There's not much drama to share over the past two days, but we are now in Panama City and have been surprised by a few of it's features: 1} It smells. This really shouldn't surprise us, since it's a huge city swarming with people, but the occasional aroma of fish and cadavers is unpleasant. 2} As opposed to every single other place in Central America that has stray dogs loitering the streets, Panama City has cats. Cats on picnic tables, cats in hostels, and there was even a cat in the church we walked in yesterday. 3} Cars actually stop to allow pedestrians to cross the street. This is a first since traveling.
How we got here: Wednesday, stood on the side of the road in El Valle for 10 minutes before a mini bus pulled up with Panama written on the front. Just over two hours later, we drove over the canal which wasn't too impressive, but to be fair, it's not so much the canal we saw as just where the canal water meets the Pacific. Our bus terminated at a large shopping plaza, equipped with KFC and Pizza Hut. We purchased a $2 card that is required to use the metro and flagged down a taxi to take us to the rocky Península of Casco Viejo.
During construction of the canal, the neighborhood of Casco Viejo was the entirety of Panama City. Shortly after completion, the wealthy moved out and the neighborhood was deserted. It has since been renovated and is making a strong comeback. Described as half crumbling and half high-end, it's cobblestone streets pass by boutique hotels followed by ruins. We found lodging at Hospedaje Casco Viejo, small rooms with minimal character. For $28/night, we continue to find accommodations in Panama are higher than expected.
Although Casco Viejo is much more charming than the more urban neighborhoods, we discovered there aren't many cheap food options near-by. At a local kitchen a short distance away, we were served large plates full of food for a very fair price of $4 total. This makes us happy and helps offset the costly hostel prices. We experienced the same struggles while looking for dinner later that evening. We strolled past fancy restaurants, even asked prices at a food cart stand ($5 for a hamburger and $3 for a hot dog, which doesn't seem like a good value) and then hit jackpot with $0.60 empañadas. Four were eaten while sitting in a plaza, fancy restaurant tables ten feet away, and two cats praying we'd drop a scrap. As we ate and admired the beautiful building in front of us, Micah stated he wasn't sure he could live in a town that doesn't have convenience stores and cheap food on street corners.
Empañadas by street light
Thursday morning began with toast and bananas, featured as Hospedaje Casco Viejo's complimentary breakfast. After breakfast, we set out towards Luna's Castle, a popular backpackers hostel a few blocks away, that had advertised trips to San Blas. Luckily, we did our research and realized they charged $8/person more for transportation, and possibly more for accommodations than others. Our walk continued across Panama City, with a quick jaunt through the Mercado de Mariscos (fish market), a disappointing stop in the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, and eventually to Hostel Mamallena. Far from the Casco Viejo neighborhood, located in the working class center of neighborhood Caledonia, this was another hostel we found that organizes trips to San Blas. Content that our long walk in the heat paid off, we booked the trip for Saturday, booked a room for Friday night to make the 5:30am departure time more tolerable, and began our return walk.
Lunch was fresh ceviche from the fish market as we strolled back through. Per usual, lunch led to a discussion of what we would do for dinner. Unsure how stocked our kitchen was and what restaurant options were left, we picked up some typical food for take out before returning to our hostal. Hours later, the take out food was a good choice that we feasted on for dinner, after relaxing for the afternoon and plugging more numbers into our app and making some sweet pie charts.
This morning, Friday, after our free bread and bananas, we checked out and began our walk from Casco Viejo to Caledonia. Fifteen minutes later we were standing in front of a large map of the subway system, our small map in hand, confused while dripping in sweat and heavy bags. Took less than two minutes before a lady our age asked where we were going and kindly informed us we were in the bus transit center, not the metro. We walked one block further and then hopped on the clean, well marked subway for a short ride two stops away. I personally love riding subways and could have probably spent the afternoon there; I'm not sure if it's the people watching or that it reminds me of the first time I rode an underground train in Boston, but there's something magical about it.
A couple wrong turns later and we were in our new room. We left quickly after to find a cheap lunch spot, dodging in and out of department stores that line the streets, and into a grocery store to pick up items to supplement us the next few days. Rumor has it that on the islands, the meals are small (3 meals/day are included with the lodging) and the few items available for purchase are expensive.
Our belongings are now separated in to two piles; the smaller one containing almost exclusively swimsuits, sunscreen and books will go with us tomorrow, the other will stay. The morning will come quickly, and I've heard the drive to Carti can take anywhere from 2-7 hours, depending on a number of circumstances. The boat ride can be pretty rough, and most likely we'll get drenched. We've heard everything from stellar reviews to disappointing experiences of our reserved lodging. At this point, I think we're as curious as we are excited about the next few days of complete solitude on a barren island. Should be quite the adventure.
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