Update starting with March 10th

We got up early today, packed up a few clothes and then walked into town to catch a bus to the city of David.  We had a short wait for the bus and with all the construction on the road to David, the bus ride was a little slower than usual.  We got off the bus at the bus station and then immediately caught a taxi to take us to Budget Rental Car.
Once we got our car we were ready to drive to Panama City where we'll be meeting our friends Angie and John in the evening!  We had a good drive to Panama City and it seemed to go pretty fast.  We stopped for lunch at a pizza place in the town of Santiago and when we got to Coronado, we drove down to the beach to check it out. We soon found that most of the beach there is inaccessible since there are private homes along the beach.  So, we drove back out of there and continued on to Panama City.  Once we crossed the Bridge of the Americas, we were pretty close to where our hotel was and we hoped we could remember well enough how to get to the place.  We were SOOOOO close, but one missed turn (if we could have only been confident that we SHOULD have turned there) turned into a near nightmare.  The next thing we knew we were on a busy highway heading in the opposite direction and no easy way to get back.  Then, to make things worse, when we did find a place where we could get off the highway, it was to one of the worst sections ever of Panama City.  It was one of those things where it seemed like each consecutive move we made was worse than the last.  There we were,  in a section of Panama City which is dangerous and quite scary!!!  It's where Manuel Noriega was holed up and where the US bombed way back when.  So, all the buildings are in deplorable condition because of the bombings but people are living in those buildings anyway.  So, you can imagine......
So, after a little while of thinking "we'll turn here on this street and get back", only to find the street became one way, or every side street was tiny and filled with people and/or cars, and the like, somehow or another we came to a good sized highway again and got out of it.  But the despair we felt while in the middle of it, my goodness.
So, we found our hotel this time, and dared to go out again a few hours later, but this time armed with some good instructions from the hotel owner.  Still, we were leery after what we had gone through but fortunately the drive was pretty straightforward, we found the restaurant we were looking for and had a nice meal by the water with a view of the Panama City skyline in the background.
John and Angie came in an hour or so later and since they were a little hungry, we decided to walk to a nearby cafeteria to get a bite to eat.