This is going to be a short post because we only spent 3 nights here. It felt even shorter than that because we were wiped out from 3 travel days in a row (ferry from Isabella Island to Santa Cruz Island on one day, flight from Galapagos to Guayaquil the next day, and flight from Guayaquil to Panama City on the third day). So in reality, just 2 days to explore a new city in a new country for us. Panama City is often called Central America’s only city. I’m not sure I agree with that because we have recently been in Guatemala City and San Jose, Costa Rica which both have a lot of people in them and are getting modernized. But Panama City is the only city that is filled with skyscrapers. Lots of people live in condo and apartment high rises along the waterfront. We took the metro from the airport to our downtown high rise hotel. The new train was awesome for the airport, but we didn’t take it to any of the tourist spots. We had to take Ubers everywhere which meant we were stuck in the infamous Panama City traffic all the time. I can’t remember a place that had such a bad traffic problem.
Our first stop was Casco Viejo which is the old colonial building part of town that have been revitilized. This is where you find the souvenir shops, art galleries, old churches, ice cream shops and restaurants that are popular with tourists. We wandered around a bit and soaked in our first taste of the Panamanian atmosphere.
Next we had to hit the number one attraction in Panama- The Panama Canal. We watched an informative IMAX movie narrated by Morgan Freeman that gave us the history of the canal and then we headed over to the viewing area. We were able to watch a boat go down the locks on it’s way to the Pacific Ocean. I couldn’t believe how many hundreds of people were there watching this with us. It was pretty interesting but it doesn’t really operate much differently than the Ballard Locks in Seattle. It is just on a different scale. These boats barely fit in the locks and have to be steered using the small tugs on tracks on the side of the locks.
The next day, we started with an Uber to the big Metropolitan Natural Park. The bird app, Merlin, showed that there is a lot of birds in this city and we thought this park might be the best place to see them. We hiked up to a viewpoint through some jungle paths and got a good view of the city although it was pretty hazy. We saw a few birds including a keel billed toucan as well a 3 toed sloth. I think there are better bird watching places in this country but that will have to wait for another trip to a different part of Panama.
Our last tourist stop was the ruins of the original city- Panama Viejo. Spain’s first colonial city on the Pacific was built here in 1513 and lasted until the pirate Henry Morgan destroyed it in 1671. The city was then moved a few miles away to it’s current location. Many of the walls from the old stone buildings are still there including one of the churches bell towers that you can climb up for a good view. The city history museum there was done pretty well and we learned the basics about the city.
It was a short stay here but I think it was just long enough. We don’t have anything we really still need to see here. We liked the food but we didn’t care for the traffic so I can’t see us coming back to the city. I want to see more of Panama but I would rather go to Bocas del Toros, the beaches, or to somewhere where we can do some bird watching. Next stop- Bucerias, Mexico.