being a tourist in panama
Ah, Portobelo, more like Porto-boring, am i right?
Yes, i took another trip to the Panamanian Caribbean and it sucked just as much as the first time, just with less tourists. I had my expectations low for Portobelo, but it still managed to fall short.
I took the bus to Colón, aka murder capital of Panama, and jumped out at Sabanitas, where there is a turnoff to the coast. After waiting around half an hour at a busy supermarket with countless touts and food stalls out the front, i had my first experience jumping on one of those diablo rojo buses that Panama used to be famous for but now no longer is. They were brightly painted, modified and adorned American school buses that crawled the streets until 2010 when they were outlawed. There are still a few around, but they have a white base coat now instead of a red base coat, they're legal, and pretty rare outside a handful of routes.
Still, it was cool to get on one. I stayed standing for a while then slid into a seat before jumping out at the first fort of Portobelo.
Portobelo is famous in history as a harbor on the Spanish main visited by Christopher Columbus and Francis Drake, where the conquistadors shipped their treasure back to Spain, and where British pirates like Henry Morgan burned, raped and pillaged in vain attempts to capture that gold. The Spanish built a ton of forts to try protect the city. Eventually other ports like Cartagena and Veracruz eclipsed its importance. By the time the Panama Canal got built (which pops out at Colón), that was it for this city.
Now the jungle has overgrown most of the fortifications, and what was left people built shacks on, over and around. You can still see some ruins along the waterfront, but it takes about 10 minutes to see them all and that's that. There are a handful of fondas and mini supers, and a jetty where boats leave to various nearby beaches - some even head all the way to Colombia via the Guna Yala indigenous comarca - but that's about it.
On the up side, i was the only foreigner in town. So it was less shit than Bocas del Toro. No one hassled me to buy a tour or trinkets or anything. On the down side, the skies dumped rain on and off all morning.
And it was still morning when i decided to leave. Yeah, i could've waited for a bus to continue on to Puerto Lindo or Nombre de Dios, but i suppose that would've been more of the same. Small village. Jungle. Rain. No fucking hiking trails. Take a boat taxi around the head to a hidden beach on a deserted island? And then what? Sit on my ass in the sun slash rain for 3 hours? Boring.
So now it's 12:30pm and i'm on the bus back to Sabanitas. The Caribbean is a bust. And in two days i am flying straight back into it again.
But i did do some other tourist stuff in and around Panama City that was better.
I spent $4 to get into the metropolitan park, the so-called "lungs of the city". Disappointingly, you can complete all the hikes in about 2 hours. Some of them are hard work, despite only climbing about 50m, because it's a fucking jungle. I was covered in beads of sweat almost the whole afternoon.
It took 15 minutes of walking from a shopping mall to get there. There is no sidewalk half the way, and you need to cross two busy roads where there is no pedestrian crossing. It's absurd how many "public" green spaces there are in and around Panama City where officially the only way to get there is in a car.
I visited another one two days ago. The Amador causeway. Right at the mouth of the Canal, a large causeway has been built to join two or three former islands to the mainland. The causeway is supposedly a place to cycle or jog along, but it's not really connected to the rest of the city and there is zero shade so it turns out hardly anybody actually uses it for its alleged purpose. Instead they take a taxi or bus to the islands, whose small, green peaks are closed to the general public, but you are welcome to visit the shopping mall right next to the cruise ship terminal.
Or you can get the boat to Isla Taboga, which is why i went there. And i'm glad i went there only for that, because Amador itself is another epic fail of spending a ton of money to specifically craft a "tourist" place that most tourists (not to mention locals) would never want to visit.
The ferry to Taboga is blisteringly expensive. It's probably the most expensive thing i have bought in Panama - $24!
But. I also ended up having the best hike i had in Panama when i was there. Instead of going to the beach, i followed a dotted line into a green patch on OpenStreetMap. It was an unmarked, unadvertized trail that circled around the island, stopping at a small beach, and looping in a tiny shrine. It was extremely refreshing to find a shrine in the wilderness. They're all over the place in China and Taiwan, and they're always a delightful little treat to find in the middle of nowhere.
After the shrine i headed up to a bunker on the hill with a view out into the Pacific, then walked back down the hill and up a different one. This second trail was on a hill with no trees and no water. Scrub and dried out bunchgrass, it felt like i was in Greece. It was a very steep, treacherous and hot climb, and it was awesome. Easily the best place i have been in Panama. I was sweating and sunbaked all the way up, trying to get a hold on the crumbling dust, pausing for shelter under the tiniest of shrubs. There was a cross at the top, and a bit further along a tree just big enough to hide under and eat the loaf of bread i had taken along.
When i got back to the village i bought a beer and a pineapple juice, which i drank on the beach, waiting for my boat back. It was an awesome day, despite the very high cost of the ticket.
I am trying to keep my expectations adjusted low (perhaps even lower) for Colombia. From what i hear the green space is even less developed, and the touts and scammers are much more aggressive.
I never really thought about how much of a blessing it was/is to visit places where some time has been invested in making it nice to walk. Every time i visit corners of the world surrounded by natural beauty but no convenient paths to or through it, i am so disappointed.
Maybe it's just corruption is the problem? Perhaps sometimes there is a trail, but then if it's filled with bandits robbing solo travelers, who are in cahoots with the paid guides, who also pay off the police... Now there is a financial incentive for everyone to keep the system structured such so that it solely exists to exploit wealthy travelers. But the thing is, you're ultimately screwing your own population, the local people who are now deprived of having green space because it isn't safe, affordable or well-maintained.
-o-
When i switched buses in Sabanitas i decided to take another diablo rojo to Panama instead of getting on the express bus. I awkwardly stood at the back till a seat came free and i concertinaed my legs to try fit myself in there. The bus was packed, and bolder people just squished themselves into a seat as a third person in a two-seat spot. Nevertheless, it felt healthier and more cheerful than those claustrophobic coaches where busybodies fuss over their assigned seat. All the windows wide open, music blasting, it felt like a party. It's so much nicer to travel with the wind in your face and a thundering sound system than stuck into an air-conditioned bubble with all the curtains drawn because God forbid anyone get a ray of sun on their skin.
I hate air-conditioned public transport so fucking much.
I mean, i just hate air-conditioning, period. It is the fucking worst.
Anyway, even more delightfully, instead of screaming along the toll road where there is nothing to see, we took the hilly route across the continent, stopping at all the settlements along the way, and i was able to jump out about 2 minutes walk from my hotel (in the "sketchy" part of town) instead of having to go all the way over to the stupid fucking shopping mall in the middle of nowhere where all the other buses stop. It was an excellent bus ride.
Taking chicken buses all over the Americas would be a joy.
So, i am flying out to Cartagena on Tuesday in the late afternoon. That leaves two more days to do tourist stuff in and around Panama City. There are a few longer and more serious hiking trails that you could theoretically do in a day if you left very early, but most of them recommend guides, so i feel like it's asking for trouble trying to jam them into the end. Perhaps instead i will just take a couple easy days in the hotel, eat some more patacones and hojaldres, because i am sure when i leave this place, much as i lamented the food situation while i was here, i will probably miss aspects of it.
Like, papayas. So many cheap papayas. And bananas. Some days here in Panama i feel like i am Freelee the Banana Girl, who is/was a vegan YouTuber who i think had a scandal for not actually being vegan. I don't really know the details because i only know her name second-hand from ONTD, but i think she advocated a diet of only eating bananas. There are days here where i have banana and oats for breakfast, patacones (fried plantain) for lunch, then banana and tortillas for dinner. I am turning into a giant banana. With a papaya on top. And i don't care.
Ah, the weather over here back on the Pacific coast is awesome. No rain. Blue sky. Hot as hell. I love it. Time to post.
Yes, i took another trip to the Panamanian Caribbean and it sucked just as much as the first time, just with less tourists. I had my expectations low for Portobelo, but it still managed to fall short.
I took the bus to Colón, aka murder capital of Panama, and jumped out at Sabanitas, where there is a turnoff to the coast. After waiting around half an hour at a busy supermarket with countless touts and food stalls out the front, i had my first experience jumping on one of those diablo rojo buses that Panama used to be famous for but now no longer is. They were brightly painted, modified and adorned American school buses that crawled the streets until 2010 when they were outlawed. There are still a few around, but they have a white base coat now instead of a red base coat, they're legal, and pretty rare outside a handful of routes.
Still, it was cool to get on one. I stayed standing for a while then slid into a seat before jumping out at the first fort of Portobelo.
Portobelo is famous in history as a harbor on the Spanish main visited by Christopher Columbus and Francis Drake, where the conquistadors shipped their treasure back to Spain, and where British pirates like Henry Morgan burned, raped and pillaged in vain attempts to capture that gold. The Spanish built a ton of forts to try protect the city. Eventually other ports like Cartagena and Veracruz eclipsed its importance. By the time the Panama Canal got built (which pops out at Colón), that was it for this city.
Now the jungle has overgrown most of the fortifications, and what was left people built shacks on, over and around. You can still see some ruins along the waterfront, but it takes about 10 minutes to see them all and that's that. There are a handful of fondas and mini supers, and a jetty where boats leave to various nearby beaches - some even head all the way to Colombia via the Guna Yala indigenous comarca - but that's about it.
On the up side, i was the only foreigner in town. So it was less shit than Bocas del Toro. No one hassled me to buy a tour or trinkets or anything. On the down side, the skies dumped rain on and off all morning.
And it was still morning when i decided to leave. Yeah, i could've waited for a bus to continue on to Puerto Lindo or Nombre de Dios, but i suppose that would've been more of the same. Small village. Jungle. Rain. No fucking hiking trails. Take a boat taxi around the head to a hidden beach on a deserted island? And then what? Sit on my ass in the sun slash rain for 3 hours? Boring.
So now it's 12:30pm and i'm on the bus back to Sabanitas. The Caribbean is a bust. And in two days i am flying straight back into it again.
But i did do some other tourist stuff in and around Panama City that was better.
I spent $4 to get into the metropolitan park, the so-called "lungs of the city". Disappointingly, you can complete all the hikes in about 2 hours. Some of them are hard work, despite only climbing about 50m, because it's a fucking jungle. I was covered in beads of sweat almost the whole afternoon.
It took 15 minutes of walking from a shopping mall to get there. There is no sidewalk half the way, and you need to cross two busy roads where there is no pedestrian crossing. It's absurd how many "public" green spaces there are in and around Panama City where officially the only way to get there is in a car.
I visited another one two days ago. The Amador causeway. Right at the mouth of the Canal, a large causeway has been built to join two or three former islands to the mainland. The causeway is supposedly a place to cycle or jog along, but it's not really connected to the rest of the city and there is zero shade so it turns out hardly anybody actually uses it for its alleged purpose. Instead they take a taxi or bus to the islands, whose small, green peaks are closed to the general public, but you are welcome to visit the shopping mall right next to the cruise ship terminal.
Or you can get the boat to Isla Taboga, which is why i went there. And i'm glad i went there only for that, because Amador itself is another epic fail of spending a ton of money to specifically craft a "tourist" place that most tourists (not to mention locals) would never want to visit.
The ferry to Taboga is blisteringly expensive. It's probably the most expensive thing i have bought in Panama - $24!
But. I also ended up having the best hike i had in Panama when i was there. Instead of going to the beach, i followed a dotted line into a green patch on OpenStreetMap. It was an unmarked, unadvertized trail that circled around the island, stopping at a small beach, and looping in a tiny shrine. It was extremely refreshing to find a shrine in the wilderness. They're all over the place in China and Taiwan, and they're always a delightful little treat to find in the middle of nowhere.
After the shrine i headed up to a bunker on the hill with a view out into the Pacific, then walked back down the hill and up a different one. This second trail was on a hill with no trees and no water. Scrub and dried out bunchgrass, it felt like i was in Greece. It was a very steep, treacherous and hot climb, and it was awesome. Easily the best place i have been in Panama. I was sweating and sunbaked all the way up, trying to get a hold on the crumbling dust, pausing for shelter under the tiniest of shrubs. There was a cross at the top, and a bit further along a tree just big enough to hide under and eat the loaf of bread i had taken along.
When i got back to the village i bought a beer and a pineapple juice, which i drank on the beach, waiting for my boat back. It was an awesome day, despite the very high cost of the ticket.
I am trying to keep my expectations adjusted low (perhaps even lower) for Colombia. From what i hear the green space is even less developed, and the touts and scammers are much more aggressive.
I never really thought about how much of a blessing it was/is to visit places where some time has been invested in making it nice to walk. Every time i visit corners of the world surrounded by natural beauty but no convenient paths to or through it, i am so disappointed.
Maybe it's just corruption is the problem? Perhaps sometimes there is a trail, but then if it's filled with bandits robbing solo travelers, who are in cahoots with the paid guides, who also pay off the police... Now there is a financial incentive for everyone to keep the system structured such so that it solely exists to exploit wealthy travelers. But the thing is, you're ultimately screwing your own population, the local people who are now deprived of having green space because it isn't safe, affordable or well-maintained.
-o-
When i switched buses in Sabanitas i decided to take another diablo rojo to Panama instead of getting on the express bus. I awkwardly stood at the back till a seat came free and i concertinaed my legs to try fit myself in there. The bus was packed, and bolder people just squished themselves into a seat as a third person in a two-seat spot. Nevertheless, it felt healthier and more cheerful than those claustrophobic coaches where busybodies fuss over their assigned seat. All the windows wide open, music blasting, it felt like a party. It's so much nicer to travel with the wind in your face and a thundering sound system than stuck into an air-conditioned bubble with all the curtains drawn because God forbid anyone get a ray of sun on their skin.
I hate air-conditioned public transport so fucking much.
I mean, i just hate air-conditioning, period. It is the fucking worst.
Anyway, even more delightfully, instead of screaming along the toll road where there is nothing to see, we took the hilly route across the continent, stopping at all the settlements along the way, and i was able to jump out about 2 minutes walk from my hotel (in the "sketchy" part of town) instead of having to go all the way over to the stupid fucking shopping mall in the middle of nowhere where all the other buses stop. It was an excellent bus ride.
Taking chicken buses all over the Americas would be a joy.
So, i am flying out to Cartagena on Tuesday in the late afternoon. That leaves two more days to do tourist stuff in and around Panama City. There are a few longer and more serious hiking trails that you could theoretically do in a day if you left very early, but most of them recommend guides, so i feel like it's asking for trouble trying to jam them into the end. Perhaps instead i will just take a couple easy days in the hotel, eat some more patacones and hojaldres, because i am sure when i leave this place, much as i lamented the food situation while i was here, i will probably miss aspects of it.
Like, papayas. So many cheap papayas. And bananas. Some days here in Panama i feel like i am Freelee the Banana Girl, who is/was a vegan YouTuber who i think had a scandal for not actually being vegan. I don't really know the details because i only know her name second-hand from ONTD, but i think she advocated a diet of only eating bananas. There are days here where i have banana and oats for breakfast, patacones (fried plantain) for lunch, then banana and tortillas for dinner. I am turning into a giant banana. With a papaya on top. And i don't care.
Ah, the weather over here back on the Pacific coast is awesome. No rain. Blue sky. Hot as hell. I love it. Time to post.