I freshened up a bit (surprisingly the water was on this morning) not to look too messy packed and left to my new Hostel. The Magnolia Inn.
It was only 11 and I could already check in and it was heavenly. The beds had power sockets and reading lights. It was clean, there were lockers in the room and we even had a little balcony.
The common area had a couple of sofas was painted and there were cupboards and pictures. It felt nearly like another world... Ok maybe I am overdoing this a little now but it was so nice to be at a comfortable, friendly place.
The very best of this place however was the water that came from a little pipe from the wall. You could even change the temperature with these little knobs.
There was no dirt and fungus in the bathroom, it was clean. It was the first shower I had taken in 5 days or so and it felt great.
Unfortunately I had to soon leave this lovely place again because I wanted to tick one more item of my itinerary list of Panama City.
Panama Viejo - Old Panama. This is a different (even older) part of town than Casco Viejo. It is the first European Settlement at the Pacific coast (1519) but was robbed and burnt down by Pirates.
I was to proud to take a taxi and wanted to try to get there by bus. The bus system in Panama City is quite extensive but pretty commlicated to understand - especially for someone who doesn't speak Spanish.
While walking towards a place where I had seen many buses a couple of days earlier a bus with "Panama Viejo" came towards me, I waved but he didn't stop.
I continued towards the big bus depot and found a sing that said the same thing. I waited there but no bus came along for 15 minutes or so. I asked one of the guys sitting there in very broking spanish "Donde esta estacione de bus de Panama Viejo?" and he answered exteremly quick with some spanish words and pointed wildly around the area...
This helped a little but but I still didn't know where to go now. I asked another guy and he was able to show me where to go on the map on my phone. Aparently they had temporarily moved the bus stop for this destination (and only this destination) out of the bus terminal 500 meters to some other road but had not bothered to take down the old signs in the Bus station. Well ... this is Central America I guess.
Anyway I walked back to the place where I had waved at the bus half an hour earlier and a hundred meters from there I saw now the temporary bus station for Buses to Panama Viejo. - Easy, right?!
I got the bus and it cost only 25 cent and after bit of a drive I saw the ruins of Panama Viejo and asked to get off. No problem, he stopped and I got off, had to cross the road and was where I wanted to go.
I was the only person there and a woman dress in uniform was hiding from the sun in a shady place playing with her phone. I had to pay here 5 $ to go past. Not sure if this was part of the tourist attraction or what?
It was still a bit of a walk to the main area of the Historic site but along the path were plenty of signs that gave me some information - it just had become so hot again that it was hard work to read them all and even harder to remember the details.
At some point in history Caption Henry Morgan came here and plundered the place and burned it all down. Then the Pirates used some of the rocks that were left over to erect Casco Viejo at the other side of the Panama City of today.
I walked around the ruins and up the tower that has once stood here and had now been re-erected with painstakingly work - each rock had been numbered, measured and replaced at it's most likely original position.
This tower of Panama Viejo is a famous (maybe the most famous) sight and is on many official documents as a seal or on Panamenian Coins.
This place was not very touristy, I saw maybe 15 other tourist walk around in the large area but there was a good bit of work going on and soon I believe they will opening a proper tourist information centre.
For now that was enough for me though and I tried to find a bus back.
This time a very colourful school bus stopped in front of me without me waving at all at him.
This seems to be a sort of shared taxi service that runs around predefined routes of the city.
I asked them if they went to the fish market, which was confirmed so I got on.
A young guy kept jumping out of the bus (of course while it was still moving) and tried to get people to get on.
Some more people got on.. some got of ... and I saw they pay when they get off... again only a quarter.
It was quite adventurous and exciting but I got hungry on the way back and got off near a populated area where I hoped to find some food.
Indeed there was a mall (another one from the one I went to a couple of days earlier) and within that mall I found a Colombian Burger stand called El Corral.
The burger was good and they even had free refills, which was nice.
From here I though, I may walk back to the Hostel. So I set out with my MapsWithMe app and found my way back to Cinta Costera (the coastal belt) road, through some fancy waterfront neighbourhoods (which also are home to a Ferrari store - not the one where you can buy T-shirts but where you can buy actual Ferraris).
Although it was really warm again, I enjoyed the walk back along the waterfront under the palm trees and when I got back to my lovely hostel, I rested a bit, and called mom as by now it was already Midnight in Germany and it was her Birthday :-).
For the rest of the evening, I relaxed at the nice common area of the hostel, had a cup of tea and looked into some more details for the next country ahead. Chile.
Since the time here in Panama is coming to an end now, here are my thoughts about this country that is quite different from the places I have been to so far:
Panama is great... the people are lovely and there is a lot to see. The Panama Canal is an amazing feat of engineering and Human inventiveness and Panama City is a modern, vibrant city with a surprisingly impressive skyline. There are old run down places to soak up the atmosphere of forgotten days (for us forgotten at least) and there are places of luxury.
I think for the first time visitor to Central America this is a good start. Even me, having been in Nepal, Cambodia and other poor countries, I needed two or three days to get adjusted to the way of life down here. It is different from southeast asia somehow.
I wish I had had a couple more days so I could have left the city for a two or three days. I also wished I had had more Spanish because getting around without it is not easy. But I do think it is worth trying and working out the challenges here and you will get rewarded with little events, like the visit to Luis's apartment or the surprising Carnival or crazy ride with the colourful school bus.
I think two weeks is a good time to visit Panama but believe if you have more time than that you also would not get bored.
One last tip at the end... prebook a nice hostel (Magnolia Inn for example) - the stay at The White Lion Hostel really lowered the mood of my stay a couple of times. But in retrospect... I really loved it and would not hesitate to come back.
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