Day 1 - Arrive in Panama

 

Our trip begins in Panama City. We arrive at the airport and are greeted by a man in an orange shirt. He tells us to sit down at this waiting area as we assumed he went off to fetch others. We get into the van and take off. The driver is alternating between wearing a seat-belt and being ballsy. This goes back and forth about every 2 minutes for the entire ride. We drive past the slums of Panama City where it seems like every household, no matter how deep below the poverty line, still manages to affix a satellite dish to their roof.

We arrive at our first destination: Costa Inn Hotel. For those looking for travel recommendations, the hotel is located on Calle 39 and Peru. The room has a small shower, no TV remote to be found, and sports on TV all day long if you have no qualms with Spanish announcers. We wonder if Panamanians really enjoy watching college basketball? We decide it's time for a nap but we can't figure out how to work the A/C.

We decided to spend the first afternoon in Casco Viejo (the old city) and opted for the suggested 20-min walk to get there which turned out to be more like an hour across Ave Balboa. We see some nice views of the downtown skyline. Idan observes that Panamanians look like a mix between Mexicans and Caribbeans. We walk through some shady streets on the way there and decide that we will be taking a cab back for sure after nightfall. For a solid 30 minutes we were the only tourists to be seen in the "don't walk at night" part of town. We eventually reach the restored area of Casco Viejo and found a restaurant to sit at for dinner.  Overall, we really liked Casco Viejo. We read about a sandwich place that looked really delicious from outside but it was closed by the time we got there at 6 PM.





On the way home, we took a cab as planned. The driver asked us (in Spanish) how much we wanted to pay him. Either we misunderstood, or the cab fare is more negotiable than we expected. Cabs within Panama City should be no more than $2 (yes, the official currency there is the good ol' US Dollar).