own private island on our own private beach.  The water was perfectly warm and the views were spectacular.

We spent some time walking the streets on the island.  We talked about how different the day-to-day lives of the people that lived on the island were compared to ours.  They never have to drive in the snow or shovel.  They can spend time on the beach everyday.  If they want to go anywhere really, they have to take a ferry to get to the mainland.  

We had to stop the driver of this vehicle so Bart could get a photo with their Gators license plate.  It was fun to see one all the way in Panama!

One of my favorite stories from the trip: when we were walking the streets of the island, we saw a man harvesting coconuts from the tree in his yard.  Bart helped him pick them up once they fell down and load them into the back of the man's truck.  A few minutes later, the truck drove past us and we saw him unload them at this little stand selling all kinds of things.  So we bought one and drank the coconut water and ate the meat of a coconut we just happened to help harvest.  It was by far the freshest, most delicious coconut I have ever had, and I LOVE coconut!

Bart made friends with everyone we met in Panama.  First they all treated us kindly, but when he started speaking Spanish to them, they became even more kind.  As soon as he told them that he lived there for 2 years, they treated us like family!  Every single time.  It was so awesome!  And Bart just lit up talking about his time there.  It was so apparent how much he loves Panama and the people there.

Some evenings we would stay at the resort, walking around outside, walking along the beach, swimming in one of the pools right on the beach, or eating at one of their restaurants before heading to our dance lessons.  

Another shot from the balcony of our hotel room!

Another day, we had our Uber driver drive us around one of Bart's favorite areas he served in on his mission.  He even found the house he used to live in when he was there.  It was crazy to be driving around, and I was looking at the tiny, run-down homes and couldn't believe that people lived like that, and feeling so grateful for what we have, and Bart was feeling nostalgic and so much love for the area. Our experiences really do shape us.

We were so happy to attend the Panama temple!  It hadn't been built yet when Bart served there, so he was of course emotional about being there now.  It was my first time attending the temple in a foreign language, and even though there were some technical difficulties with the translator device, it was a super special experience.

After the temple, we went to the largest mall I have ever seen!  I can't even adequately describe how large this mall was.  There were so many HUGE stores in the mall.  Like the size of Costco, each one.  I was annoyed at how clingy the salespeople were in each store, so we didn't shop much.  But we had this delicious Panamanian lunch.  I wish I had some of it right now!

You can't visit Panama for the first time and not see the Panama Canal!  The visitors center there was very interesting, and it was fascinating watching the ships pass through the locks.  It was quite the amazing process.

The next morning, we had to say goodbye to the resort.  We were so sad to leave it.  It was unlike any place either of us had ever stayed.  The views alone were worth every penny we spent to stay there.

After saying goodbye to the resort, we boarded a tour bus and headed to Gamboa rainforest.  We learned a lot of Panamanian history on the bus on the way there.

Once we got to the rainforest, we took a tram ride through the forest, where we were hoping to see some wild animals, but the group ahead of us was super loud, so we saw nothing but amazing plants.

We walked up to the top of this lookout and I could have stayed up there enjoying the view for hours!!

We stopped at an animal preserve where we saw sloths, butterflies, and really unique frogs.

Next, we boarded a small boat and went into the Panama Canal (!!!), zipping past the huge ships again, and to lake in the middle of the canal to look for monkeys and iguanas.

A couple of times, the driver pulled the boat right up to the shore, and wild monkeys came right on to our boat to get a snack from the tour guide.  It was incredible!

We heard some howler monkeys way up high in the trees, and they sounded like monsters.  I would have been terrified if I hadn't been told what was making that loud, scary sound! We ended our tour with a yummy buffet lunch, and FINALLY some yummy desserts!

That evening, we headed to our last hotel right by the airport so we could catch our early flight the next morning. 

This beautiful woman was all dressed up in some traditional Panamanian clothes and was nice enough to pose for a photo with us. Since there was nothing to do or see near the airport, we headed back to Casco Viejo one last time. It was a different experience at night, but it was still so much fun!

Bright and early the next morning we boarded our flight, said goodbye to Panama, and headed home.

I caught this awesome photo of the Florida Keys from our plane.

We had a super long layover in Atlanta, so we left the airport and headed downtown to eat some yummy BBQ for lunch, and walked around a bit before we finally headed the rest of the way home to see our babies!

It was the most amazing trip!  Everyone who knows and loves Bart should get to go to Panama with him.  He smiled the whole time, and it was easy to see how much his mission, and Panama, and the people there mean to him.  I'm glad he shared a little bit of it with me that week!