To Panama City and back…. Wednesday, 25/01/2023
Had a successful trip down to Panama City. Left on Friday morning, relying on local buses to travel the 120 kilometres (75 miles) there. Took just over 3 hours, not bad considering the roads and a fair amount of traffic – in fact people in the marina who’ve done the trip by taxi have taken 3 hours – and my cost was $5.65 against their $110!). And it’s interesting to see ordinary people going about their life on the bus. I was the only foreigner on the trip down; coming back there was a young American guy who’s bussing through Central America – he approached me when we changed buses and it turned out he was going to Porto Lindo, only 10 minutes’ walk down the road from the marina. So I was able to make sure he got on the right bus, and he was an interesting guy to talk to.
Fortunately the trip worked exactly as planned. I had been pretty careful about location when booking a hotel. Basically the areas closer to the sea are a lot better than those further from it. I stayed in the northern part of a pretty central area called Calidonia, which borders on Bella Vista where there are a number of upmarket hotels: the Waldorf Astoria, Hilton etc. This proved spot on. The southwestern part of Calidonia was rough – I walked through it in daytime and it was not the sort of area you’d want to walk at night – but the area around my hotel was absolutely fine. I went out every night for four nights and had absolutely no problems. A lot of tourists get caught – they book a perfectly nice looking hotel, only to discover that they have to take taxis when going out at night, and sometimes even in the daytime too.
Panama City is a pleasant place, but nothing fascinating. It reminds me of a small version of Singapore – and it is certainly that in the context of Central America, very much the capital of the region. There’s a large banking industry (still engaged in much shadowy business it seems) and the good areas are first world – lots of modern luxury apartment blocks, excellent shopping malls, a great variety of restaurants. The good areas are well maintained – extremely well, in fact (although the poor areas of town are awful!).
As a result, it’s a comfortable place to spend a few days. It was handy for me, because I could buy a number of food items that I would never get up here on the coast, plus I bought trainers and a few shirts etc. I took a second rucksack inside my main one, so that coming back I had two well-stuffed rucksacks!
The city has an old town, which is attractive – the architecture is similar to that in Cartagena, but the size of the area is considerably smaller (if you wanted to see coastal Spanish colonial architecture, you would just go to Cartagena). I did enjoy the variety of food, which was a change from my perfectly decent but relatively limited diet up on the Caribbean coast. Over the four nights I had Lebanese, Panamanian streetfood, Mexican and Cuban. The Cuban was the best, followed by the Mexican… As usual I walked a lot – it’s the best way to get a feel for a place – although I also took the metro (underground rail) a few times. This is impressive: the only metro system in Central America, all very new and air conditioned – and a journey costs only 35 US cents (compared to the cost of say a zone 1 contactless ride in London, which is £2.50, at today’s exchange rate $3.10. Making 35 cents quite extraordinary!).
So it was a successful trip and a pleasant change from the marina. But nothing special. Now, I have made a habit of not relating anybody else’s doings, but this time I shall break that rule… My daughter Anna is currently in Pakistan, on a work trip. After three days in Islamabad she has been down in Hyderabad, from where she travelled today to Water Aid’s water and sanitation project in a couple of villages in eastern Sindh province, which borders the Indian state of Gujarat. Needless to say, she has been having an absolutely fascinating time, leading me to feel “very stay-at-home”! We were communicating by WhatsApp today and after relating the day she had had (including travel in a bullock cart) she kindly asked what I’d been up to. My answer? Doing some washing! That felt very sad indeed!!!