Panama City (December 21st-28th 2017)

Thursday December 21st

It’s our first full day in Panama City, and we’re feeling the lousy effects of post motion sickness motion sickness, you know being still. 🤮

We are staying in a restored mansion in the colonial sector of the city called Casco Viejo. The hostel is called Luna’s Castle. They have self serve pancakes for breakfast. We didn’t have an alternate plan for breakfast, so we ate the pancakes. They have a really nice set up, 3 cast iron griddles and two stoves. In between the two stove tops is a table with a big pot and ladle that’s filled with batter. On the tables are pitchers of syrup. They sure were sugary and delicious and cake like, dessert for breakfast. They definitely contributed to our feeling of lousiness though! I don’t know how our fellow backpackers can eat that crap every day!

The view out the back of our hostel. There is a lot of restoration going on in Casco Viejo.

At breakfast we noticed some activity sheets on the wall that describe how to visit some of the nearby attractions. One of the options was Cerro Ancon. Cerro Ancon is the highest point in the city, at about 650 feet. A huge Panamanian flag is prominently displayed at the top of the hill. You can see it from all over town. I’ve always wanted to go there, but never really had the opportunity to just be a tourist in Panama City. I was an exchange student in Panama in 2004. I lived 8 hours away from Panama City though, in a small town near the Costa Rican border.

Our hostel is within walking distance of the hill and we had a nice sheet of paper with very detailed directions typed out and also google maps in my phone to help us along. It’s so nice that you no longer need cell phone service/data to use the google maps. It has allowed us to find so many places that we would have had to take taxis to in the past. It’s been amazing.

It took us about an hour and half to walk to the top of the hill. Part of the directions involved taking a pedestrian bridge over a busy road. In the description they went out of their way to make sure the reader knew there was a pedestrian bridge, so we took it. It was so nasty. Jeff says it’s the most disgusting thing he’s ever seen. It was full of left behind clothing, trash, piles of human poop and lots of used condoms. It also reeked of urine. Yep, pretty nasty. The walk also took us through the former US Canal Zone. The hill used to be US territory and Panamanians weren’t allowed in! It was neat to see all of the buildings that were constructed by the US military. Now a lot of the area is occupied by Panamanian government buildings, but as we got higher on the hill we entered a fancy neighborhood. We saw some houses that looked like they could be right out of the US and one that looked like a plantation house, that was the governors mansion. Many of the houses are on stilts, which has led many Panamanians to believe that’s how we all live in the US.

Monument where the old fence/border for the US Canal Zone once was.

Cool plantation style house in the Canal Zone. We think this was the governors or mayors house. 

Another fancy house in the canal zone

The top of the hill was a little strange. The final climb was on a service road and the top was filled with cell phone and other communications towers. There were only a few other people up there, and it felt almost like we were intruding on private property. The view points were a little overgrown, but pretty. From one side we could see the canal and from the other we could see the Pacific Ocean, downtown and Casco Viejo. It was also neat to get close to the big flag, which we learned is the size of a basketball court! No wonder you can see it from all over the city.

View of the Bridge of the Americas. It spans the canal, connecting the Americas

View towards Miraflores Locks

View of Casco Viejo and the Cinta Costa road extension that bypasses the congested area of the city.

Downtown/Punta Paitilla area of Panama City

On the walk back we stopped in at a big grocery store that I had spotted along the way. It’s located on a pedestrian street that’s full of shops and is very busy with Christmas shoppers right now. The store is called El Machetazo and it being my first grocery store in Panama this trip, we had to thoroughly examine each and every row! We found a lot more similarities with US grocery stores than we ever did in Colombia. There are a lot of more convenience foods here, like canned and frozen things. We also found an abundance of soy milk and a lot of random health foods. We got a bunch of produce and cereal. We’ve been craving cereal. We also got canned beans, something we were never able to buy in Colombia because there was only one kind and it contained bacon/pork fat, kind of like pork and beans. Sadly it was required that the produce be bagged and weighed in the produce section and tagged with a bar code for scanning at the register. Now we have a lot of plastic bags.

Avenida Central, pedestrian street

So many plastic bags for our produce. :(

We were really hungry by the time we got back to the hostel for lunch. We had salad, rice cakes (from the free box) and chickpea avocado salad. Chickpea avocado salad is one of our favorite sandwich fillings, and it’s really easy to make. Both salads were very good. It’s always nice to have the opportunity to eat a bunch of fresh vegetation!

Iceberg lettuce is the most common and often the only available lettuce.

Our activity sheet described a second possible activity to combine with Cerro Ancon for making it into a full day. We never seem capable of more than one activity per day. Maybe if we were only traveling for a few weeks and had to cram in tons of activity, then maybe we could muster up the energy for more than one activity per day, but so far we have failed whenever we try. We get tired, haha! It was about 3 hours round trip of walking to go to Cerro Ancon and the second activity would have been even more walking to another view point. 

Even though we made the decision not to go ahead with activity two, we got bored of sitting around pretty quick and went for another walk anyway! We walked around Casco Viejo and admired all of the restored buildings. The ones that have been restored are beautiful, but there are a number of them that are old and crumbling apart, those are neat to see too. One day it will all be restored and it will be like the walled city in Cartagena. We found informational signs that were part of a do it yourself walking tour, so we ended up following the suggested route and reading all of the signs. Amazingly the English translations were perfect!! Not a single error! 

An old church in Casco Viejo

Pretty buildings in Casco Viejo

More pretty buildings in Casco Viejo, and brick roads.

Restored and needing restoration

A lot of the buildings are mostly hollow and have these supports holding up just the exterior wall.

Self guided tour informational signs

When we got back, we were supremely tired and I really didn’t feel like cooking, but I did it anyway. If there were more exciting restaurants nearby, we probably would have gone out to eat for lunch and dinner! There are tons of hip and fancy restaurants in Casco Viejo, but they are overpriced and don’t have that many vegan options. At least no options exciting enough for us to feel compelled to pay the price. We had rice (from the free box) with guandú (a type of bean called pigeon peas in English) cooked in coconut milk and served with sweet plantain slices that I cooked on the pancake griddle. This type of rice is popular on the Caribbean. I only had it once, but I’ve always remembered it. Conveniently you can buy the guandú canned with coconut milk.

One thing we noticed on our extensive walks today was the absence of street food and street vendors. Since Panama is one of the wealthier nations in Central America, we have a theory that more people have real jobs, vs working in the informal sector. The informal sector includes all of the people selling on the streets, and there just doesn’t seem to be a need for it here. Sadly we can’t buy a fruit salad on any corner. There also arent nearly as many fruits available to in the grocery stores here either! We will also no longer be badgered by the calls of the water man every 50 feet. We did see snow cone carts and a few hot dog carts along the waterfront. There are also permanent food kiosks and open air food counters, that are kind of like street food, but a little more fancy and permanent. These places can and do make full meals. The ones we saw seemed to be popular with business people on lunch break. Near the government buildings we passed on the way to Cerro Ancon we also saw a few ladies with large plastic tubs filled with styrofoam takeout boxes. Each box contained a complete lunch, and the business people were lined up to buy them.

We also noticed a ton of overweight and obese people, way more than in Colombia. Being richer doesn’t always mean you eat better! Peasant foods tend to be the healthiest, rice and beans, plantains, yucca, yams, sweet potatoes, fruits, etc. With all of the extra money the people here have, they are keeping all of the fast food restaurants in business! We spotted lots of them. KFC, Domino’s and McDonalds seem especially popular. Fried chicken in particular seems to be a favorite. There are a number of local fried chicken chains in addition to KFC. I also remember from when I lived here that all of the Panamanian traditional snack foods are deep fried.



Friday December 22nd

Yesterday we bought a variety of cereals and soy milk at the grocery store. We skipped the pancakes and will probably skip them for the rest of the trip. We ate our cereal with bananas and a quinoa soy milk. Cereal is one of our favorite foods! Meanwhile our hostel mates were destroying the kitchen with pancake batter. It’s amazing how few of them know how to properly cook a pancake. It drives me a little nuts!

After breakfast we took an Uber to metropolitan park. It’s our first Uber of the trip. It’s a great way to ensure we aren’t over charged by taxi drivers! We can only request an Uber when we have WiFi though. It works great for a pick up from our hostel. Our driver spoke really good English and was a delight to ride with. He told us that Panama City is on track to become the fastest growing economy in Latin America, thanks to the new canal expansion. He also said that we’ve just missed the rainy season, it’s been raining like crazy up until a few days ago. He said that the rainy season is predicted to extend longer than normal though! 😫

Metropolitan Park is often described as the lungs of Panama City. It’s the nearest large green space to the city. It borders a network of national parks and green spaces that stretch from coast to coast paralleling the canal. The bird watching along the canal is world famous. There aren’t a ton of trails in Metropolitan Park, just a few miles worth. We walked them all, and enjoyed being in the forest and hearing the birds chattering. There are nice informational signs, again in excellent English! We learned that lots of the birds here migrate back and forth between here and the Ohio and Erie Canal. At the far end of the park is a viewpoint, the second highest point in the city (after Cerro Ancon). It’s about 500 feet above sea level and has a similar view to Cerro Ancon. We took off our shoes and lied in the grass for awhile.

Parque Metropolitano

Giant anthills

There are coatis hiding in the forest here. Can you spot them?

View of Panama City from the mirador

Taking Earth

A neat spiked tree that we have never seen before. There were a lot of them here.

It is always mind boggling to think about early explorers trying to penetrate the jungle!

An infestation of caterpillars. 

Leaving the shade of the forest we walked out into the desert like heat of the city streets and walked an hour to Niko’s Café. Niko’s is a place I remember enjoying in the past. It’s a cafeteria style restaurant, it’s open 24/7, it’s cheap, and there are many locations through out the city. The roads and traffic in Panama City are insane, definitely not designed with pedestrians in mind. Some roads are more like highways and just about impossible to cross!

Via España

Niko’s wasn’t as exciting as I remember. We got simple plates of rice, lentils, veggies and plantains. It tasted good, but wasn’t the most colorful or beautiful looking food! A side of vegetables in Panama is almost always steamed carrots with chayote squash, which is kind of like zucchini. 

A typical meal, minus the meat.

After lunch we walked to MultiCentro Mall, located along the waterfront. We went inside and relished in the air conditioning, but quickly realized it wasn’t the mall we were looking for. The one we wanted is called MultiPlaza. Such similar names! We had to walk a further half mile out in the desert and traffic. On the way we stopped off in McDonalds too cool off, haha! Multiplaza is an extremely fancy mall, probably the fanciest I’ve ever been in anywhere. It’s huge too, it’s laid out in a grid, like a small city and is 3 stories! They are a lot of high end stores, like Gucci. There are also lots of mid range stores for the more normal people! 

The two buildings in front will soon be a trio, there is another shorter one you cannot see. The one on the left is still under construction. The one in the back is definitely the craziest looking one on the skyline!

Many interesting buildings in the Panama City skyline.

Multi Plaza Pacific Mall

Ridiculous and ugly displays in many of the designer stores

I was excited to find a Lush store, they sell somewhat natural body products with mostly reusable eco friendly packaging. I don’t like most of their smelly fragranced products, but I do like their tooth pellets! They are great for camping and traveling and have pretty good ingredients. We are running low on toothpaste, so I stocked up on pellets. I didn’t think I’d ever find a natural toothpaste and was worried we’d have to resort to buying and using poison!

We were delighted to find a Crepes and Waffles location in the mall! We got sorbet from the counter, mango guanabana for me and blackberry and passion fruit for Jeff. Feeling extremely worn out we opted to go to a movie so we could sit down for awhile. We saw Bad Mom’s Christmas. We don’t love Christmas or Christmas movies, but it was pretty funny and certainly entertaining.

Before the movie, we thoroughly explored the food court, and I spotted Pollo Tropical, a chain that I have been to in Florida. I knew they had yucca and patacones, both of which I love! We decided to eat dinner there after the movie. We ordered large sides of sweet plantains, patacones (like French fries, made with starchy green plantains), black beans and boiled yucca. It’s was the feast of my dreams, and only cost $10!! 

Patacones (smashed green plantains), fried sweet plantain slices, black beans, yucca and many delicious condiments.

After dinner, I made Jeff walk the whole grid of the mall with me. To me it’s fascinating seeing all of the stores from the US and tons of international designer stores. I’ve never been big on shopping or fashion, but I know all the stores and brands. It’s interesting to think about how it all stays in business. A lot of the stores are probably the only one in all of Central America. There were even some stores for name brands that had their own shop, instead of being sold in a mixed brand store, like Converse, North Face, Timberland, Caterpillar, etc. They even had a smelly Bath and Body Works and Victoria’s Secret! The mall of course was busy with Christmas shoppers. 

I found a Mac store and was able to get this stupid converter cable that’s needed for using headphones. I got an iPhone 7 before we left, but never learned anything about it, I didn’t think I needed to. They took the headphone jack away on this model though! Apparently the cable I needed is in the box at home, but I never looked in the box. The stupid little cable cost $15. Why would they get rid of the headphone jack? Now you can’t listen to headphones and charge at the same time because the headphone converter plugs into the charger jack.

By the end of our walk we were thoroughly exhausted and took a taxi for $6 back to Casco Viejo. We’d originally planned to walk, it’s at least an hour walk, and we’d already walked a ton.


Saturday December 23rd

We took an Uber to the bus terminal this morning. We got another good English speaking driver. There is an option to pay more for an English speaker. So far we haven’t done that, but lucked out with an English speaker anyway. I can understand Spanish conversations just fine, but Jeff can’t so it’s not much fun when only I can speak and then have to try and remember what was said and tell Jeff about it. I keep trying to convince him to download Duolingo on his phone and practice Spanish but he’s being lazy about it. He definitely has plenty of free time to practice Spanish!!

We had wanted to get going earlier, but that didn’t happen. When we got to the terminal we learned there wouldn’t be a bus until 8, the previous one was at 6. We were going to take the bus to Soberanía National Park and take a bird watching walk. You’re supposed to go early to see birds, and it seemed like it was getting too late. The ride there would probably take an hour. The same bus passes by the Miraflores Locks (of the Panama Canal), so we decided to just go there and wake up earlier for bird watching tomorrow. 

There were tons of people lined up for the bus. It’s was a school bus that showed up and we got crammed into the very back with standing people filling up the aisles. A nice guy next to us in the back shouted out the canal stop for us, then we got to rub up against the entire bus length of bodies on our way out.

Waiting for the Gamboa bus, at the end of the line

Trapped in the back

The type of bus we were on used to be the norm in Panama City. They are often painted with graffiti likes images all over and decorated inside and decked out with flashing lights. These are known as Diablo Rojo, or Red Devil. These are currently being phased out for modern Metro buses to go along with the new metro system they built a few years ago. Using a metro card loaded with money, you can can on any metro train or bus and go just about anywhere in the city for cheap. The buses are 25¢ per ride. Walking into the canal from the highway, we saw a metro bus coming out. Apparently we could have take a comfortable new metro bus to get there! We probably would have figured that out if we hadn’t first planned to go to the forest, but when I asked about the forest, everyone directed me to the Red Devil. The driver of the bus probably thought we were nuts! If nothing else, we had a unique experience!

At the canal we watched two ships go through. In the morning you get the inbound traffic towards Gatún Lake and in the afternoon it switches and the ships from the other side start coming out. We also watched a movie that they made about the canal and went through the museum. A few years ago we did a partial transit of the canal from the Caribbean side into Gatún Lake and back out on a Princess Cruise. I’ve also visited the Miraflores Locks 3 times I think, but it was Jeff’s first time there. Something I learned that I’ve never realized before was that when the US ran it, they were not for profit and just ran it at cost. When Panama took over it changed and became for profit. The Panamanians took over 12/31/1999. Panama’s economy has steadily grown ever since. It’s growing even more with the expanded canal. We could see the expanded canal in the distance from the viewing platforms. They allow much larger ships to pass through. So far it’s mostly the US and China that’s using the larger lanes. 

This lady knew the guy on the ship whose up top waving back. We think it must have been her son. They let her go on the other side of the gate to get closer.

Miraflores Locks, Panama Canal

A good diagram in the museum section that shows what the canal does.

Crowded viewing area. It was hard to get a spot on the railing.

Day tour boats going through the locks

On the right are the canal boats that assist the large ships going through

The small boats fit in the same lock as these big boats, but most boats take up the small of the entire lock

Miraflores Locks and the Centennial Bridge in the distance

Little trains help the ship along, on the left you can see the multiple levels of the viewing platform.

In the distance of the left side are the buildings of the expanded canal lanes

We left the canal on a fancy and spacious metro bus headed back to the main bus terminal. We were hungry, so out of convenience we ate at a Niko’s Café location in the terminal food court. The same meal as before, lentils, rice, veggies and a sweet plantain half. There is a mall attached to the terminal, so we went to check out their food court. We were still hungry, so we ordered sides of patacones and yucca.

There’s a big grocery store in the mall called Super 99. We went inside and stocked up on food for Christmas. We anticipate the city shutting down, and will need to make our own food in the hostel. With arms full of groceries we attempted to take the bus back to Casco Viejo. The uniformed workers at the terminal told me we could get on a bus that said Tumba Muerto on the front. One quickly came, and I watched our movement on google maps. We weaved all over the place and eventually started going away from where we wanted to be. I asked the driver if we’d be going past the 5 de Mayo stop we wanted. He said no this was a “direct” bus. We go off at the next stop and waited, as instructed, for a bus displaying “Caledonia.” It was long wait, and when the bus finally came, it was jam packed. There was barely standing room for everyone. You have to swipe your metro card at the front and pass through a turnstile. We just made it though and as we continued on, people started cramming in beyond the turnstile in the drivers area. I guess you get a free ride when the bus is really full! 

These are special breads that are sold at Christmas time. They are huge wreaths of braided challah like egg bread. They are really heavy. Every store we have been in has tons of them.

We eventually made it back to our stop and walked the 20 or so minutes to our hostel. We were super tired. We stayed in the rest of the night. We had salad for dinner supplemented with some Filipino food that was for sale at the bar downstairs. The food was made by a Filipino guy from San Diego. He was an engineer that worked on the new canal. During his time in Panama he met a lady and had a kid. Now he lives here and makes Filipino food for backpackers. We had sweet plantain lumpia and veggie lumpia. They are kind of like egg rolls.


Sunday December 24th

We’ve been going non-stop with the activities since we got to Panama City, and although we are exhausted, we forced ourselves out of bed at 5 AM in an attempt to go bird watching in Soberania National Park. The park spans the isthmus, paralleling the canal, creating a green space from coast to coast. The park is world famous for bird watching. The Pipeline Road is the most popular area for bird watchers. You can take a tour, but that can cost as much as a few hundred dollars per person, so we decided to try it out for ourselves. We had a quick bowl of cereal then requested an Uber so we could get to the park by 6, just as the sun was coming up. The first bus from the bus terminal didn’t leave until 6, so we decided the Uber would be better. We also considered renting a car, because they are very cheap here, but the traffic getting in and out of the city would be kind of stressful.

Even though Uber uses maps to direct the driver to the destination, our driver had never been there before, and we were driving on a dark two lane road though the jungle. The directions ended at a trailhead but there were no facilities of any kind and none of us knew if it was the right place or not. We had expected a visitor center or at least a fee station of some sort. There were a few parked vehicles with small groups of runners getting out of them for their morning exercise. Since it wasn’t totally deserted we agreed to get out there and sent the driver on his way. 

The trail followed an old road where there used to be rubber tree, cacao and coffee farms at various times. It’s called the plantation road and is very popular with locals exercise enthusiasts! We were the only hikers. We saw countless groups of ultra fit neon spandex clad runners. They were the early morning crowd. They soon gave way to groups of mountain bikers. Thanks to either a runner or a biker frequently racing past us, we saw virtually no wild life during 3 hours of walking! We saw a few bats, a few toucans from a long distance, we heard parrots flying over head and howler monkeys in the distance. The trail goes 7 km until it meets an intersection with another trail. We had planned to go all the way to the intersection, but we only made it about 5km before turning back. We were supremely exhausted and it wasn’t all that fun, so we decided there was no point in continuing. The trail was rocky and uneven too, so our legs and feet were getting tired.

Plantation Trail, Soberania National Park

Trees with big buttressing roots like this are common here

We knew that a bus would pass by every two hours but had no idea what time that would happen, so we weren’t very hopeful when we made it back to the road. We waited for a few minutes at most for the first car to pass. We held out our thumbs and to our surprise it stopped!! They weren’t going to exactly the same place we were in the city, but they were at least able to take us to where we could get a taxi.

Once we got back to our hostel we snacked on the rest of our free rice cakes with peanut butter and guava jelly. I LOVE guava jelly. It is the best flavor of jelly in the whole world. After snack we took an extended nap. While we were trying to fall asleep, the cleaning lady was in our dorm room mopping away with her stinky scented chemicals. All of the hostel cleaning ladies of Central and South are going to one day die of cancer from breathing toxic fruity fumes all day every day! It’s strange to think that cleaning chemicals smell good and “clean” to most people.

Late in the afternoon we took an Uber to Loving Hut, a vegan restaurant a few miles away. It’s Christmas Eve though, and it’s Sunday, a double whammy, so it was closed. We tried 3 other vegetarian restaurants nearby, and all of them were closed. Most everything was closed up. Most business have garage style doors that roll down completely concealing the business and the glass doors and windows that you would see if they were open. So when everything is closed, he city has a sort of doomsday feel, cause all you see are blank metal walls. 

I take screen shots of maps like this, then match it to google maps as we walk around. This is how we find our way.

We finally settled upon going back to Niko’s Café, which is open 24-7. They don’t even have locks on the doors. We had another simple meal of rice, beans, veggies and plantains. In each of our previous visits, they have saved room on the plate for meat and look at us like we’re crazy when we tell them that’s all, so this time, to try to coax them into actually filling the plate with the foods we did want, I told the serving lady in advance that we would be having two meatless plates. She gave me a dumbfounded look and asked what we were going to eat then, like there was nothing else! I told her we’d have rice, veggies, lentils and plantains. She proceeded down to the meat section and asked me what I wanted!! The meals actually come out at a better value if you get meat. On a meat plate plantains are included, but without the meat you have to pay extra for it even though you are getting less food. So frustrating. 

We went into the Rey supermarket next to Niko’s to buy some more groceries, then began the walk back to Casco Viejo. I got sweet potatoes, no stir peanut butter and shelf stable whole grain German bread! On our walk back, we passed Crepes and Waffles, to scope out the location, and eventually ended up on the coastal trail. We stopped to lounge in the grass about halfway, then continued on. It was late in the day and the sun was setting, so it was nice and cool.

There are always amusing photos shoots to watch.

I had planned to cook us dinner, but there were far too many people in the kitchen, so we dropped off our bags and went out in search of gelato. We didn’t find any gelato places open, but we did find a Subway, so we decided to share a footlong veggie sandwich for dinner. Ever since our failed attempt to eat at Subway during our John Muir trail hike, it’s been on my mind. Neither of us has had Subway in 5 years. It is a quick, cheap and easy way to eat a good sized portion of veggies. Did you know that Subway is one of the largest fast food chains world wide? It’s right up there with KFC and McDonalds, with over 30,000 restaurants!!


Monday December 25th

Today is Christmas. It never feels like Christmas to us anymore, especially when we are traveling and happen to be in someplace tropical and hot! There are lots of decorations and lights around the city. There is a city sponsored program for lighting up the city and spreading Christmas cheer! 

For a special breakfast, I made us whole grain banana pancakes. They are easy two ingredient pancakes that contain just bananas and ground up oats. I also added flax seeds and cinnamon. Flax seeds are popular and surprisingly easy to find ground, and I had oat flour, thanks to the popularity of the oatmeal drink in Colombia. I am always carrying a small pantry of food in my backpack. At each new hostel I acquire free food. My spice pantry is slowly growing. It kind of drives me nuts that the pancakes are self serve, because everyone else makes a mess, and it’s amazing how many people don’t know how to make an pancake! Even with the abundance of oil they all use to grease the griddles, they manage to get their pancakes stuck! None of them know to wait for the bubbles to form before turning. I am glad I am not the cleaning lady. 

My own pancakes on the griddle. You can see the big pot of batter and the mess people make (on the left).

We got up early today so we could claim the free bicycle they have available at our hostel. I don’t think we had much to worry about though, all the young hooligans were up late last night drinking and being merry! I thought bicycles would be a good activity on a light traffic day such as today. 

We rode west on the Cinta Costera, towards the canal. The part we took is like a highway bypass around the old city that actually goes out over the ocean making a horseshoe shape. There are at least two vehicle lanes in each direction and a very nice and well separated leisure path next to it. Thick rows of plants divide the path from the road and there are nice views of the skyline and of the old city and the ocean. It’s super nice and fairly new. It was completed in 2009. The whole waterfront seems built up and improved since I was last here. We rode all the way to the causeway, which is a man made peninsula that connects four small (former) islands at the mouth of the canal. The islands were connected to the main land with dirt and rocks that were excavated when the canal was being built. It was intended to be a breakwater for the canal and was part of the American Canal Zone. Since Panama gained control of the area 12/31/1999, it’s been developed into a tourist attraction, with shops, hostels, restaurants, a marina with ferrys to other islands in the area, a bike path and even a museum. It’s only 2km long, but has nice views of the bridge of the Americas, downtown and the water.

On the Cinta Costera, Cerro Ancon and Casco Viejo in the background

View of Cerro Ancon, Casco Viejo and the skyline.

Really nice water front with lots of recreation areas, the underpasses below the Cinta Costera had swings, a great place in the shade!

On the causeway

Bridge of the Americas from the causeway

By the marina at the end of the causeway

We hadn’t planned to eat out, because we hadn’t expected anything to be open or for there to be anything we would want to eat, but I spotted a restaurant I recognized at the end of the causeway, and it was open! For every new city we visit, I search google, TripAdvisor and Happy Cow for restaurant options. I remembered reading about a Lebanese one called Beirut, but I didn’t know there was a location on the causeway. It’s not a vegan or vegetarian restaurant, but I read that there were lots of vegan options, and that they definitely know what vegan means! We got to sit on a nice deck overlooking a marina full of expensive yachts. The titles of a lot of the menu items were Lebanese names, so I asked the waiter for a suggestion and we ordered the platter he recommended plus, baba ganoush and tabbouleh, pita bread and natural juice drinks. Our platter had hummus, more baba ganoush, some cinnamon spiced rice, falafels and some other falafel like things that I think are called kibbeh. It was much more expensive than our average meal out, but quite normal when compared to the US. It was really delicious. Nice to eat something a little different than usual. It was our first hummus of the trip!

Lebanese feast

On the ride back, we stopped in a nice park along the coastal trail and took a rest in the grass. We call this taking earth or earthing. It’s something we like to do as much as we can. It’s based on the belief that the earth gives us energy, kind of like how direct sunlight is good for you, so is directly touching the earth. Most people walk around on rubber shoes all the time and never come in direct contact with the earth anymore. It sounds like some silly hippy thing, but there’s lots of science about it on the internet. I didn’t need much convincing though, it certainly can’t hurt, and laying in the grass feels nice! It’s supposed to lower your blood pressure instantly.

View at the end of the causeway

No latin american view would be complete without all the trash!

We love these tiny vans. They are everywhere down here!

The ride back on the Cinta Costera

Me with a large cardboard palm. I love these trees. They are prehistoric. We planted on in the yard in San Diego.

Nice lounge chairs along the trail

beautiful cardboard palm

It was becoming late afternoon by the time we got back. We hadn’t expected such a long excursion, but we had a nice time. It was hot though and it was nice to get back inside and into the shade and next to some fans. We got two free beers from reception, for posting a photo of the hike we did the other day on instagram. We just had to tag the hostel in the photo and show it to the front desk people. I gave mine to Jeff. 

For dinner we had sweet potato chili!! I haven’t been using any recipes on this trip. It would be hard to have ingredients on hand for such endeavors. I often go into the kitchen with an idea of what I’ll make and end up with something completely different based on what’s available for free and what I invent as I go. Today the invention was a delicious chili! It’s our first chili powder based food of the trip and also our first sweet potatoes. There were a few times in Colombia where I thought I found sweet potatoes, but didn’t. The chili seasoning I used was a partial package of chili seasoning mix that I found in a free box in a hostel in Colombia. I have no idea where it came from, because I never found seasoning mixes or even chili powder! The seasonings were very limited in Colombia. The chili also contained Swiss chard, which I was very excited to find in the grocery store, a whole bunch for just 45¢! I also got the chili nice and tomatoey thanks to a free partially used can of tomato paste in the fridge. The remaining ingredients were mushrooms, onions, canned beans and more spices from my “spice pantry.” My spice pantry is just a ziplock bag filled with small bags of herbs and spices, which are sold in small plastic envelopes. Thanks to the increased options in Panama, my bag is getting bigger.

Sweet potatoes!!!

Tuesday December 26th

We are moving hostels today, so this morning we packed our bags and put them in storage for the day. We had our new bread for breakfast with peanut butter, banana and guava jelly. It’s so nice to have whole grains. Always being able to find healthy food in the US is something I definitely take for granted. It’s hard for me to understand why anyone would prefer white bread, or white rice or regular pasta.

The plan was to go cycling some more after breakfast, taking the trail the other direction from what we did yesterday, but the bike tires were flat. Some hooligans took them out yesterday evening after we got back, and 2 out of 3 bikes had flat tires. I don’t know how they managed that! We tried to get them fixed up, but pumping air into them failed and the front desk girl didn’t know where any other equipment was.

We stayed in the hostel and I worked on the blog and Jeff read leisure books and internet articles. Recently I have been on average a week behind. Most nights I don’t feel like typing into my phone, then the days pile up. 😝 I spent an hour using the phone to add photos and text into the app, then I got on the hostel computer and started editing and captioning. I was 45 minutes in when we were informed that the hostel was being fumigated and we needed to leave immediately. No warning. 

Luckily the bikes had been fixed, so we went out riding and to get lunch. We chose to go to Crepes and Waffles. It’s only one block off of the coastal trail, and it’s in a fancy neighborhood across the street from the Waldorf Astoria! It also has a parking garage, which is good because the bikes don’t come with locks. They are rickety old cruisers, I doubt anyone in that neighborhood would want them! We got salad bar and natural juices and gelato. It is almost the same as the ones in Colombia, except that the prices are twice as high. I have a fun time loading up my salad bowl. I am really good at it! I create a pyramid on top of all the veggies that I can eat plain without dressing, then once the bowl is a little more empty, it can be properly stirred and I am left with a delicious bean and grain and pickled veggie salad.

Trash everywhere along the waterfront thanks to yesterdays merry makers!

disgusting

I know how to make the most of my one salad bowl

After lunch we rode to where the bike trail ends near the rich neighborhood of Punta Paitilla, where there are numerous high rise apartment buildings. On the way back we stopped to take some pictures of the fish market, where you can buy fresh fish or a seafood meal. It’s pretty smelly and there are lots of pelicans circling around. There are also lots of boats in the water surrounding the market. They kind of look like shanties on the water. People clearly live in them. I don’t know if they are also fisherman or what. 

Fishing boats and the fish market

When we got back, I spent another 1 1/2 hours captioning and editing on the computer. After more than 3 hours working at the computer I joyously posted it and then we rode away in an Uber to our new hostel. Panama City is so spread out that we’ve had to take a lot more taxis than we’d normally prefer to, but if we didn’t we’d be walking until our legs fell off. We have at least solved the problem of being ripped off by instead using Uber when we can. I can only request us an Uber when we have WiFi.

Our new hostel is called MamaLlena. They have several hostels in Panama, and one in Cartagena. We stayed at the one in Cartagena during our initial stay in Cartagena after flying in from Medellín. The two hostels don’t seem to have much in common. They must just all have the same absentee owner.

We walked to the corner chinese market and amazingly they had everything I needed to complete our dinner, tomatoes and a lime, plus some extras, a watermelon slice and some bananas. In addition to the big supermarkets, Panama has a ton of what they call “mini super.” They are small convenience stores, and are always owned by Chinese families. In some neighborhoods and towns, there is at least one every couple of blocks or more. I don’t know how they can compete with each other, especially when there are also an abundance of bigger stores too. Sometimes the family will also have a Chinese restaurant next door. Chinese food, especially fried rice, is very popular here. With the abundance of grocery stores here, we never have to wait in line to check out like we did in Colombia! 🎉

I had the joy of having the kitchen to myself while I cooked dinner! There were always a ton of people cooking at the other hostel. We had whole grain pita breads with refried black beans, steamed peppers, onions and mushrooms, avocado and pico de Gallo, plantains and what Panamanians call tortillas. Tortillas are very similar to arepas. They are made of a corn dough and shaped into round disks. They are usually deep fried. I just crisp them without oil on a skillet. They remind me of slices of the kind of polenta that comes in a tube. You can buy them preformed in the grocery stores for cheap.

The green stuff is culantro. It is not technically cilantro, but it is very similar and sure is easy to chop!

Mexican pitas

Wednesday December 27th

Our hostel seems a bit strange. It’s kind of in the ghetto, and there seem to be more locals/volunteers/employees than there are actual travelers. They have a self serve pancake breakfast like our last hostel. Pancakes are becoming the trend at hostels it seems. It’s probably the absolute cheapest breakfast they can serve. At this hostel, they use the same mix as the last hostel, an industrial size bag of Krusteaz complete buttermilk pancake mix. So water is all that needs to be added, then they turn the backpackers loose! Here there are no griddles or spatulas, just two tiny skillets, big enough for one pancake each. We ate our leftovers instead. 

We stayed in the hostel until noon, and we are glad we did, because just before noon, there was an extremely heavy downpour. It was the first rain we’ve had in Panama. 

One of the reasons we moved hostels was to be closer to stores and restaurants. There are 4 vegan and vegetarian restaurants nearby it was hard to choose which one to visit first! Jardin Vegetariano was the chosen one for lunch. It was a mile walk to get there, down Via España, a very busy main road that cuts across town, parallel to the ocean. It’s 3 lanes across, making it more like a highway. It was a loud and smelly (car exhaust) walk, but well worth it. The food is served cafeteria style and there were probably 40 options to choose from! I ended up with a very large plate! Each portion costs 70¢, and each portion is huge! It is served by people behind the counter, you just point to what you want. It is run by Asian people, so some of the food had an Asian theme. When we go to restaurants like this, Jeff and I both end up with very different plates. Jeff goes for all of the less healthy fried and processed options and I get all the simple starchy foods and veggies! We both enjoyed the food and how cheap it was, $6.25 for both meals!

Along Via España

Jardin Vegetariano, so many beans and starches!!

Our plates, mine on the left. Jeff likes the noodles and fake meats. I like the simple stuff. The purple puree is taro.

Interesting location above a sex shop

After lunch we were stuffed and took our time continuing our walk down Vía España enroute to get ice cream! It was blazing hot and dry like a walk through the desert. We stopped frequently to take refuge inside the air conditioning of various businesses along the way, clothing stores, a pharmacy and grocery store. 

The ice cream place, Nelado, is another Happy Cow find. They made nitrogen ice cream! You get to design your own ice cream, then in just 60 seconds it becomes ice cream thanks to nitrogen and kitchen aid mixers! They have almond milk as a base option and lots of mix ins to choose from. We got peanut butter, banana and Oreo. It was amazingly creamy and delicious. The walls were covered in fun facts and diagrams of how they make the ice cream. Our favorite fact was that nitrogen ice cream contains 0% air, while traditional ice cream is 50% air!

Menu. You choose size, what base you want, then the mix ins.

The chemistry is described on the wall.

Our ice cream is in the mixer

Finished product a few minutes after ordering

After our refreshing dose of ice cream and air conditioning, we continued walking to the MultiPlaza Pacific Mall. This is the fancy mall we were in a few days ago with the movie theater. We came to visit the Riba Smith grocery store that’s attached to the mall. It’s a bit of a higher end grocery store than the average, and during my research I discovered that they carry many vegan products. For an hour or so we wandered the aisles and marveled at all the US products. Amazingly the prices were pretty good, about what we pay in the US. We spotted frozen vegan pizza, vegan macaroni and cheese mix, vegan cheeses, tofu, hummus, vegan yogurt, large boxes of plant milks in the refrigerated section. We take all of those things for granted in the US, because they are always there, but it was our first time seeing any of them in our travels, and you know I’m always looking!! We had to be very selective about what we purchased because our walk was far from over and we would need to carry it all. 

We ended up with Wasa crackers, a jar of shelf stable hummus, 2 cans of Eden Organic rice and beans, a can of baked beans, a jar of real natural peanut butter (the kind that needs stirring!!), 100% whole grain spaghetti, taco seasoning mix, chili seasoning mix, honey crisp apples!!!!, vegan yogurt and kombucha. All of these items are so rare, besides the kombucha, we’ve never found any of them. I wonder if this will continue throughout Panama or if it’s only in the big city. We consumed the kombucha and yogurt right away at a table inside the mall. The table was part of the seating for the Krispy Kreme donut kiosk. We people watched all the rich locals indulging in boxes full of donuts.

The biggest display of vegan yogurt I will see for months

Did not think I would ever find a natural replacement for our shrinking bar of Dr Bronners

Precut veggies for soups and stew. I always want to buy the taro (on the left).

Our bounty

We left the mall heavily loaded down and continued walking into the very rich area of town around Punta Paitilla. There is an over abundance of high rise buildings here full of luxury condos, apartments and hotel rooms. Some of them are gated communities. There are even two private islands that are man made and attached to the main land by bridge. It is in this area that you find the Trump Ocean Club. It’s a unique building that stand out from the other buildings in the Panama skyline, because it looks like a sail. I don’t know what all is in the building, but in my research, I learned you could rent an apartment inside through Air BnB for just $70!

Bridge to the private island

Trump Ocean Club

Continuing along we ended up back on the Cinta Costera for sunset. Our last stop of the night was back in the area where we began, and after completing a big loop around the city, we stopped off for dinner at Loving Hut. Loving Hut is a chain of vegan restaurants that is world wide. We’ve been to a few of them in the US and seen a few internationally during our travels but never ate at one outside the US. They are kind of like Govinda’s they have something to do with religion in common and vegan food, but not much else. It was set up the same way as Jardin Vegetariano, but with fewer options and a little more oily. They also have a menu you can order from, but we just chose from the premade foods. At first nothing looked very good to me, but I ended up with a nice plate of veggies, beans and plantains. Jeff again chose the more fried and processed options. It was pretty good (at least mine was!), but way more expensive, $15.75! I would gladly go back to Jardin Vegetariano any day, but probably wouldn’t go back to Loving Hut. I was glad to try it though.

Mine is the plate on the right. It is always nice to eat lots of veggies.

Our last task of the night was to walk the mile back to our hostel. We were thoroughly exhausted at this point. We had walked nearly 8 miles, all on hard cement and in extreme heat by the time we reached our hostel.


Thursday December 28th

We packed up our room this morning and put our bags in storage for a few hours. After a week in Panama City, it’s time to move on!

Sometimes we like to give our digestion a long break, especially after a day of abundance, like yesterday, so we skipped breakfast and went out for an early lunch. That made for 16 hours without eating. Many people snack until late in the evening, then eat first thing in the morning, never really getting hungry! We like to get hungry! We worked up an appetite walking back to Jardin Vegetariano. Or at least I did. Jeff announced he wasn’t eating when we got there. Guess he’s not feeling so well. I suspect the poor food choices he made yesterday. I on the other hand was delighted to eat again! I got potato salad, stir fried eggplant, plantain, steamed pumpkin and tofu. I haven’t had tofu since I left the US! And people think tofu is about all vegans eat! 

I would eat here every day if  I could!

After lunch we went back to the Rey grocery store where I found the sweet potato and the German bread. We got more bread and more sweet potatoes! I hate that I am always carrying food with us when we move, but at the same time I can’t help myself! Who knows if I’ll ever find those things again! I didn’t see that bread in any other store in Panama City.

Sweet potatoes. 

Packaged dense German bread.

After Rey we walked to another grocery store that was on the way back, Riba Smith, like the one in the mall that we went to yesterday, just a different location. We went in search of yogurts and kombucha. That is the only store chain that has vegan yogurt and kombucha. We thought the probiotics might help Jeff in his recovery. We love getting yogurts and kombuchas even when illness isn’t a factor. It’s kind of a grocery store ritual for us. Every time we go shopping we get yogurt and kombucha and eat them as soon as we get to the car. I have missed them!

Outside the grocery store, I spotted a lady selling bollos (like a sweet corn tamale), so of course, I had to have some. I don’t know if they are more Colombian or Panamanian or equally both. I also wonder if things like bollos and arepas and yams and taro were available when I lived here and I just didn’t notice them because my family didn’t eat them or what? I swear all we ever ate was white rice and black beans with small amounts of deep fried (unbreaded) chicken.

Bollo de Maiz Nuevo (young corn tamale)

When we got back to our hostel I ordered us an Uber to the bus terminal. The traffic was horrible as usual. We got on the 2pm bus to our next destination, El Valle de Anton. It should only be a 2 1/2 ride, but the traffic getting out of the city was bad, and delayed us about 30 minutes. Jeff went to bed as soon as we got here. I had a peanut butter and jelly with our special bread and a banana. I’ve been struggling to entertain myself ever since. 

We are staying at Bodhi Hostel. There’s a giant Buddha painted on the outside wall that faces the street. It’s the only hostel in town. The other options are cheap motels. We tend to prefer hostels, even if they are a little more expensive, because we get a kitchen to use, and most of the time, the front desk offers good advice on what there is to do nearby. Here that is especially important because there is a lot of hiking and nature. They have all the information on activities nicely laid out in a book with pictures and directions. We are in a 27 bed dorm though! They were out of double rooms, and I think the nearby motels would be too, because it’s New Years week and this is a place that’s a popular vacation spot for Panamanians. We have been in big dorm rooms before and it’s usually ok, but in this one, the beds are stacked 3 high, and we are in the top two. The lockers aren’t big enough to accommodate our backpacks, so they have to go on the floor, and floor space is very limited. We also don’t have a ladder on our bed, because it’s shoved in a corner and partially blocked by the bed next to it. We have to use the neighboring bed’s ladder and jump over into our beds. This hostel has really good ratings, and was even ranked #1 in all of Panama last year. I can’t understand why. 

Hostel is in  a strip mall next to an agricultural supply store

Crowded 27 bed dorm

In general, we’ve had a fine time staying in dorms this trip. Most people are considerate and don’t make too much noise or turn on lights when people are sleeping. We tend to be the first ones to go to bed and don’t usually get woken up. Jeff shushes the noisy people if there are any, haha! It helps when we are in the cubicle type dorm beds with curtains. Those seem to be a new trend. I hope we keep finding them. Our number one biggest complaint about being in the dorms is the spray deodorant!! I have come to hate the noise of aerosols of any kind! People go nuts with them, holding down the trigger for an eternity. Then the deplorable smell comes afterward. We hate scented anything. People also spray bug spray and spray sunscreen in the dorm rooms. They are clueless and have no idea that smelly things don’t smell good to a lot of people! Another thing we don’t like, about hostels in general is the constant mopping by cleaning ladies. They probably go over the floors 10 times a day and with the most awful scented cleaners, the worst of all being bubblegum! When we have our own room, we can avoid the mopping, but the dorms get mopped at least once a day. 😝

One more downer is all of the backpackers that smoke! It’s truly disgusting the number of young people we see smoking. It seems to be very normal in Europe, because all of the Europeans smoke, and they ignore no smoking signs, and pollute all of the common outdoor spaces. I think they should be forced out onto the street if they’d like to continue their disgusting habit!