Today was a day of minor disappointments awash in a sea of ease. We visited the Sierra Botanical Gardens and Zoo hoping to see Panama's poisonous snakes, but they have no reptile house. We went to the causeway to find the yacht club, but the one we were looking for is nowhere to be found. We went to allegedly the best steak house in the nation, and found it lacking in all areas.
On the other hand, the zoo was fairly enjoyable, though small; in general, the animals look well cared for, and are in sizable enclosures. The causeway held a palm-thatched bar with two dollar national beers — I find Atlas a bit insipid, but Balboa is quite drinkable. The steak house was probably the dark spot of the day; while the steaks were rich in flavor, they were less tender than I expected. Our baby squid appetizer was virtually unchewable, and the replacement was little better.
All in all, it remains a not wholly unsuccessful day in which we rode a bus (which can be a dangerous experience, but wasn't) and got to see a sizable selection of the nation's flora and fauna, which besides the assorted birds which are everywhere in Panama included a small assortment of monkeys and the nation's largest raptor and national bird, the Harpy Eagle. We didn't bring the camera, but you don't really want to see pictures of animals behind chain-link fence, do you?
Tomorrow we plan to go to the last day of the Jazz Festival, and drink more beer. We are getting started on that part now. Well, no. We are continuing to get started on that; we've been putting them away fairly regularly, not having to do any driving at this phase. Whoo, boy, don't let me forget to tell you about the driving.