November 22 to December 2, 2013, Panama

Here are some more of Wren and Laura’s recommendations for and photos from Panama.

5. Bargain with taxi drivers.

Clue for best results: choose cabs with Christian music or motif.

6. Shop for indigenous-made crafts.

Tribespeople from different regions hand make lovely artwork. The Kuna Yala women sew stunning molas, the Ngobe embroider dresses and make bead necklaces, the Embara and Wounaan weave animal masks, gorgeous baskets, and carve lifelike animals from Tagus nuts.

A wall of Embera masks at the craft market.

Small carvings of animals, made of “vegetable ivory” — tagus nuts from a type of palm tree.

For pictures of molas, see our mola blog.

7. Try to talk with parrots and howler monkeys.

We saw howler monkeys napping from Gamboa rainforest treetop lookout.

A portrait of the the parrot who lives behind the Amador hotel.

Lots of people like to visit the parrot.

The parrot takes a shower.

A cute avian couple who also live near the hotel in the Las Brisas plaza.

There is monkey in this tree. They are hard to spot and even harder to photograph.

More blog posts coming soon with the rest of Wren and Laura’s top ways to play when on delay in Panama.