Day 1

What do you do when you have an organic chemistry exam in 13 days?

Obviously spend the next 10 in Panama.

 

The only good thing about an awful flight delay was catching up on sleep with a row to myself. They kept having us board and unboard the plane. I talked with the other lone female travelers since there’s an automatic connection among us. They gave us free nature valley bars and a lunch voucher to compensate; the flight service itself no longer included pretzels and peanuts. However, I just checked my email and had received 4000 miles. Fair enough, American Airlines.

Instead of arriving with half a day to explore, it was dark. I found a chill Canadian man to split a taxi with (30USD total), but once we stepped out of the airport there seemed to be plenty of shared taxis waiting to fill. Each one is more like a 20-person van, and the two of us had one to ourselves.

Approaching the city was unreal. Identical sky rises were seemingly endless and this banking capital clearly had more bank than I thought. Ian has a house here so he knew the landmarks and pointed out a giant highway built over water, as well as the must-have cevicherias at the seafood market.

Unfortunately Luna’s Castle was completely full, just as I thought I had come to a resting point. They sharpie-d out a path down some sketchy alleys on a small map, and I ended up at the much quieter Hospedaje Casco Viejo. It’s clean, a good price, with good wifi, drinkable tap water, the people are nice. However, Luna’s was nothing but social with ongoing ping pong and large tables for meeting other backpackers, in addition to its quirky decorations. In the few seconds I had been there, I knew it would’ve been exactly what I was looking for.

Then things started looking up. Till and David, from Germany and Sweden, were bunking next to me and were super helpful in telling me about my next destinations. David finished his masters and has made his way to Panama from Cuba. He says he’s out to travel the world and this time it was Latin America’s turn. For some odd reason he had started coughing blood with zero other symptoms in Panama, and although his labs came out normal in the hospital, this was quite worrisome and stressful. Till learned how to surf here just as I aim to. He really enjoyed his time in Santa Catalina and said the teacher of Surf and Shake was phenomenal. All it took was an hour long lesson for $25 for him to continue practicing on his own. He spent the night in studying Spanish, and David said although he met some cute Danish girls earlier, kissing people is probably a bad idea with the coughing blood and being a good person and all.

Miguel, a guy who’s actually Panamanian, took me around Casco Viejo and showed me points of interest including Plaza de Francia, Parque Boliviar, and the well-liked Mojitos Sin Mojitos. There’s really actually no mojitos.
 

 

Day 2

 

The fact that I wasn’t attacked by mosquitoes at night was a real treat. I got moving at 7am and went for a short run on the Cinta Costera, an iconic curved highway constructed over water that conveniently bypasses the congested traffic in the Casco. It’s 2.8km in total with both bike and pedestrian lanes. Lounging benches looked out to the waves and beckoned you to sit on them to enjoy the great views of both downtown and old town.

 

 

After breakfast I followed David who only kinda knew where he was going, along Avenida Central towards Cinco de Mayo Station. Blocked off to cars, it’s full of Panamanians and street food. Cafeterias and supply shops flank the walkway, which holds an abundance of fresh fruits, veggies, and shiny avocados. They claim the avocados ripen in only a day, and the fruits are surprisingly expensive at 1-2USD per. Had I not been assigned a paleo, low sugar, grain free diet, I would definitely have eaten my way through this lively segment of the city, neatly hidden to the swarms of gringos just a few blocks away.

 

It was mildly confusing figuring out the metros. And very mind blowing that a metro existed at all in Central America. A reloadable card costs 2USD at the machines. Then you fill or refill your balance, also done at the machines, and I was recommended another couple bucks should be plenty for the day. The reason why all prices for city bus rides are given as a ranged estimate of about .2-1USD is that you swipe as soon as you step on, a price flashes, and it varies slightly depending on point A and point B. If you don’t want to buy a metro tarjeta, ask another passenger to swipe for you and pay them back. Till told me they require you to have one when boarding overnight shuttles, which is why I bothered. 

 

 

I bade goodbye and good luck to poor David who had to drag himself out to the hospital again after more blood was coughed during his shower last night. One stop took me to the Albrook terminal, the main transportation hub, where I found a booth that sold me an overnight ticket at 27.50 to Almirante, the mainland stop for the wildly popular Bocas del Toro archipelagos.

 

 

I was then sent by locals in several circles until I found the bus I needed to go check out the Amador Causeway. The sweetest Canadian woman sat with me on the ride and pointed out landmarks as we neared the Causeway and eventually ended up on the final island. She’s been sailing with her husband for the past 8 years, first exploring BC, Canada, then San Francisco, loving El Salvador, and now Panama. Having spent over a month on some remote islands, they’re cupboards were dry and she was finally stocking up in town. She pointed out their vessel swaying among many others, got off, and that was the last I saw of her.

 

My views from the metro bus were great, but the windows made taking pictures hard so I made a super last-minute decision to have the bus driver dump me at the Causeway entrance. A funky, colorful building, known as the biodiversity museum, was right in front of me and I wandered in not sure if I was allowed to. They had some canal history downstairs but I had zero appetite for reading paragraphs and looking at b&w photos. I headed towards the water and admired a giant cargo ship exiting the canal from under the waterway’s first bridge, the Puente de Las Americas. I was quite happy with this mid-day sighting as most major ships go through during morning or evening hours.

 

 

My day winging it then took a sharp turn. I’m sitting there eating veggies out of a can with a plastic spoon, listening to the calm seawater, and next thing I know I’ve joined two Brazilian men and their taxi driver for a free private tour, offer good until I felt like splitting off. How did this happen? They liked the cargo ship too, and they happened to take photos practically right in front of my spot of small shade. The taxi driver was explaining some background, but at a speed that indicated the two tourists weren’t native Spanish speakers. I kept hearing “ocho dias” and “ocho horas” so I piped in to clarify. Apparently traversing this monumental canal takes eight hours, but ships on each side wait in line for eight days with priority given the to American/military/American military boats (I’m not sure which one). America did pay for the whole thing after all. The taxi driver’s explanations had me appreciating that I was witnessing ships from Europe and Africa bound for Asia.

Wendil and Jose were super kind so I said why not when they offered for me to tag along. I found myself back at the furthest island, Isla Flamenco, eyeing yachts that are nice enough to keep me motivated with finishing school. Other sailboats were proudly proudly labelled the American state they came from. Larger groups can rent 6-person cycling machines to explore the Causeway—it comes with a topper providing protection from the sun.

 

 

A quick breezy drive took us to the Mercado de Mariscos, the seafood market that has every traveler raving. For scrumptious, more than affordable ceviche, prioritize this. Outdoor cafes serve both lunch and dinner.

 

My two Styrofoam cups came out, brimming with ultra-fresh and even more ultra lemon-y delight. It’s so sour my taste buds wanted to cry, but they were so happy at the same time. The raw pieces, accented with onion and cilantro, were so acidified they tasted cooked. And walking in from parking we saw firsthand how the fishermen were slicing up the catches of the day. The orders ($1.25 fish and $2.25 mixed) had perfect textures the way fish, shrimp, and octopus should always be. The others also got main dishes of fried fish and saucy shrimp with sides of coconut rice and patacones, which are plantain slabs flattened in a light amount of oil. They aren’t sweet or dripping with grease, making a great Panamanian option for snack attacks. Other menu options at The Blessed Mayor (all restaurants are equivalent) include cocktail ceviches which have creamy sauces, and fried yucca sides. Basically I’m writing so much because the food was out of this world contrasted by a food scene that was so local and down to earth. And the prices were outright unmatchable.

 

 

Back in our adventure van, we wove through the narrow alleys of Casco Viejo a bit before I abandoned. I had such a great experience with three guys I had nothing in common with except for appreciation of foreign culture. And they didn’t even let me pay for my own meal.

I was back at the south of the peninsula, on the Paseo los Bóvedas. It was lined with vendors selling trinkets. Then I saw Plaza de Francia during daylight, and the memorials it has for those who sacrificed their lives during canal building, likely from malaria or yellow fever. Lonely Planet estimates 22,000 workers demised on the project.

 

 

 

I followed the sites on the LP map in a very inefficient fashion since I kept losing myself. Ruins are casually mixed with restored colonial architecture, taking me back to my visit in Antigua, or even Trinidad. For some reason, this place was far more crowded than the others, with a line of cars taking away from the quality of each of my photos. Casco Viejo is also much more disorganized than my Guatemalan and Cuban analogies, but this messiness has it’s own appeal. There was a small unremarkable demonstration in the Plaza de Independencia, the spot where Panama became not-Colombia. I previously mentioned my low-carb diet, but in this heat I went for strawberry sorbet at Granclament, a gourmet, pricier gelateria that claims to use top ingredients and no additives. Not gonna lie, having fancy flavors like chocolate orange, basil, lavender, and vanilla with walnuts (not just plain vanilla!) stressed me out.

 

 

I ended with the small Iglesia de San Jose. Luckily it neighbors my hostel so I didn’t have to be lost anymore. Inside, La Altar de Oro is impossible to miss. Legend has it that this very shiny backdrop is all that’s left after Captain Morgan, yes the spiced rum Captain Morgan, had his way with the city in 1671.

 

 

I retrieved my backpack and found myself back in Avenida Central. Now most produce stalls were replaced with vendors selling spiralized hot dogs on sticks, snow cones, and cups of coconut water from big water coolers. I noticed the minisupers were owned by Chinese-Panamanians, and the Asian kids (speaking flawless Spanish) playing out front were only playing with other Asians, a phenomenon I’m all too familiar with in The States.

I returned to Albrook and killed time. Somehow I found myself fifth-wheeling two American couples as we boarded our overnight bus. Us first-world dwellers always form a clique I guess.