I’ve lived in Panama City for 6 months now & while overall its pretty good place to be there are some things to be aware of as someone who left Canada.
The Good
Panama City is nice, very metropolitan, nice architecture from the old to the new. In a lot of areas very safe at any time of day, some good restaurant’s or if you prefer every US fast food chain. Taking an uber is cheap, the taxis can be but I also had one taxi prick rip me off so I only use uber now.
People are nice, very friendly most of the time. Walking around people say buenos dais or a variation when you pass.
Public parks are safe & busy with families enjoying them. There are no drunks, meth-heads or fentanyl zombies. It’s a nice change being able to walk around a park & it being safe for kids. There are lots of police around most of better parts of the city making it safe, even after dark the parks are busy & safe.
The Bad
The groceries are very different, no bulk stores, fruits and vegetable’s are not as diverse & plentiful & the packaging is ridiculous – one stalk of broccoli is shrink wrapped! Milk is in boxes, warm & can taste weird. Real Maple Syrup, Salt & Vinegar chips are hard to find, black liquorice almost impossible.
The quality of things also seems pretty low, things are expensive and the size of items are smaller. No large containers of peanut butter and mens deodorant sticks are smaller.
The traffic, everyone talks about the traffic, sure there is congestion at peak hours but its no worse than other cities. What’s wild is the use of the horn for everything; move, thanks, hi, heads up … horns all them time, all hours of the day. Blinkers, ya they don’t. Traffic lanes, they try but lane spitting, lane hopping & other creative driving is the norm. As a pedestrian you have to be very wary when crossing the street. It is much different than in North America, pedestrians are expected to be aware when walking.
The Ugly!
There is garbage everywhere, it’s depressing when you go to a beach and see piles of garbage smouldering just on the edge of the jungle. Driving through the county side & people just dump it in the ditch or over a hill
There is no recycling, everything gets thrown out, glass, plastic, paper, food waste …
Tourism is a burgeoning industry. Panama City has some nice attractions and is pretty much what you would expect. When you get outside of the city you start to see the real side of things. There is the no shortage of people hustling, guys that charge for parking in a public space – you pay to not have your tires slashed. Guys come out of the wood work to load bags, open a cab door …
I found that most places are about “75%”, what I mean is they get to 3/4 complete & then stop. Hotels, restaurant’s … all lack that final polish and in some cases construction.
We went diving in Portabelo, the dive shop was pretty worn, some junk piles … but more concerning it took us a few hours to get or first dive done. First it was mismatched fins, then equipment failure, equipment failure again, waiting for a new tank & regulator … even when in the water the tank valve on Nash’s tank was leaking. The diving was a bit disappointing, tires & garbage are not what you want to see.
