Panama Canal lives up to the hype

Panama City was great fun, once we got to Casco Viejo. People kept telling us it wasn't the best place to be so we spent our first night in what looked like the business district on recommendations, we got online and booked ourselves a hostel in the old part of town. Yeah, it's a bit touristy, but guess what, we're tourists! The buildings were beautiful and we had some fun hanging out with the other backpackers.

We headed out to the nearby national park on the second day to get some jungle and see what we could see. We had a great day hiking along and seeing lots of birds, as well as some RUS (that's Rodents of Unusual Size, for those who aren't Princess Bride fans). The next day we headed out to the Panama Canal. It was pretty amazing. We went to Miraflores lock and though a little on the pricey side, it was worth it. We watched the cheesy 3D movie and then went through the much more informative and quite cool museum about the canal. Finally, we watched a huge container ship pass through the lock, water rising and falling, huge gates opening and closing. It's pretty incredible really.

On our last day in Panama City we caved and bought our Panama Hats (remember that bit about being tourists, sometimes you've just got to fall into it). We love them and have been wearing them proudly ever since, enough said.