Panama City: A City of Contrasts

We arrived in Panama City at 3:30 a.m. Well, 4:30 a.m. local time, but it felt like 3:30 to us. I was full of Dramamine and stiff from sleeping on the bus for the past 17 hours (minus the 1.5 hours at the border and 1 hour for dinner). 

You know how you feel disoriented as you stumble to the bathroom in the middle of the night? That’s how I felt when we arrived at our destination: the Panama City Albrook Mall and Bus Terminal. I was thankful the Panamanian Balboa is interchangeable with the US Dollar, but not thankful that I had no idea what things cost. I also didn’t know where I was going or how I was going to get there. All I wanted to do was crawl into bed. 

Eventually, we grabbed a bus to the airport and then a taxi to our Airbnb room. Taking the bus to the airport first cut our taxi fare in half. 

We threw a load of laundry in the washing machine and slept. 

Panama City is pretty cool. 

It’s a bustling city that clearly has some money – primarily from the famous canal. A small neighborhood has been declared by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1997, not nearly enough time to restore all of the colonial buildings to their former grandeur. 

The contrast between rich and poor was pretty stark. 

I didn’t like that the city was spread out so much.

From the Metro Mall to the Albrook Mall is over 20 kilometers. It took us over 2 hours to get from our house to the Panama Canal.

Public transportation is pretty good, however. I was glad Martin decided to buy the Metro Card and put money on it in our early morning delirium; it made paying for bus rides a snap. The busses were extremely crowded, however, and sometimes we had to wait for several before we could squeeze ourselves onto it. I think the fares were generally $0.25 per person, which is significantly cheaper than the $5-$20 taxi fare. 

I also loved that instead of stray dogs, there were a plethora of stray cats. Martin made a friend. 

We visited the Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal.

They are the closest locks to the city. Unfortunately, because it took us so long to get there and we got a late start, we only ended up with an hour at the locks before they closed at 5 p.m. Martin could have easily spent another hour there. I thought the museum was pretty interesting too. 

After only two nights in Panama City, we suddenly found ourselves standing at a bus stop waiting for the 5 a.m. bus to bring us to the airport. Panama deserves more time than we were able to give it. Maybe we’ll be able to go back some day.