Panama City Day 331 15/08/2015

We needed to get a few provisions, including a new pair of shorts for Simon given he has got a hole in a precarious place in his old ones, so after a lesuirely breakfast we walked down the road and got a taxi to the nearby Allbrook shopping mall. The mall was huge, lucky for us not too busy, and full of designer shops that you would recognise at home. We wandered around making a few purchases before stopping for a drink in the food court, packed full of fast food stalls. Neither of us were particularly hungry so we decided to head back to Balboa and get something to eat there. We got a taxi and set off. The driver stopped to attempt to pick up more passengers until we let him know we wouldn't share. He clearly wasn't impressed and drove like an idiot. We got out at Niko's cafe, more a cafeteria than cafe, and decided to buy something to take back to the b&b to eat. We spent the rest of the afternoon working out the best route to fly to Cancun, which we decided was from San Jose, Costa Rica, and then planning our route to get there and where to stay. A lot of accommodation doesn't use booking.com so we had to email a few places and wait for a response. It's currently low season in Panama and a number of places are closed for the duration. We experienced the might of Panama's rainy season in the late afternoon with huge booms of thunder, lightening and a torrential downpour that lasted for several hours. In the evening we decided to go to the Causeway for dinner. It's a 2km stripe of land that links four small islands to the mainland at the entrance to the Panama Canal, built from the earth and rocks dug out to make the canal. Rosie and Simon were also heading down there and very kindly offered to us a lift. We went to Beirut, a Lebanese restaurant and had dinner alfresco with views over the marina and across to the new city skyline with neon lite skyscrappers filling the skies. They very kindly offered us a lift back as well so after we finished our meal we wandered along to meet them at Neno's before heading back, stopping off at the Yacht Club for a drink.