Panama City!

We arrived in Panama around 7:30pm. We knew the cab would be anywhere between $25-50 from the airport to the city. There is really no other way to get downtown. The cab “recruiters” were in our face as soon as we walked out of the customs area, but we decided to wait to talk to someone until we stepped outside. The first guy we saw offered $33 to downtown, which seemed more than reasonable based on the array of prices we’d heard, so we went for it. The cabs from the airport are nice, newer white cars (ours was an SUV). These are the only taxis that are authorized to pick people up from Tocumen Airport. The ride to the hotel was mostly highway, with no traffic and took about 25 minutes. There were two tolls, but the driver did not make us pay more for those (this varies, too, as we understand). But when you want to go back to the airport from the city, you just hail a regular yellow taxi. The system seems a little crazy since both types of cabs are only getting one way fares either to or from the airport. 

We stayed at the TRYP Hotel Panama Centro. This is a brand new hotel. I think it opened in August of this year (2012), so they were offering really good prices to get the rooms booked. We could have found a cheaper hotel, but it was nice to feel like we were treating ourselves and still paying less than $70/night for the room. In general, we found that hotels in Panama City are comparable in price to what one would find in the States. Our room had a fantastic view of the city with floor to ceiling windows. It was awesome. We could just lie in bed and feel like we were a part of the city. 

The view from the rooftop of our hotel

After checking in at the hotel, we headed out for dinner around 10pm. We did walk around the block a couple of times trying to figure out what kind of food sounded good and which restaurant we wanted to try. There were many restaurants around the hotel. Panama City is not as expensive as a touristy area of a major US city would be but also not considered cheap either. They use the US Dollar as the currency which is really convenient. The average cost of dinner in the neighborhood we stayed in was about $10-12.

We passed a restaurant called Caffé Pomodoro a few times. The menu looked really good. There were about six people eating inside. We decided to try it and as we walked in a lady greeted us and asked us if we wanted to eat inside or outside (in Spanish), and she pointed to a patio out back, which we had not seen originally. Of course we chose the patio and when we got outside, we discovered that the restaurant was actually packed. There were probably 150 people sitting in the courtyard. It was a beautiful outdoor area with trees and lights. We were really happy we accidentally found this place. Later we read about Caffé Pomodoro in the guidebook, which was fun. It was a nice way to kick off our trip.

A picture of Caffe Pomodoro the next day. This restaurant was a half block away from the hotel.