Day 1: We arrived at 5am and headed to the historic district
of
Casco Viejo to find a hostel and get some more sleep before heading out to
explore the city. We ended up at
Hotel Casco Antiguo, which happens to be the
oldest hotel in Panama City. It is currently being restored, but it is a
beautiful old building with gorgeous tiles lining the walls of the foyer. This
hotel actually used to be the resting place of the the Panama Canal workers. After
waking up from hours of much needed sleep, we headed over to the famous Café Coca
Cola for a café con leche and some food. An old guy staying at our hotel told
us that this Café has been opened since 1875 and that Fidel Castro and Che Guevara
used to meet here while planning the Cuban Revolution. For later in the night,
we made reservations to see the play “The God of Carnage” at one of the
theaters in town. Before seeing the show, we went to the banking district,
Congrejal, to have a bite to eat before heading to the show. After dinner we
asked multiple people and cab drivers how to get to the theater and nobody
knew, so we took the next best option and headed to the local mall to shop
around and catch the new Wall Street that just came out.
Day 2: We started our day with another delicious meal at Café
Coca Cola. As you’ll see, this is a very common theme of our stay in the city. There are three
islands off the coast that are all connected to the mainland by the Causeway
that runs between the three. Midday we strapped on our running shoes and caught
a cab over to the entrance of the Causeway. We ran from the start all the way
out to the beginning of the second island. Views of the city are amazing from
this stretch of road and it’s a cool feeling to have water splashing on either
side of the road. After our run, we showered up and walked around our
neighborhood and found a nice spot for a bucket of beers, pizza and a salad.
Day 3: After sleeping late and missing our hotel’s free
breakfast AGAIN, we hit up our favorite breakfast spot, Coca Cola, for the 3rd
time in 3 days. Afterwards, we went downtown to walk around in the midst of all
the giant buildings. Panama City is under extreme development right now. I’ve
never seen a city with so many new buildings going up. We wandered around for
hours stopping at the town’s popular sushi chain, a grocery store, a pharmacy, a
mall for a watch battery and Niko’s for a cappuccino. It was finally time to
see the Canal, so we waved down a taxi and were on our way! We went to the
Miraflores Locks and got to see 3 ships pass through the locks. It’s really an
amazing sight to see how huge the boats are and what an incredible system has
been developed here. We watched a movie that told about the plans to increase the
size of the canal by building a third set of locks and found out that just last
month the one millionth boat made it through the Canal. We were surprised by
the fact that boats pay up to $240,000 to pass through the Canal!
To celebrate our day, we decided to go to Calle Uruguay for
dinner and drinks. This strip is compared to South Beach in Miami for the
number of restaurants and bars that it has to offer. Panama City itself is
sometimes known as the Miami of the South, except that more English is spoken
here... Lol. Being a weeknight the strip wasn’t too crazy, but we got some good seafood and afterwards
headed to a Middle Eastern style bar, Habibi’s, for mango hookah and a pitcher
of sangria.
Day 4: This is the day that we realized how hot and humid it
is in Panama City! After breakfast, we walked out to Balboa Avenue that is the
strip of the highway that connects Casco Viejo to the current downtown Panama.
There are biking/jogging paths right in between this road and the water. In the
evening there are lots of people that exercise here, but the keyword is
evening! At noon, we were the only two people out running in the blazing sun
and 90% humidity. 24 minutes later we decided that there was a reason we were
the only ones out running and slowed our pace for our walk back to the hotel.
Reading through the Lonely Planet, I found a spot that puts
on traditional Panamanian folk dancing shows three times a week. After a little
persuading, I got Brett to agree to go. The place is called Restaurante-Bar
Tinajas and it has a large room set up with dining tables where you can have
dinner and drinks while watching the show. Even on a Tuesday night, the place
was filled to the brim and had a very festive atmosphere. The dancers had beautiful costumes, even dragon masks during one part, and put on a great show.
Day 5: After the run on Balboa Avenue the day before, Brett
and I decided to check the gyms the city had to offer. First place we stopped
at wanted to charge $20 dollars per person to let us work out. This was
obviously out of the question, seeing how we don’t pay this much back at home
for one month! Before giving up, we went to one other gym. Brett came up with a
story about how we had just moved to Panama City and were trying out different
gyms in the area, hoping they’d let us try it out for free. It worked! We got a
tour of the gym and a free trial!
In the afternoon we took a walk around the entire Casco
Viejo neighborhood. The president lives in this neighborhood so we went to see
his house and even got a glimpse of him in the entry way! This area is located
on a peninsula, so from the very tip you can the city’s skyline to one side and
the Causeway and boats leaving the Canal to the other. The neighborhood is
filled with the colonial style buildings and the area is undergoing extensive rehabilitation,
so right next to a crumbling apartment building you’ll find a completely
restored mansion. An odd mix, but this area definitely has huge potential!
We closed out the night with Robert Rodriguez’s new flick “Machete.”
Although it was slightly disturbing at times, but a great movie and I highly
recommend it. The fact that the majority of it was filmed in Austin, TX made me
very homesick. It is cool that this is his second movie in a row to be filmed in Austin, though!
Our last day: Once again we’ve started our day at Café Coca
Cola. Haha… We have plans to check out the Contemporary Art museum and tonight
we’re going to make another attempt at seeing “The God of Carnage.” It will
probably help that we have directions this time! Early tomorrow morning we are
taking the train over to the Caribbean coast where we will catch our sailboat
for Cartagena, Colombia. We have been looking forward to this sailboat ride
since the beginning of our trip, so we are getting very excited! Thanks for
reading! I miss all of you very much and hope everyone is doing well.
On an unrelated note, here are links to our 2 most recent youtube videos (due to slow bandwidth speeds, it's hard to get them up quickly.)
Driving Through Flood in Costa Rica Beautiful Garden in Boquete
