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Published: August 15th 2006
Panama City is definitely much closer to the U.S. in terms of atmosphere etc. than Quito was. There are huge skyscrapers everywhere, and American brands and logos and ads. We found that in Quito as well, but not nearly to the same degree. Another major difference was pollution level - Panama City air smelled so clean! They have the same buses and trucks as in Ecuador that are clearly lacking any sort of pollution control device, bút there are much newer cars. I have never been to any big cities in Florida, but Josh says Panama City feels just like Miami. We got to Panama in the evening and took a taxi to the Casco Viejo (Old Town) to have dinner. It"s a neighborhood you"re warned not to go to after dark as a tourist unless you have a specific destination, and driving around in the taxi we sort of saw why - it"s probably fine, but it is definitely a poor neighborhood (and ironically the most beautiful part of the city) and didn"t feel hospitable to just strolling around. We got dropped off on a square we had heard you could people-watch over coffee at, and ended up eating there
Josh in the Plaza de la Catedral
Again apologies for the darkness!because it was so beautiful. We ended up having one of our best meals in Panama zet - slightly more expensive than we usually go for, but we couldn"t resist sitting in this square at night. It was a pretty trendy restaurant as evidenced by the name (Ego) so we figured it was a tourist trap, but we were the only foreigners there. We sat outside and had two kinds of carpaccio - beef and octopus - and Panamanian-style ceviche with
leche de tigre - which is the extremely tart and spicy broth they make the ceviche with. It was a perfect evening - perfect temperature, perfect setting, and then a couple of guys with guitars sat on a park bench and serenaded everyone.
The next day we went back to the Casco Viejo to walk around, and it was even more beautiful in the daytime. We were walking down a street when an official came up and asked us what country we were from - we said the U.S. so he waved us on. We had no idea at the time but we had crossed the boundary into the presidential palace zone, and for some reason made the
Josh in Casco Viejo alley
He looks a little shady but you can get a sense of what the buildings look like at least :) cut! Everyone else in the zone was wearing a pass around their neck. We got to walk right up to the equivalent of their White House - see cheesy photo of me in front of it. If you look closely you can see a few of the birds they keep inside the gate - herons, maybe? (Adam try to restrain yourself 😊 ) Anyway it was pretty cool!
We walked around some more and a couple of policemen on bikes rode up to us and started asking us where we were from, and told us what some of the buildings we were looking at were - so unbelievably nice! When they heard Josh was an urban planner they offered to take us to the planning office which is handling the renovations of the Casco Viejo, so we walked with them for a while until they were called to something more important. We ended up making our way over there - the office is housed in what used to be a prison about 500 years ago. The planners inside were incredibly nice and gave Josh some literature about the renovation process.
Then it was back to the hotel to
Josh in Plaza Bolivar
This is where we had dinner the night before, just to the right of the steps. pack up for our afternoon flight to Bocas del Toro, an archipelago on the Caribbean side of Panama, near Costa Rica. I actually had to fly on a tiny propeller plane, which is an experience I could have lived without 😊 It really wasm"t that bad, just a little bumpier than usual and a LOT louder. Look forward to photos from Bocas next! Definitely one of our favorite places on this trip.
Love,
Josh and Martina
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jim and estelle
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love the pics
the pictures are great, hope you have some opportunity to do some rain forest hikes. look forward to have you tell us all about it.