Dueling Christmas Parades

Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025

Panama City, Panama

Sunrise over civilization

I’m sitting on the 13^th floor of the Waldorf Astoria in Panama City. (My room number is 1313, which any product of the 60s knows is the Munster’s address—1313 Mockingbird Lane.) From my window high over the city, I’ve been watching the staging of the Christmas Parade, which is snarling traffic for miles…but I don’t care, since I’m inside, air conditioned, and very happy!

We walked around to look at some of the floats awaiting the parade. (The Lindblad bus dropped us at the Waldorf at about 9am; no rooms available until 3-ish, so we wandered.) The floats, all very entertaining, were all from various stores. That was fun. It’s entertaining to walk through a day at 85 degrees and 90% humidity and see that even here in Panama, Santa’s north pole toy factory is covered in “snow.”

This is a grocery store's float. Nice reindeer!

Nothing says Christmas like an enormous blue fiberglas harpy eagle, don't you think?

It was an entire street of opulent floats sponsored by stores. M&Ms were there, and MacDonald's too. All very cheery.

Then our rooms were ready (yay!) so I’ve been watching marching bands come down the street to a staging area. There was a big band all in white. Followed by a bigger band all in black, with what I assume were crimson cowboy hats but which looked like flat lily pads from up here.

THey're not really cowboy hats either. This is a very stylish band..but I bet they're hot.

Then a REALLY big band in white. It went on and on, and I love a marching band, so this was so thrilling to me that I had to get Lexie to come over and watch with me for a while. (She’s gone to take a nap now, and I don’t much blame her.)

Where do you suppose Santa is going? To check his list twice, maybe.

As I watched, there were six bands lined up I this road. Then seven. Then—my god—eight! Paradise! By the time there were at least twelve marching bands in various states of order, I was wondering when this parade got underway, as the bands were stacked up like flights over O’Hare. I went to Google.

And oddly, there are at least two Christmas parades today: One in Panama City, Panama and another in Panama City, Florida. IT took me a REALLY long time to figure that out.

In the end the answer was, we dunno. This parade will start when it damned well feels like it.

From the tree at the bottom left, the street angling up towards the center is shoulder-to-shoulder marching bands. (Or it was until those skies opened up.)

Meanwhile, the clouds set in. The clouds opened up, Torrential, tropical rain thundered down, and hundreds of marching band musicians all disappeared in seconds; they were huddled under the overhangs of buildings, all jumbled in together in marching band solidarity. Of course, they might have been enacting the Sharks and the Jets down there and I just couldn’t see it.

It's still pouring, but some bands are lined up in the street again. Maybe the parade has actually started, but I can’t tell because my lone view of what I assume is parade route (as opposed to staging area) is a good four blooks from here and thus entirely invisible in all this rain. We don’t mind it wet here in the REAL Panama City.

This morning we went to the BioMuseo, in a VERY strange (and I’d say ugly) building designed by Frank Gehry.

You can't say it's not colorful.

I wasn’t expecting much…and I was left open-mouthed with delight. It’s a WONDERFUL museum. The outside is surrounded by a garden where hummingbirds dart around, and where there is a staggeringly-huge fig tree, around which has been built a display of natural interconnectivity. Damn. That tree was bliss.

At least 20 degrees cooler under here. Magical!

Inside the musuem, there was a place clearly marked for me to take a selfie.

That's a bear butt behind me, and a puma, and a mastodon. Plus a whole lot more.

Obedient (you know how obedient I am; such a rule-follower), I did…it wasn’t until I got into the hall behind me that I learned it was a phenomenal exhibit about what happened to animal populations once the islands that used to link North and South America became a connected isthmus. They had these magnificent statues in white. Yet another charming docent (they were thick on the ground at this place) explained to us in English that if the animals were facing THAT way, that meant they were from South America and heading north, and the animals facing THIS way were all from North America and going south.

Monkey, Going from south to north. Trying to find new habitat to the north which didn't work out SO well. Still, Central America was a good home, so well done, monkey.

The big ones—the giant ground sloth and the massive uber-eagle (whose name I cannot remember) and the mastodon and the saber-toothed tiger—yeah. Seen them. But what’s that? And that? And what the hell is that?! Did you know that boa constrictors originated in NORTH America?? They found excellent habitat on the southern continent and are almost wiped out everywhere else. SO curious.

The porcupine was facing NORTH. Did you know? They're originally a South American species. How cool is that?

We loved the BioMuseo; we are now total converts.

But we are tired. Each in our own sealed and elegant room. The floor isn’t REALLY rocking like the ship. One dense nap and I’ll get over that…and maybe the parade is underway in the rain. I can’t tell. One of the bands huddled under a building overhang is knocking out a great beat; maybe it’s a drum line battle. I can’t wait any longer; I have to take a nap, and I mean now!

An image from Far Too Early, this morning, as the captain (with his first mate) carefully docks the Quest at the port of Balboa.

Lexie knew that this was "Go for Jack," which is what they said on the radio when someone (Jack) had to rescue our Zodiak from being dashed on the rocks. This is Go For Jack throwing the monkey fist to the guys on the docks so they could haul in the Quest's mooring lines. Embarrassingly for Go For Jack, he threw poorly. The first mate had to come down; she lectured Jack on how to throw. Then the captain himself came down to show Go For Jack. Poor guy; surrounded by camera-toting tourists.

But in the (entirely likely) event that I don’t blog again until my next trip, I will conclude by saying I still love my sisters. Maybe even more than before. It was delicious to spend this week with them. And I continue to adore Tio Ehscott. (The Latino guides tend to add an “ee” sound before words beginning with S. España. Ehsmithsonian. Hence, Scott is Ehscott. And Tio because that’s what Rusty called him. Well—Rusty calls him Uncle Scott. But when in Panama, do as the Panamanians do.)

I’m glad to be heading home; I miss my cat!