Panama

The format of the blog is going to change slightly. Previously we've broken the blog down by place or area of a country, but as we are now traveling at a fairly rapid pace, we're going to break the blog down to a single post for each country, the first one being Panama.

Our arrival in Panama City took us aback. Skyscrapers, what were these? All the other major cities we had visited in South America looked nothing like this. We expected an American influence on the city for obvious reasons, but this was crazy, KFC, Baskin Robins, McDonalds, huge shopping malls etc etc. We were very disappointed, this was like being in the US. In some ways it was nice, but it was not what we had come to Panama to see. Fortunately as we made our way towards our hostel it became a lot less like North America and much more like South America, none of those pristine buildings, but more older worn buildings with much more character, like we were used to.

We arrived in the city just in time to go for an hour's walk about to get our bearings. We managed to make it down to the water front and have a saunter around a pleasant park. It was enough to make us realise just how much construction is going on in the city, building sites everywhere, in 5 to 10 years time it will be a very different city.

Our first full day in the capital and we were going to have a wander into the built up and Amercianised part of the city, out of interest more than anything, to see how the Panamaian people lived in these American surroundings. The first difference was obvious, during our travels we had never seen so many over weight people, the fast food lifestyle was obviously having it's affect on the health of the nation. But it was a nice area, very clean and quite refreshing to be in more western surroundings.

We got stuck inside one of the cities main shopping malls due to a huge rain shower that lasted for about two hours! From here we walked the entire length of the water front, which took a couple of hours, to an area of the city called Casco Viejo. A complete contrast to the CBD, this area of the city is the spanish colonial area, with stunning buildings and churches that reminded us a little of Havana. This had been a pretty long and tiring day, so we made our way back to the hostel for a couple of beers and a rest.

The next day we trotted out of the city to one of the main attractions in the country, the Panama Canal. We went to the Miraflores Lock, where there was a museum as well as a great platform from where you could watch the ships passing through. We arrived at 11am and the next ship was not going through the lock until 2pm, so we had plenty of time to have a walk around the muesum and have lunch.

The first ship started its approach to the locks ahead of schedule at 1pm. It was quite a sight; it was a car carrier from Japan, which was huge. We were close enough to the ship to see the expessions on the faces of the people aboard. This was impressive, but in the distance we could see a cruise liner, and we knew we had to wait to see that. After about an hour the liner was approaching and it was quickly upon us. The size of it was impressive, height and length. It came to a stop in the locks and began to lower. After the ship had floated past we made our way back to the city. It had been a great day and we were both pleased we had got to see the world famous sight.

Our next stop in Panama would be a tiny little mountain town called Santa Fe. Completely the opposite to Panama City, Santa Fe has a population of about 2000 people and is nestled in the Central Highlands of Panama. There is only one hostel in the town, which is ran by a Belgium/Argentine couple, and it is pretty new. It was stunning and had a wonderful balcony that overlooked the valley. It was the perfect place to spend a couple of days doing a lot of nothing.

The weather in this part of Panama is unpredictable and as it is the rainy season at the moment you could never tell when the next big storm was coming. We had heard of a good trail that was only about a three hour walk and went up to a great point that afforded views of across the valley.

Unfortuantely an hour into the walk the heavens opened and the rain started, it was a torrent and we got completely soaked, it was like standing in a shower. We waiting for 20 minutes to see if we could see any improvement but the rain just persisted. We decided to turn back and make our way back to the hostel, but by this point the dirt road we had climbed had turned into part river, part clay-mud bath. When we got back we both took hot showers, scrapped off the inches of mud which had glued itself to us, and just layed in the hammocks overlooking the valley and reading, so the rest of the day was very pleasant.

From Santa Fe we travelled to another mountain town called Boquete. Boquete is famed for being not only beautiful but a popular place for US and Canadian retirees to come and live, so we didn't really know what to expect. When we arrived in the town, we couldn't see a lot as the cloud was low and the rain was falling. We spent the evening chatting to two lovely couples in our hostel who were from Belgium and Sweden. We learnt from them that the weather in Boquete was usually pretty good in the mornings and bad in the afternoon, so we made a plan to get up fairly early and make the most of the good weather.

As predicted the next morning the sun was shining, and after making breakfast we went out for a few hours of walking in the hills around town. We had made a conscious decision that our time in Central America would be much less strenuous than South America, so we would not be pushing ourselves to much. A pleasant walk up the hills around town rewarded us with some great views and it was really nice to be able to get the chance to experience the Panama countryside. As regular as clockwork the grey clouds and rain rolled in during the afternoon.

The following day we decided to move on and travel north to an area of the country called Bocas Del Toro. This is beach resort made up of several small islands and is one of the most popular traveler destination in the whole of Central America. The drive from Boquete was around four hours and it was an absolutely stunning one, winding up and down the central highlands of Panama through mountains covered in rainforest.
We eventually arrived in Bocas where we needed to catch a boat across to Isla Colon, the island where we would be stopping. It was very pretty and the area was made up largely of mangroves with houses on wooden stilts perched out over the water. After 45 minutes on the boat we eventually arrived at Isla Colon and as soon as we got off the boat we were instantly approached by people trying to get us to stay in various hostels. One thing for sure, Isla Colon is not a cheap place for people like us with empty wallets. Not just accomodation but also food, it was much more expensive than South America and we knew our budget was going to be in for a battering.

The following day we arose to heavy rain storms with thunder and lightning. We considered our options. We came to Bocas for a few days on the beach, but the weather was poor and forecast not to get much better, and considering the high cost of everything, we decided to leave Bocas and head over the border to Costa Rica. So, we jumped on the boat back to the mainland and headed for the border.