Panama City

Welcome to Panama

Country Number 9 on our big adventure

Day 1: 27/11/2018

After a tearful goodbye to Mum and Dad yesterday afternoon we have arrived in the multicultural hub that is Panama City. Driving in to the city from the airport and seeing all the skyscrapers last night was amazing, especially after the Galapagos. We are staying at the Saba Hotel in Downtown. We have the biggest bed I have ever seen, it is so big sometimes I forget that I am sharing it with Louise.

This morning we started our time in Panama City with a mammoth sleep in followed by brunch at a local institution called Costa Azul Dinner. We had the most massive stack of pancakes and bacon each with milkshakes. Not the healthiest start to the morning but it was so good!

In the afternoon we headed out to the Biomuseum, which was so cool. I had no idea that Panama had only formed a few million years ago. It created a land bridge between the Northern and Southern Continents. This lead to migration of species, both flora and fauna, and also is believed to have caused the ice age by the change of the sea currents. This can also be atributed to the existance of man kind. Amazing to think that so much of our world can be traced back to the formation of one country. We also learnt that due to the yearly migrations, Panama is one of the most Bio Diverse Countries in the world! The Biomuesum is also the only Frank Gehry design building in Latin America. It is at the start of the Panama Canal and we could see the beginning of the locks that we will be visiting later in the week.

Day 2: 28/11/2018

Today is Independence (from Spain) Day in Panama, Independence from Greater Colombia is on the 33rd of November, so we are heading down to Casa Antigua this today, the Colonial part of the city. We grabbed some coffee from a local spot befor walking around the Cinta Costera Walkway. The coffee here is so good, locally grown beans and well made, it is some of the better coffee we have had on this trip.

The Cinta Costera Walkway was fabulous and provided great views of the sky scrapers of the downtown Panama City Skyline, and also of Casa Antigua, however by the time we started on the 5km walk at 11am it was excructiatingly hot! There was no shade and very little breeze. Once we had finished the walkway we headed straight to a cafe for an air conditioned lunch and iced coffee before having a further explore of the neighbourhood. It is very pretty and reminds us a lot of Cartegnea, which makes sense as they would have been settled by the Spanish around the same time. We found a few markets to investigate and I found a new cat to be friends with.

Day 3: 29/11/2018

Today we are heading to the Panama Canal!

We are going to the Miraflores Visitor Centre on the Miraflores Panama Canal Lock. If you are ever heading to Panama and want to check out the Panama Canal, don’t bother paying a lot of money for a tour, you can catch a taxi or uber for very cheap to the Miraflores Visitor Centre and be right on the Lock. The Centre has a 4 level museum where we learnt about the history of the lock. From its inception by the French, to the completion by the Americans once Panama had gained independence from Greater Colombia, to being reclaimed by the Panamanians and finally the expansion of the Canal which finished in 2016. It also talked about the conservation of the wildlife and environment around the Canal.

Once we had finished going through the Museum it was just in time to see the start of the boats travelling from the Atlantic to the Pacific. We watched the boats travel through the Lock for a couple of hours before heading off. Another tip is pack your own lunch. The boats start coming through around 2.30pm and you should be there earky to get a good spot. There are cafes at the Visitor Centre but they are super expensive, even for Panama City standards.

We finished off our day with a trip to Albrook Mall to check out some of the Christmas Shopping. It is the biggest mall in Panama and was seriously massive. We even grabbed dinner in the mall, a lovely bowl of Ramen. The first Japanese food we have had in months and it was so good!

Day 4: 30/11/2018

Day 4 in Panama City and we are heading back down to the Biomuseum to walk the Amador Causeway down to Naos and Flamenco Islands. The original plan had been to spend the whole day down there but when we got there nothing was open so we headed back to Casa Antigua for the rest of the afternoon. The Amador Causeway was just as pretty as the Cinta Costera but even though we made an early start it was 30 degrees with 80% humidity by 9.30am so we were dying on the Causeway which had no shade.

A pretty cruisy day of shopping and picnic lunches for us today. Hard to believe that it is December tomorrow. Though Panama definitely seems to know that it is almost the month of Christmas as there are decorations going up everywhere.

Day 5: 01/12/2018

Welcome to Christmas! Overnight the whole town has exploded with Christmas decorations. There are massive tinsel statues up in all the parks and on all the trees.

We spent our last day in Panama walking up Cerro Ancon (where we almost died in the heat) to see the views over the whole city from the top. Followed by another stack of Pancakes for lunch at Costa Azul and then spent the afternoon walking along the waterfront and through the parks of downtown drinking iced coffees and enjoying the sunshine.

Tomorrow we head to Mexico to start back up with proper travelling life. This week in Panama has been an amazing chill out week but I am excited to get back into fast paced travelling life.