The Big City life of Panama

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Big cities tend to be a total inundation of the senses - the sights, the sounds, the smells - maybe because I'm a fairly small-town person, it is especially overwhelming at times.  And Panama City has been no exception to that.

Since I have little traveling experience, I have little to compare Panama City to, and it's been an interesting mix.  The hostel where we are staying, Luna's Castle, is in the Casco Viejo neighborhood, which seems to be right on the cusp of good and bad areas.  We are situated almost right on the water, and from the balcony where many travellers gather in the evenings, there is an incredible view of the city, looking an eeriely amount like Gotham City at times.  Less that 4 blocks away is the president of Panama's house, which means this area is heavily patrolled by armed guards and police.  However, more than once, Jon and I have wondered a few blocks in the opposite direction, and have been warned by more than one concerned citizen that we will certainly be robbed if we continue.  We are always thankful for the advice.

A total inundation of the senses - a little overwhelming at times

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The city smells much like other large cities I have travelled overseas to:  the sweet-ish smell of rotting trash, fermenting fruit peels laying discarded in gutters, soda bottles littered in each abandoned building.  And of course the never ending smell of exhaust, which is the worst when riding the city buses and stuck in the chaotic traffic for hours.  Jon and I have spent a considerable amount of time on city buses, quite lost, and I'm sure my lungs are the worse for it.  But we have been enjoying our relaxed pace of travel, and our ability to not get too worked up when we spend an afternoon going in the complete opposite direction than we had planned.

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Our city bus disasters were in our attempts to make it up to the Miraflores Locks, which is the part of the Panama Canal that attracts the most visitors.  Although we had been warned by fellow 20-something backpackers that the locks were boring, we finally decided it was worth the taxi ride (we couldn't stand trying to navigate buses anymore) and the admission fee to check it out.

We weren't disappointed.  The locks are an incredible mechanical feat of man, and it's definately a must-see.  We had visited the Museo del Canal Interoceanico a few days earlier, so we had a good handle on the history and the workings of the Canal.  The museum is amazingly modern and well put together, situated in the restored building which once housed the French canal company over a hundred years ago.  Even though all the signs are in Spanish, my limited language knowlegde was enough for me to get the gist of most of the history.

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We have been doing a lot of exploring on foot, which makes my legs quite tired by the end of the day.  Two days ago, we walked around Panama Viejo, or the old, original city, which was destroyed when Captain Morgan sacked the town in 1671.  Although there is now a main road that goes right through the ruins, some of the ruins have been protected and there are very interesting signs interspersed along the gravel path, giving a great background to what you are looking at.

The food has been an experience in itself, and Jon and I have been trying to eat as much street food as we can!  We're always stopping for snacks from vendors, including fried plantains, hot dogs, fresh orange juice, tamales, grapes, pineapple, ham sandwiches, and lots of other wonderful treats.  The other day we walked down to the fish market, and bought ourselves an entire tuna to cook up.  The man at the market fillet-ed it for us, and on our way back to the hostel, we picked up a managerie of vegetables:  tomatos, eggplant, onions, peppers, garlic... We certainly feasted that night.

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For my birthday, we decided to go out for a nice dinner, and after getting stuck in a taxi in traffic for a half hour, we made it to Restaurante Beruit, a little Mediterranean place.  We decided to start with an appatizer sampler, and by the time we were finished with that, we had  no room for entrees!!  It was an amazing arrangement of different kinds of hummus and dipping sauces, complete with fresh pita, and was more than enough for our meals.  We topped it off with some baklava, before heading out to the Hotel Marriott's bar to watch the VP debates with a crew of expats.  It was crazy to be in this bar, (that felt very much like any Applebee's USA), with a bunch of Americans, watching the American debates.  (The debates ended up in a drinking game, with a cheers, and a "Steve Holt" style arm raise every time Joe Biden referenced himself.)  Back outside to call a cab, we were back in Central America.

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And so the summary of the senses may best give my impression of Panama City:  The amazing sights are endless, the colors of the buildings, of the water, of the vegetation, of the decked out city buses, of the molas.... beauty at every turn, even in the big city.  The smells are always interesting, the street food, the trash, the exhaust, the perfume that most Panamanians seem to wear... it's different around every corner.  The sounds are just like big city sounds anywhere, traffic, horns honking, music blaring out of apartments, women and men gossiping from the front doors... it certainly doesn't help my Spanish comprehension skills when I can't focus on one person's voice!  And just like taking advantage of travelling anywhere, the food is a never ending experiment in trying things, and then the anxious wait to see if it was something my stomach could handle.  As for touch... cities, in my opinion, aren't very cuddly or warm and fuzzy, however, the air is sticky and heavy, especially when the sun peeks out from the rain filled clouds, and the heat, even at night, is sweltering.  A cold soda or beer in the palm of your hand is a welcome respite, even if it is only cooling your hands.

All in all, Panama City has been a whirlwind of the senses, and as we leave tomorrow to head to the Highlands of Boquete on the Costa Rican border, I think it will be good to get out of the craziness for awhile, and head to the slower paced life of sipping coffee in the small cafes that are rumored to serve up an amazing cup of joe.