Travel Report: Panama
Visited in May 2018
Panama was the first Central American country I’ve visited and only the fourth Latin American country in total. The country was on my way home after spending almost two weeks in Peru, and I had 48 hours to finish the trip in the capital Panama City.
Arrival in Panama
I arrived at Panama’s only international airport on a Thursday evening. After spending many nights in Hostels in Peru, I needed something more comfortable for the last two nights. I found a not so expensive 5 star hotel located in the city’s business district El Cangrejo.
My first thoughts during the ride from the airport to the hotel and in the hotel itself were: WOW! I knew that Panama City had a nice skyline, but I did not know that there were so many skyscrapers. I later found out that Panama City is ranked 19th in the world by the amount of buildings taller than 150m. Lovely!
Moreover, it is a city with numerous sky bars – most of them are located in hotels – where you can see the city from above. It was really impressive.
Panama City is often referred as the Dubai of Latin America, and I can understand why. The city’s architecture has some similarities and both cities are fun. Needless to say, there are some vast differences between the two cities. Not only cultural differences. I will come back later to that.
Night out in Panama City
After having dinner in the (overpriced) restaurant of my hotel, I took an Uber to Casco Viejo, which is to say the old town of the city. It’s an area with nice old buildings but also with many bars and nightclubs. The ride was about 10 minutes long and cost less than 3 Dollars. Value for money.
I headed to the rooftop bar of Hotel Tantalo, which had some people in it but wasn’t too crowded. Interestingly, one of the first things I noticed was that English is widespread in Panama City. I haven’t met a single guy in the bar or on the streets who didn’t speak English, which is a big plus for me in Panama. At least, the ability of communicating with the locals felt good, as you’re usually on your own in Latin America if you don’t speak Spanish or Portuguese.
On my way to a club called Casa Jaguar, some shady people approached me. The first guy constantly tipped his nose with his finger as if he had a stuffy nose because of a cold. He also said some words to me, which I didn’t completely understand. Greed? Fleet? Meat? It seemed that the word ended with “eed”.
The second guy did the same with his nose. No idea what they wanted. I didn’t feel unsafe walking on the streets at night, though. Generally, Panama is safe as long as you stay in the touristy areas. The city has some no go areas though, and obviously not the whole country is safe. The border to Colombia is closed for example, as it is in the jungle and home of guerillas, drug traffickers and dangerous animals.
Avenue Central is the place, in which most bars and nightclubs are located. The street was packed! It was a Thursday, but all the bars and clubs seemed to be full. I entered Casa Jaguar and stayed there for two more hours before I went back to the hotel.
In general, I found the nightlife in Panama City very good. There were so many bars and clubs that I was spoilt for choice.
Sightseeing… or not
It was already noon when I woke up the next day. After many short nights in Peru I obviously needed some extra sleep. My plan was to explore Panama City in the afternoon and save the canal for the day after. My flight back was the next day in the late afternoon. So I would visit the canal in the morning or around noon if I was awake early.
Having a delicious lunch was the first thing I did that day. I would have better skipped it, because the weather became ugly as soon as I walked out of restaurant. It was just a soft rain in the beginning, but it became one of the worst rainfalls I have ever seen in my life. I found shelter in a Hooters, ordered a coffee and waited almost two hours in there. You couldn’t really do something outside of the building as it was terribly pouring. Not even an umbrella would have helped.
Hooters is actually not the only US-American fast food chain you can find in Panama City. The city is full of them. You have also the same tipping culture as in the United States. Oh, and they use the US Dollar as their currency, although you have the Panamanian Balboa as well as the second currency. One Balboa is one Dollar. The Balboa is available in coins only though. I don’t know how it is outside of Panama City, but the capital city felt very American in my opinion. Panama City was kind of a Latin American version of Miami.
It was almost 5 PM when the rain was over. I haven’t seen much of the city, but I wanted to use the last two hours before sunset to change that. When I was walking through the streets, I was really surprised about the bad conditions of the streets. Panama City looks so modern at first glance, but when you take a closer look you can see that the infrastructure needs to be improved.
A heavy rain can expose the bad infrastructure of a city, as you often don’t even notice the conditions of the streets. The streets in Panama City get flooded when the rain comes, and it’s even impossible to cross the street sometimes:
The rain was almost gone, when I continued walking towards Casco Viejo. The walk along the road next to the ocean provides plenty of opportunities to see the skyline from a different angle. Moreover, I really liked how green the city was. You have small parks here and there, obviously not crowded due to the rain, but it still looked nice.
My goal was the famous Panama sign, which you can find in Google Maps by the way. Two small kids, who looked a bit like gangsters, were taking picture in front of it. I asked them if they could take a picture of me, but was prepared to chase them just for the case that they would run away with my cell phone. 🙂 They didn’t.
I arrived back at the hotel around 6 PM and it was the end of my sightseeing. I later went out again, but did not visit the canal the next day, as I just wanted to sleep longer before returning to Europe. Did I miss something? I am not sure. Some people call the canal the most underwhelming “tourist attraction” in the world and I can understand why. Watching a ship going through the canal doesn’t seem to be very thrilling.
Nevertheless, it is one of the most complex constructions of all time, and therefore I didn’t want to reject the idea of visiting this site from the beginning. In the end, my exhaustion was too big.
Panama – is it worth a trip?
Panama is not a big country. Actually, it is just slightly bigger than my home country Switzerland. This gives the travelers the opportunity to see most of the country in a short period.
The attractions are varied from mountains, to beaches, cities and jungle. Therefore, yes, I think Panama offers enough attractions and is an interesting country to travel. Obviously, I can only comment on the capital city, but I enjoyed the two days in Panama City and don’t think that this was my last visit.
In the end, I didn’t do a lot of sightseeing in Panama, and that was OK. The more I travel the more I think that sightseeing is not always a must when abroad. Of course, there are amazing sights in the world that you can not miss, but I wasn’t sad because I haven’t seen the Panama Canal or other landmarks.
I will keep Panama in memory as a country, in which I had a good time and met crazy people. I guess that this makes a more interesting story than telling you how the ship crossed the canal. 🙂
Find the travel reports of the other countries I’ve visited here!
