I’m not sure who’s idea this was but, when we found out our flight from Cartagena, Columbia to Rio de Janeiro stopped in Panama City, we decided to jump off and give it a look. However, once we arrived, we looked at each other and asked “What were we thinking?”
From a distance, the city is impressive — a modern skyline with architecturally significant buildings. But as you get closer, you see under-lit streets, broken sidewalks, smelly trash containers, and dark, empty buildings at night. You wonder where all that money came from and why it didn’t trickle down to improving public spaces and maintaining infrastructure.
Actually, we all know where the money came from….
Panama Papers, anyone?
Coronavirus or just a soul-less town?
Casco Viego
So, on our first night in town, we headed over to old town, Casco Viejo, to check it out. This recently renovated part of town has received some good press lately so we wanted to see what it was all about.
Seared Sea Bass with fried plantains, pickled vegetables and a sweet dipping sauce. The appetizer was Tuna carpaccio with pickled onion salsa (not shown). We loved all of it!
Our first stop, the amazing restaurant — Lo Que Hoy. This place thrilled us. It should be added to the list of Best Reasons to Visit Panama City. Funky and fun. With innovative dishes we’ve never seen anywhere.
Afterwards, we started to explore the neighborhood. There is something truly exciting about landing in a new city and exploring a new neighborhood after a really nice meal and a couple of glasses of wine. What we’re really saying is, getting lost is easy and wandering into an area where you don’t belong is really easy. Luckily, a young policeman came up to us and, in broken English, said “You don’t belong here. Turn around.” We quickly obliged.
Lo Que Hoy’s Beef tongue with pasta (and something crunchy on top) had a nice spicy edge. We sat at the bar and enjoyed talking with the chef.
We visited Old Town one other time — during daylight hours — to explore the refurbished neighborhood more fully; quite an impressive collection of high-end hotels, restaurants, gelato and coffee shops.
The American Trade Hotel in Casco Viejo.
But the real reason we came to Panama…
The Panama Canal and Miraflores Locks
At the suggestion of another travel blogger, we nerded-out and booked a unique experience to have dinner at the canal instead of the usual on-site museum tour and iMax movie overview. I mean really. We’ve traveled all this way to see a 3-D movie about the locks when it’s literally 50 feet away? I think not.
We arrived at 5 pm and sat there for three hours sipping wine and eating dinner while watching the ships pass, waving to the crew and watching the sun set. We were mesmerized watching the locks closing, the canal water rising, the ships entering, the water receding, the locks opening and the ships passing to the lower levels. Beyond impressive. This was definitely the way to go.
Before our visit, we watched a NatGeo documentary about the canal construction completed over 100 years ago. The nine-year project, originally initiated and then abandoned by France, took more than 25,000 lives in its construction process — between accidents and mosquito-borne diseases. The scale of this project, developers’ engineering insight, and the cost of lives is truly beyond comprehension.
I followed up our visit by watching a YouTube documentary about the canal’s current-day shipping challenges. Here’s what I found out:
The average cost to bring a Panamax tanker through the canal is a quarter of a million dollars.
Tanker’s maximum stats: 190’ H x 106’ W x 950’ L; weights up to 520,000 tons.
Each ship can wait as long as four days to pass through the canal due to high demand.
Before they pass through Miraflores Locks they wait their turn in Gatun Lake. This can be tricky because there is normally a large number of tankers waiting to pass. Their massive size and weight makes it extremely hard for them to navigate in tight quarters. And during the rainy season, visibility can be less than 50’.
Depending on the direction, each ship either starts or ends their journey at the Colon Channel. This narrow passage has tight curves and is in a constant state of narrowing itself due to earth shifts; so the channel is continually being dredged to keep an adequate depth for ships to pass.
For the remainder of our trip, other than finding a few more decent restaurants, we laid low (in part due to concerns about the coronavirus and also because we were totally uninspired to explore the rest of this town). It also gave us a chance to rest-up for our trip to Brazil - if a travel ban doesn’t prevent our departure.
ADDITIONAL TRIP NOTES
Weather - Sunny and hot! (low 90s)
Restaurants we loved…
Our ‘going away present’ from the owner of Annie & Motts
Nomada Eatery - great lunch bowls.
Annie & Motts - near our hotel. Great espresso drinks, breakfast and light lunch options.
La Barra Del Mar - delicious seafood.
Santa Rita - Casco Viejo steak eatery.
How long was our stay - Way too long (five days)! To be fair, from everything we’ve heard, Panama City’s not all that bad. If we visit again, we’ll head to their beaches just outside of town.
Where we stayed…
Tryp Wyndham - about 2.5 miles from Casco Viejo (or a $3 Uber ride). We enjoyed this typical American business hotel: crisp sheets, king-size bed, a nice gym with a treadmill and a roof-top swimming pool - $65/night.
When we weren’t being travelers we…
Finished watching Formula One on Netflix.
Worked on our taxes.
Worked out at our hotel gym.
Swam in the hotel pool.
Worked on our blog posts.
News from home…
Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Coronavirus is deemed a pandemic. Watching our phones light up with news alerts about school and event closings and Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson being infected.
Our next stop…
We’ll be spending the next two weeks in Brazil (Rio, Paraty and Sao Paulo) with about 20 other friends to celebrate Ernesto Rocco-Davies’ 50th birthday.
Panama is our last Spanish-speaking country for awhile. Wish us luck because we know ZERO Portuguese.