Panama City: First Impressions

So far, so good! It seems like we´ve been away for a lot longer than 2 days already.

Happy gringos. Eventually we´ll get a photo we are both in.

Panama City is a really cool city, but really strange. There is so much construction and renovation going on (because it has newly booming tourism and financial industries.) Completely destroyed or run down buildings, borderline slum conditions, are right next to or mixed in with beautiful new buildings. Its really crazy to see because it changes in an instant. (Don´t worry mom, dad, grammas, and the McCaffrey´s: we haven´t felt unsafe at all. There are tons of police everywhere to protect the fledgling tourism industry and everyone has been super nice anyway.)

The white building is totally run down, but to the left is a super gorgeous hotel.

 

 

I also can´t believe how many sky scrapers there are here.

This is the financial district where our hostel is. To the left is probably 25-50 more giant sky scrapers

 

 

 

 

So far we´ve walked about 1000 miles and probably biked just as far. We rented bikes for last night and this morning. Turns out, it´s not really a bike friendly city and we looked like crazy people carrying our bikes up and down curbs and stairs. There is a gorgeous pathway that goes downtown and into the tourist district ("Old Town") where biking is a lot easier though.

 

Grafitti in the Casco Viejo ("Old Town")

 

 

 

One nice suprise is that everything here has been crazy cheap. Today Keegan and I shared a big plate of rice, beans and some sort of meatloaf thing with 2 slices of platano on the side, 2 beers and a 2 scoop ice cream cone for $8.50 total. Beer at the store is 59 cents each, and only like $1 at restaurants if you aren´t in a tourist area. Our hostel is $10/night/person and it has a whole hang out area with hammocks and a swimming pool (important since its insanely humid here!!)

 

We got kicked out for opening our beers in the store. Oops.

 Finally, the best/craziest/most WTF thing we have seen so far. "Chicken buses" that go all over the city/country that are completely decked out with mufflers and crazy paint jobs and sometimes scantily clad ladies.. we even saw a Miley Cirus on one.

He saw us taking the picture.

Sweet mufflers bro.

So that´s all for now folks! Tomorrow we head for Bocas del Toro, a group of islands in the north west corner of Panama.

 

(Last fun fact for the hispanohablantes: when people greet you here they say `bueno` instead of  `hola`. I haven´t figured out which you are supposed to say back yet though..)