After leaving LA at nearly 11PM last night, we arrived into
Panama City this morning at 8.04AM (local time) – a flight of around 6 hours or
so. Very little sleep due to lousy cabin
lighting schemes (far too bright to sleep), people talking too loudly, and a
child in the seat behind us (as always) who woke up with a scream just as we
were nodding off. He was either having a
nightmare, had a handicap of some sort, or most likely, a combination of
both. His parents solved his screaming
by covering his mouth with their hands in order to try and shut him up, but
that just made him work harder. Poor
thing, but it certainly woke us up in a hurry!
Arriving into Panama was quite spectacular due to all the
islands, forests and the sea, although the sea appears quite shallow and muddy
for some distance from the shore. The
city itself is surprisingly big, even though I knew there has been (and still
is?) a building boom. There are many
high-rise towers, including one that is spectacularly twisted.
After passing through immigration (our luggage is forwarded
to Chile already), we found a place to store our hand luggage and then contracted a
taxi to take us to the local artisans market.
Turns out there are several and there is some debate amongst the taxi
drivers as to which is best to visit.
Our taxi driver differs in opinion to the others and eventually we come
to an agreement that he will take us around for a couple of hours, wait for us
and so on. We drive past the marker he
didn’t recommend and it is easy to see why – it is next to deserted.
We eventually arrive at the recommended market (in Balboa)
and it is much better. Lots of little
stalls in a vacant space that appears to have once been a hotel. It is now in poor state, appears half built,
and is generally a mess – perfect location for a craft market! After wandering for some time and asking the
price of various things, it appears that there is far less competition than
originally appears. A number of
attractive young girls tending the stalls have no idea how much things cost and
repeatedly defer to an older lady.
Seemingly she owns somewhere between 4-6 stalls. The variety is somewhat less than initially
imagined too, prices are much the same and drop to the same “final” price quite
quickly and so on. Still, we got some
nice things.
Afterwards, we went to a small duty free shop at a fancy
marina. There were some fabulous boats,
although I suspect they should be called motor yachts or something
similar. Impressive craft. The duty free was junk if you are travelling
from larger cities – perhaps if this is your first stop out of Caracas, you
might think it was OK…
By now we were feeling a little peckish. Restaurant recommendations were refused, as
we wanted something simple. We
eventually agree on the “Mercado de Mariscos”, which is a seafood market with a
large number of stalls providing cooked seafood,. Each has its own PA system with loud music
pumping out. Entertaining. Oh yes, it’s outdoors. And have I mentioned how hot and humid it
is? We’re sweating a lot. Anyway, back to lunch. We decide on fried fish, initially thinking
it would be fillets, but alas it turns out it was an entire fish. We also asked for some chips. Of course.
After a surprisingly long amount of time, the fish arrived
and wow, it was delicious. The chips
were also fabulous. A must-visit
location if any reader is in the area.
We
then trucked back to the airport, avoided the confusion of checking in again
(and the potential presence of a tourist tax) due to already having boarding
cards from Los Angeles, and settled in to wait for our flight – we have about 4
hours. All in all, we’d recommend a
visit to Panama. Seems interesting
enough for a good couple of days, especially if you were to head out of Panama
to other parts of the country. It‘s
pretty hot and humid though, so be prepared!
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