City Lights

Who says you have to be traveling to have an adventure? Here in my new home, I seem to have adventures all the time.

On Friday last week, a friend of mine from work, named Sujey, and I decided to go shopping at a super great mall after work. The mall is called Multiplaza Mall and it has some really great stores. Not to mention that it is gigantic! I had only heard tales of this commercial Goliath and was definitely interested in seeing it. So, after work we hopped into a cab and started driving. Or not. The traffic was terrible and our poor cab driver kept trying to take back roads but they were also packed with cars. People were talking to each other from car to car about how unusually bad the traffic was that day. People even came outside of their houses to watch the passing cars. After two hours and fifteen minutes of waiting in traffic with no sign of relief, Sujey and I decided to just walk the rest of the way. The cab driver kept insisting that we were close so we gave him his $5 (over priced, by the way) and started walking. After all, the mall was just around the block.... except it wasn't.

We could see it off in the distance and we wondered how on earth we were so far away. Then we realized that the cab driver had no idea where he was going. Sometimes I wonder about cabs here. Especially after some of the drivers I have had, but that will have to be another blog post. We ended up walking for forty-five minutes before we finally reached the mall at 7:30 pm. We went into three stores and bought nothing because by the time we got out of the last store, it was 8:00 pm and the mall was closing. So much for girl's night out.... or was it?

Maybe I will go back to Multiplaza one day, if for no other reason than to watch a movie in their awesome cinema while eating sushi and drinking my drink of choice, but I will never forget the adventure we had getting there. Sujey and I were able to make the most out of every situation and laughed the entire way to the mall. This was definitely a "journey" adventure- one where the journey is the point of the adventure and not the destination. In our forty five minute walk we had at least four wolf-whistles and an uncountable number of admirers- even though we were super hot and gross. (Panama is definitely a great place for a girl to go boost her ego.)

I got to see the city at night and admire the city lights, even if it was a little too hot and my legs were a little sore the next day. I had a great time!

View from a pedestrian bridge we crossed when we finally got to the mall. This is when the traffic was finally moving!