Hotels going up outside the city.
The marina on the Causeway.
Garbage everywhere in the poorer part of the city.
Ruins.
Albrook Mall... the largest mall in the Americas. It had a Dairy Queen... yes, we loved that :).
The poorest complexes.
Flowers above the sidewalk.
Kids swimming in the fountain... they charged us a dollar to take their photo.
The outline of the downtown... it was really foggy that day.
Me and Trish with the city in the background.
The Kuna women wear the molas as a visual symbol of where they are at in life. I have learned a lot as I ask at booths that sell the artwork or from books and websites along the way in the last couple years. The common pattern of unending lines symbolizes the cycle of life and is a foundational part of their beliefs and designs. This woman wears the mola on her stomach, which is somewhat hidden by her puffy sleeves. The beads on her legs are also handmade and complex as they are made of a single strand of beads and wrapped around her legs to create the geometric patterns.
The Kuna women are under the table to stay out of the sun while working on molas. Each mola takes about 3 to 5 months to complete if they are done well. It's amazing to me how patient they are with the artwork... and then how cheap the artwork is for having taken them so long to complete.
Molas hanging for display.
And more molas... Amazing. I can't seem to learn enough about these!
Casco Viejo is the second oldest part of the city that the Spanish built after Panama Viejo was taken over and burned by conquestors in the 1600s. It is now a mixture of ruins and modern buildings and everything in between.
the white part in the sidewalk are cow bones.... i was a bit grossed out by that thought but apparently they weren't when they built it.
a close up of the cow bones.
the old separates the new.
vultures were easily spotted no matter where we were in the city... it was kind of a creepy feeling to know they were always watching you.
ruins of a monk convent from the 1600s... they have done a lot of work on it to keep it in decent shape.
balconies seemed to be on every building
the newer church near the main plaza 
What had happened was a night battle with mosquitoes... and they obviously won. Too bad the battleground was my face or I probably wouldn't have cared. In the second photo, you can see another bite on my cheek if you look carefully. I also had 2 or 3 bites in my eyebrows and on my forehead. In the last photo, you can see in the corner of my eye where the actual mosquito bite was... but my eye swelled up like that for 3 days! Of course it was in the middle of the week, so I went to school and taught with a swollen eye. My students would laugh at me... but I almost started crying because I was so self-conscious!