casco antiguo and panama viejo

this is a picture of peter, erik, and i that clyde took. i think it's impossible to do a trip like this and stay normal looking. my hair just keep growing into a bigger, and bigger snarl ball ha ha... part of me wants to let it keep growing, but i think i should probably cut it off. today we went to panama viejo, which is the oldest city in all of the americas (i think). it was founded in the 1500s, but later abandoned because pirates attacked the city and most of it burnt down. they ended up moving the capital to what is currently refered to as casco antigua, the colonial neighborhood of panama city. we have seen several colonial cities so far, antigua guatemala, and then leon and granada in nicaragua, but casco antiguo was definately the most run down. parts of the neighborhood looked like shanty towns, and as we wandered around i began to feel like we were possibly entering into bad neighborhoods. whe stopped for lunch at an open air cafe, and got huge plates of food for $1.50. clyde didn't finish all of his rice, and this guy wearing greasy rags came in, walked over to our table, and grabbed clydes rice with his hands and ran out. it was pretty intense.
right now in panama the retired people are striking and they've blocked off a major road through the city. they want the government to give them an extra dollar a day to live on. it's really been messing up traffic, and yesterday we couldn't get a taxi to take us out of the downtown. they've been striking like this for two months i think. people say it's crazy that the government can put all this money into expanding the canal, but can't help out the elderly. know what's kinda funny? in spanish retired is "jubilacion", which sounds to me like "jubilation". ok, hope everyone is awesome! love,
-jessie