Category: Panama City

Panama City is a large metropolis strewn with skyscrapers and, on weekdays, is clogged to the hilt with terrible traffic. It has a history dating back to 1519 when none other than Spanish conquistador Pedro Arias Davila founded the city on August 15. The city was the starting point for expeditions that conquered the Inca Empire in Peru.

Obviously much has changed, but nothing brought more change and benefit to the country than the construction of the Panama Canal.

Over the years since the building of the canal, but also much more recently, in the past few decades or so, building and growth outweighed environmental concerns, so today there are no real beaches that are swimmable, with many areas polluted by untreated sewage. We’re told recently great effort has been put into sewage treatment, but the people are resigned to the fact that it was too little too late. This is according to our driver who took us on a drive and tour of the Panama Canal.

There isn’t much to really see and do in the city other than to visit the Miraflores lock on the canal, watch a good IMAX presentation on the history and construction of the canal, visit the Bridge of the Americas (one of three that cross the canal) and check out old town Casco Viejo.

Bridge to the Americas

Brought to you by: Guess who?

Casco Viejo, Old Town Panama

We booked five nights in the city, which was a little too long. We found it to be very expensive to eat out as everything is priced in USD.

We also found again that the vast majority of restaurants do not cater to English-speaking tourists. They do not have English menus and rarely does anyone on staff speak English, and on several occasions we were treated like they would rather not have to serve us. And this in a city that boasts itself as a major tourist destination.

Again, we do not expect people to speak English just because we do, but in an international financial hub and staying in the main hotel zone, one would think there might be a little effort shown towards us non-Spanish-speaking peons. We did, however, have some pretty good food.

In our opinion, spend as little time as possible in Panama City, have a plan to visit the San Blas Islands (more on this later), the Pearl Islands, Bocas del Toro or whatever you want to visit, but for us at least, the city didn’t offer much of interest to us.

Panama

Panama City, Panama. A Prelude

February 4, 2023

Our flight out of Cartagena departed at 9:36 am, so we arrived the required three hours in advance and proceeded to the BC check-in line. We were flying Business Class so we were in the shorter line, which was good because when we got to the counter the agent asked for proof of onward travel out of Panama. We explained that we were travelling to the San Blas Islands and then returning to Panama City before flying home, but we had not yet booked our return flight. She would not check us in without proof of onward travel.

This is only the second time this has ever happened to us in all of our travels, and no matter how hard we pleaded to just check us in and we’ll deal with it at the other end if need be, they wouldn’t budge.

So now we’re scrambling, but fortunately we arrived early, so we had time to feverishly find a flight, make sure it could be cancelled within 24 hours, pay and then wait to receive the email confirmation.

We proceeded back to the check-in counter. When the agent asked for proof of onward travel we showed her our flights. She didn’t ask to see who the passengers were or anything other than the most basic information. We could have just shown her a screenshot of any flight out of Panama.

So now we’re looking forward to the Business Class lounge where we can unwind a little, so we proceed through customs and immigration and security only to find out on the other end that there is no lounge.

We’re starving by this point, so we patiently wait in line at a tiny food kiosk stuck in the corner by the entrance to the public washrooms and purchase two café Americano and two ham and cheese sandwiches.

We did get to board before most of the other passengers but all that meant was we had to wait in the hot sun on the tarmac for 10 minutes longer than all the other suckers while waiting for the cleaning crew to finish.

The seats on our flight were comfortable, the cheesy or some other kind of flavoured crispy twists were superb and the coffee and orange juice, “naranka!” I was told is the correct pronunciation, were refreshing.

One hour later, welcome to Panama City.