Kepfram & Ellie's Travel Journal

Impressions of Panama:
I liked Panama City.
You can drink the water.
I'd been told that the Old City was a world apart from the New City, serious poverty, high crime, etc. vs. clean streets, beautiful people & buildings, but I didn't get that feeling. Panama City has a small population, about 700,000, but there´s no shortage of high rise buildings (I always thought tall buildings meant large numbers of people & high population density). I guess they don´t have many earthquakes or they just love their tall buildings or maybe their building codes anticipate earthquakes, or maybe economics is the deciding factor, there are a couple reasons for building high I'm told.
I didn't check any population data, but from what Ellie tells me Panama is the most diverse country that we will visit. At a minimum Panama City appeared to have more black people than San Jose (we saw black hair care products in pharmacies in Panama, but when we spent a day searching San Jose no one seemed to understand what we were looking for).
The place reminded me of Miami. & just like any city in the states there are nice neighborhoods & bad ones. What I saw wasn't very different from what I've seen in the US. Actually I think Pamama is more like the US than anyplace else we´ve been, the highways & roads in general were comparable, the drivers weren´t trying to hit me as I crossed the streets (unlike some countries we've been to), & the prices for goods & services weren't inflated to ridiculous levels by tarifs that I couldn't comprehend. Then again were weren't there for very long & didn't go out a great deal, we saw a mall, the waterfront, a bit of the old city, the Canal, & some restaurants before flying to Quito.
Also, there are almost no product commercials on Panamanian TV, & the only channel we found worth watching was Fox which seemed to have no end to commercials about itself.

I am fond of the fact that Copa served us empanadas as part of our in-flight meal for our hour & a half flight, which will make that sack of peanuts they give us back in the states less satisfying somehow...

Look for more photos in the coming weeks. I saw a bit of Quito as the plane was comming in & from the terrace of our hostel this afternoon before the clouds greyed the city, it's quite nice. Ellie & I have revised our itinerary recently & I'll update the details here shortly, no major changes though, we're still planning on doing the whole country in about 2 weeks before hitting Peru, but now we´ve got a better idea about where we´re going & for how long. More to come...

Later,

Kepfram