Roaming Panama City on Foot

We dropped our backpacks in our room at Hotel Marparaiso and stepped out into the heat of the city streets. Even with the humidity, it wasn’t all that oppressive considering it was overcast as the afternoon rains were slowly making their way in. Plus, being from Florida, 90 degrees and 100% humidity are nothing new.
I left my camera in the hotel room only because it is the city and I didn’t want to draw any more attention to ourselves than my blond-haired, pale-skinned self already would.
We decided to head down to the waterfront, which we could see from our hotel. Along the way, we passed by the hospital where many people stood outside on the cracked cement assumingly waiting for some medical treatment.
There was also a small market selling plates of food with names I did not recognize. The smells weren’t inviting enough to tempt me to stop.
We walked along the waterfront for a bit but our attention was more on the busy road that runs parallel with the water. Its three lanes of traffic in each direction were full of public buses crammed with bodies, little cars going crazy speeds, and lots of horn honking. And the smell of diesel was overpowering. It made me crave fresh air.
We left the waterfront and headed up past the hotel where we stopped in a small, dimly lit grocery and purchased a Pepsi for 30 cents. Most, if not all, of the colas come in glass bottles which the clerk will open for you.
We were both surprised to find that the Pepsi did not taste like Pepsi at home. There was definitely a different sweetener added.
We did find a Domino’s Pizza and a McDonald’s, and each had small motorbikes parked outside with huge metal boxes on the back for delivery. How funny that you can order a Big Mac and have it delivered to your home.
It was 3 or 4 in the afternoon and a lot of places were closed, maybe because it was Saturday. Although later that night from our hotel window, I did notice that some businesses that posted closed signs during the day, opened in the evening. Maybe they take an afternoon siesta.
If that’s the case, America can take a lesson from Panama.

Hotel Marparaiso in Panama City

I found Hotel Marparaiso on the web. It looked friendly enough, as friendly as any city hotel can look on the Internet, and for $33 a night I decided to take the chance.
This seven-story, yellow building with Hotel Marparaiso painted in red on its side, rests at the corner of Avenida Cuba and Calle 34, just two blocks from the waterfront, but not a very picturesque waterfront.
The girl who checked us in spoke English, explaining what time breakfast was available in the adjacent restaurant as well as providing us with remotes for our room air-conditioner and TV.
The hotel’s website says it offers secured parking for up to 50 cars but when we asked she said parking on the street was fine. All we could do was cross our fingers and hope that our car survived the night.
We headed up to #108 with our funny looking key and found two beds (one twin, one double), a private bath with a hot-water shower, and a TV mounted in the corner. It was almost hospital-like with its drab white walls and white tile floors, but it was clean and had a large window overlooking the city streets. Plus there was a deadbolt on the door.

Knowing the parents were worried, we immediately headed back downstairs to use the computer. A small room off the lobby has three computers where you just insert a dollar and get one hour of Internet usage. We emailed everyone letting them know we had arrived safely at our hotel and that the city was well … just that, a city.
We spent the evening watching “Die Hard” in English with Spanish subtitles. Very funny!
After a few hours, it became apparent that our air-conditioner was leaking so we expressed our concern to the girl at the front desk who hollered (literally) for the maintenance guy. He immediately came up to our room, inspected the unit, and, for a temporary solution, placed a bucket underneath it. He also gave us fresh towels since we had used ours to soak up the water on the floor. We were impressed with the quick attention. We grabbed a quick bite in the restaurant downstairs, which was empty for the most part but take-out orders were flying out the door. The menu was at least 10 pages long. It was huge! We split a club sandwich and called it a night.
The next morning we headed back down the restaurant to claim our free breakfast with our two poker chips given to us during check-in. The two poker chips entitled us to two rolls each (not heated) with butter and grape jelly, a small glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, and coffee with milk. We were there when they opened at 7:30 a.m., took our free meal, and checked out.
More importantly, we were happy to find our little Lancer, still in one piece, waiting for us just outside.

Surviving our first few hours in Panama

We arrived with empty stomachs at Panama’s Tocumen International Airport around 2 p.m. on a Saturday and decided to grab a bite to eat before heading out into the unknown.
Things you should know about Tocumen:

• Very nice, bright, and modern facility
• Tons of places to duty-free shop for jewelry, liquor, cosmetics, even candy at the M&M store
• Few choices for food: a hot dog cart and a sit-down place aptly named Cafeteria

We chose to sit down.
While not huge, the menu was varied, and we each ordered a pizza. The prices were moderate at $7 a pizza, but we were in the airport so we knew we wouldn’t be getting any deals. Overall, the pizzas were large, very cheesy, and very tasty, and our service was fast, making the Cafeteria a good stop.
We then headed downstairs to Immigration, where Wes bought our tourist cards for $5 a piece while I waited to get a stamp on our passports. Then it was off to Budget to retrieve our car. The car rental companies all conveniently have desks within the airport.
The attendant was not fast by any means but he was courteous and we were soon sitting in our four-door, automatic Mitsubishi Lancer, which my six-foot, five-inch husband crammed himself into.
We were required by law to purchase two forms of insurance, plus we purchased the additional tire and windshield insurance bringing our total cost for the week to $294.
As we started to pull away, we were approached by an officer inquiring who we rented the car from and how long we were renting it for, which he noted on his clipboard and then sent us on our way.
Our navigation system found our hotel in Panama City and we were off following the signs to Panama Centro.
Some things to be aware of on the roads:

• Lots of people running across the highways. These people were literally running across two lanes of traffic, climbing over the cement divider, and continuing on to the other side. It was crazy!
• Tolls along the way with hardly any signage alerting you. Two tolls going into the city cost us $1.40 and $1.50. No big deal, they just came upon us without any warning.
  The skyline of the city as we came in across the water was breathtaking, but then again I think any city skyline is impressive from afar. It’s when you get into the city that the view turns sour.

Driving along the city streets we only hit two snags:

• A build-up of traffic in front of the Hard Rock Café, which was scary because buses and taxis were dropping off and picking up, and traffic, including us, was trying to squeeze by in the remaining lanes. Needless to say, there was a lot of honking going on and no blinkers being used.
• Turning the wrong way on a one-way street. Thankfully there were only two cars coming at us and my husband expertly stayed off to the far side before turning onto a side street.

Happy to see our hotel, we parked, checked in, and flopped down on the beds for a breather.

Panama City lessons learned

Here are some things I learned about Panama City.

1. Do make hotel reservations. The city itself is a popular destination place year round and it can be very difficult to find a room. Plan ahead.


2. Ask for a room toward the interior of the hotel. Like any city, it comes alive at night and you'll suffer with the noise till the wee hours of the morning unless you request an interior room (and even then there's no guarantee).


3. Panama drivers do not use blinkers. And you using them only gives away your foreigner status.


4. Panama drivers use the shoulder to pass.


5. Cars stop anywhere they please, even in the middle of a lane, to pick people up and drop them off.


6. Sometimes there are lines painted on the road indicating lanes, sometimes there are not.


7. One-way streets are not always marked. Keep your eyes peeled for traffic going in all one direction as that may be your only indication of a one-way street.


8. The horn is a beloved form of communication for these drivers. They use it constantly and it can mean everything and anything from "Get out of my way!" to "How are you?" to "Do you need a taxi?" to "Don't cross the street because I'm coming through!"

My husband has driven in many large cities: Washington, D.C., New York, L.A., Minneapolis, London, Miami, San Francisco … and he insists there is nothing worse than Panama City. Several people we spoke with agreed.

This following video is from YouTube by jonoanzalone, but it is representative of our experiences.

Panama City chewed us up and spit us out

We are not city people. We know this about ourselves and yet we still chose to drive in Panama City and stay at least one night.
Estúpidos Americanos!
The only piece of advice I can give is this: Invest in a portable navigation system or make sure the car you rent has one.
We have a portable device which we brought along after purchasing the Panama map off the Internet. Unfortunately, it let us down a few times. So much so, that at one point, my husband literally banged it against the dashboard a few times in his anger and frustration while saying a few choice words that I cannot repeat.
Thankfully, the system survived. Otherwise, there’s a very good chance we would still be driving around the streets of Panama City today.
Yes, we did make a couple of wrong turns only to end up in some very unsavory neighborhoods. On those occasions we quickly made a u-turn and made our escape. All those stories we heard about gringos ending up in such places only to be carjacked, thankfully did not happen to us.
We did eventually make it to our various destinations, Hotel Marparaiso, Miraflores Locks, Albrook Mall, Hotel Riande Aeropuerto, within and around the city at which point we drank heavily.