Travel to Panama

For us, traveling around Panama is quite inexpensive. You can sleep in hostels for 10€ a night, and have your own room for 20€ (for two people). He food is not too pricy either, especially the markets. The currency is balboa, or the coins left of it, for they mostly use the US dollar.

It is very colourful, for many people are Mestizo (with native and European roots), descendants of Chinese, or natives, which are further divided in 5 groups. They are very proud of their culture and generally do not marry outside their community. The women are especially proud of their culture and even untrained eye can distinguish them by their typical clothing. This variety really enriches the culture of the whole country.

Panama City and the Panama Canal

Judy’s and my adventure began by haggling the price of a cab. When locals see a tourist, they automatically see a large dollar sign on their forehead. With time you get used to that and you get to know the price beforehand in order to try and get the real one. The taxi dropped us off at the hostel, but they didn’t have two beds for us, so they pointed us to a nearby pension. There we dropped off our things, got ourselves together and went off exploring. We came to the fancy part of the city with skyscrapers. It was strange to see that glamour, which did not fit into these surroundings. You can see all sorts of people on the street, dressed in business suits or traditional national outfits. Like said, this Little America was meant for the US investors. It seemed boarding, foreign and funny part of the land. Judy suggested we go into a bar for a beer but it was 6$ per person! It’s not so much even on Times Square so we started arguing with the waitress and owner, but had to pay in the end. Things like that happen often in this land. It took us a while to get over that beer. We were looking for the right way to out pension. We had a map, but the streets were not like the ones we were walking on. And nobody could point us the right way (not the business suits, not the folklore, not even drivers). The only way out was a cab, if you had enough money. One of them said, he could take us there and for a good price as well. We told him about what happened and how we got ripped off with the beer, so he took pity on us and took us there for free.

Next day we went exploring the old part of town, Casco Viejo. Here everything happens on the street from manicure and pedicure to cooking and haircuts.

And even though most tourists avoid the street food, we were first in lines to try specialities. Nothing special – just meat – but there in the crowd with many comments it gets a better taste.

The Panama Canal

When Panama was still part of Columbia the US wanted to make the canal and own it. Columbia turned them down, but the US got a different solution. US helped Panama become independent and in exchange got the right to build the canal and own it until 1999, when it became part of Panama. Traffic started through it in 1914 and it is made up of 3 ramps. The most famous are the Miraflores – closest to the Panama City.

Island Colon – beautiful colours under the sea

Here in Bocas is where all the happening is, for here you can board the small boats taking you on short trips. I went on one of them and was off snorkelling. I was amazed, what I found under the sea. The colourful sea sponges, corals as wide as trees, as tiny and toothpicks or the huge reefs that look like brains and gave them the name – marvellous. To top it off we went on a boat ride across the bay of dolphins and they started jumping in our waves! Next we were off to lunch and to see a few more sights.

If you see mostly mixed population in the largest settlement, the countryside is full of natives which live in a simple manner. Here you can also find the Ngobe Buglé.

The beaches are beautiful and the Bocas del Drago (beach of star-fish) is really famous. There’s a whole lot of them, really – not just a couple.

The island of San Blas – heaven on earth

Remember the desktop photo you could chose in WinXP? The lovely island with white sand and palm trees under a clear blue sky? I never thought I’d really see it, but here it was, part of the self-governed part of Panama Kuna Yala  as one of its 350 islands.

On larger islands (that are about a half hour walk “huge”) have communities of Kuna living on them. The houses have bamboo walls and women are dressed in beautiful blouses with mola and a skirt, which is a larger piece of cloth wrapped around the waist. Most women have a nose ring, short hair or wrapped into something. But when sun goes down, they are only in the bras.

Tourists never stay on such larger islands, but only on smaller ones with less people. Judy and I were on an island you could walk around in 7 minutes. It was called Naranjo chico (little orange) and a home to three families. All the houses were made of bamboo with a palme leave roof and sand for the floor. They cooked for us, and if we couldn’t wait, there were fresh coconuts.