I headed to Panama in February, just in time for the pre-Lenten Mardi Gras, called Carnavale in Panama. Everyone said that the best Carnivale in Panama was in Las Tablas, a little town in the Azuero Peninsula, which about four hours southwest of Panama City. We arrived on the day Carnivale began, the Saturday before Ash Wednesday, to find the little town of Las Tablas overflowing with people, vendors, and water trucks. The big thing about Carnivale is to drink beer, watch the floats (mostly sponsored by politicians or cell phone companies) and get sprayed with water from water guns, or giant water cannons connected to 40,000 gallon tanker trucks. It isn’t that we weren’t good sports about it all, but the biggest thrill is being jetted with huge water cannons, soaking you to the skin, and practically not having a good tailor. While the tankers and their henchmen (mainly good natured boys and girls, just out to have fun) spray the crowd remorselessly, individuals, sporting personal water cannons worked us over. Luckily, we had the foresight to bring along a change of clothes in the parking lot in which we were packed, and after toweling off and changing, we were as good as new. If we only liked beer as much as the mostly teenaged crowd, we’d have had a fine time. As it was, I wanted to videotape, and had brought my canmera, but the only way to shoot video was in little snatches, with Linanne warning every time one of the four tankers around us, huddled in the town center, turned their water hoses in my direction. Even though I had wrapped the camera in a plastic bag, and clutched it tightly closed, it was miles away from all my other destinations and was all I could do to keep it dry. One slip up, and the camera would have been History. So after just a little more than an hour, it was off to Los Destiladeros and relaxing on our chaises on the porch overlooking the beach. Later for them was our matra, and thought one of our goals was too far home from a shjope.l