gamboa rant

Our last leg of the journey places up in the resort in the national park of Gamboa. It is an enormous building not melding into the rainforest at all. someone, somewhere else, drew up plans fitting for 1^st world luxury and placed it in the tropical rainforest. Other than the native trees, no concessions were made for the different climate. I don’t want to think about the effort expended to drag the huge metal chandeliers up here. Or the metal railings on everything. Or the faux carved wood doors. Then again, maybe they simply retrieved it from the ships on the canal scarcely 1 mile away. Oddly, few of the staff speaks English and there are no paper napkins to be found. But they left oreos and Doritos in the room for us. Im in panama, I don’t want oreos, I want fresh pineapple. I prefer 30 cent fantas and cold showers to the air conditioning and $3 sprites. I don’t want to pay for laundry by the article of clothing. We have been out on 2 tours from this place so far, and both times returned completely soaked after an enjoyable tropical rainstorm caught us. So our room looks more like a clothesline than a hotel room. And stuff is taking forever to dry. I may start using the hairdryer. But this place does have free internet in the lobbys.