Advertisement
Published: July 11th 2010
Edit Blog Post
About an hour from David, on the return journey, I stopped at a hostel called The Lost and Found, in order to break up the long journey to Panama City. I was immediately impressed by what the two Canadian owners have created. The hostel is isolated in the midst of a large cloud forest national park with excellent walking and nature spotting. Aside from the beautiful location they have essential created an interesting attraction in the middle of nowhere with many things to do and even it's own book. They also put out food for the Kinkajous (Honey Bears) and other nocturnal mammals so they come to the hostel in the evenings. It's well worth a stop if you're travelling to Bocas.
Late the follow evening I arrived in Panama City. Thanks to the canal and it's location as a gateway between South and Central America, it's the most affluent of the Central American cities with many new skyscrapers, malls, casinos, bars and clubs. The economy appears to be doing well and many foreign investors, Donald Trump included, are flocking to construct even more skyscrapers. The backpacker scene is also thriving, being a transit point to Colombia, San Blas islands,
and Costa Rica. The city is notably safer than most Latin American cities but the safer and richer neighbourhoods are still surrounded by areas of extreme poverty. Those lured in to a false sense of security and walk through these neighbourhoods still regularly fall victim to muggings.
Due to the low sales tax, it's a good place for shopping so I bought a new camera. I met up with some couch surfers (Lineth, Venicio, Claudia) for drinks the night after I arrived. The next day Claudia took me to Casco Viejo (the old town) and also to another couch surfer's, Edith, flash apartment to use her pool. I went with Lineth and Claudia to a salsa lesson that evening, but it was very difficult to follow as what little explanation the instructor gave was in very rapid Spanish. I then stayed with Venicio for two nights.
I also visited Panama Viejo, the original old city is situated a little North of the new city and was repeated sacked by pirates. It was finally pretty much destroyed by the pirate Henry Morgan and the Spanish moved it to a less prone position. All that is remains is some ruins,
which are interesting but you have to use your imagination to picture what it was actually like at the time.
One evening I met up with another couch surfer, Adriana, and a group of her friends and we went for pizza (the best I've had in Central America) and then to a karaoke bar. Latino karaoke is somewhat different to English karaoke: pretty much everyone could sing reasonably well and they even had percussion for people to play along. Most of the music was salsa songs or Spanish ballads. The singing was interspersed with Reggaeton to which we all danced and Adriana and I danced salsa to some of the songs. All in all a very lively evening with a great crowd of friendly and beautiful people.
On my final day in the city I met two more couch surfers, Nadia and Luis, for lunch at a very tasty traditional restaurant and then they took me to visit the canal at Miraflores lock. The scale of the canal is pretty impressive and we saw a couple of huge tankers pass through.
Aside from the two nights at Venicio's place, I stayed at Mamallena hostel who also arranged
my sailing trip to Colombia from the San Blas islands and the transport there. I stayed in the hostel the final night ready for the 5am start to San Blas...
Advertisement
Tot: 0.109s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 8; qc: 52; dbt: 0.0572s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb