Pa-not-my City (PTY)

Did you ever ask yourself when I’m writing my blog? At the moment I’m sitting in the bus form Lima to Cusco. Just arrived in Lima after 3.15 hours flight from Panama City and having a 21 hours bus ride ahead. There is more than enough time. Actually, I don’t want to know how many hours I’m waiting, travelling by bus, train or airplane.

29 Feb 2012 – Good Morning Panama City

Early in the morning I arrived in Panama and went directly to the hostel with a taxi, as the buses were very strange for me, but later more about the buses in Panama City. The rest of the day I just visited the area where the hostel was. Luckily the most beautiful and most touristic part of the whole city. Obviously, this was not the reason that I took that hostel, it was just the cheapest for less than 10 Euro per night and it was ok. Every morning bananas and peanut butter sandwiches. Panama is famous for its bananas but I liked them more in Brazil. Chiquita is from Panama for example.

Pimp My Bus – Street Art in PTY

As I told you I didn’t take a bus form the airport because they were a little bit strange. I couldn’t see any direction, bus number or anything else except these nice colours and pictures on them. But look twice, the destination is written on the windows. The left one goes to Balboa, the right one to Panama Viejo, obvious, isn’t it?

01 Mar 2012 – Panama Max

“Panama Max” are the largest ships passing the Panama Canal. Unfortunately I don’t know their size but they are massive and very impressive. As I went to the Minaflores Locks at the Canal there was one of these “Panama Max” ships and it was huge, however, it passed the locks like a toy. The Canal is an engineering master piece, finished in 1913 and still running properly. Since the demand of international logistics increases rapidly, an extension of the locks is planned for 2014 to handle bigger ships. Passing the Canal costs around 400.000 US-$ dependant on the weight of the ship. In 1936, a man swam through the Canal and had to pay only 35 cents.

02 Mar 2012 – Oficinal de Curreo

The target for today was just to find a post office and have a look around the city. So I walked to the city centre and asked some people for the post office in Spanish. They understood me quite well, ok, I just asked the same question, but I never understood the answer. However, after some hours of asking, searching and walking I fond it in the World Trade Centre… and it was already closed at 4 pm.

3 Mar 2012 – Red Bull in Panama City

The last day in Panama City. I thought about going to an little Island with a boat but I decided to stay close to the hostel. I’ve heard so much bad things about that city that I was very scared about doing anything. While walking around the city these days in PTY I got stopped two times, and got told to turn around because it would be too dangerous going ahead. An Italian backpacker in the hostel got robbed in a taxi and had to go to the Italian embassy to get new documents. Eventually it was a nice day in Panama City. There was a Red Bull skateboard event for free at the sea not the highest level but better than nothing. Did I already tell you, that the Panamanian girls are damn beautiful? But when they have pepper sprays in their hot pants you might realize how dangerous this city is. I didn’t like Panama City!