Panama - Final Destination (for now...)
One of the goals of this trip is to get the LandCruiser down to Panama and ship it to South America where we will be doing more explorations and go at a much slower pace.
While we are here in Panama, we are also trying to gather as much information as possible for our members who are interested in driving down to South America.
Panama City can be a bit daunting at first. Especially after you cross the bridge (Puente de Los Americas) and head toward downtown, you drive through one of the worst neighborhoods of the city.
Arrive at night and take the wrong turn and you will feel like you end up in Zombiland.
It is a bit sad that this is the first impression of Panama City.
Fortunately there is much more to explore and this city is actually very nice.
The area right under the bridge and on along the shore is divided in multiple neighborhoods called Diablo/Balboa/Clayton/etc.
This is where the Americans used to live and it is still one of the best area of Panama City.
So in this post I will try to share as much information as possible on the city itself.
There are not really any campsite or any central gathering place for the multiple overlanders in the city.
Depending on your budget and interest, overlanders are scattered all over town.
The most popular backpacker place is called
Luna's Castle. This place is like ground zero for backpackers. I must admit it is a really nice concept. The hostal is in an old colonial building, with great views of the city and has a courtyard inside and a nice bar downstairs in the basement. This is where you want to be if you want to party and meet a bunch of other travelers.
This place however has no parking. There was one bike from Alberta in the entrance hallway but I would not recommend it. The hallway goes to the bar which means you are going to have hundreds of people walking by your bike every hour.
Another hostal type of place that is used by overlanders is called
La Casa de Carmen. They had a room for us there for $55 which we decided not to take.
The place itself is clean but we had read reviews of bedbugs and by the look of the mattresses and customers there I am inclined to believe it.
There is a parking outside the gate which the guy at the front desk assured it was safe, but judging by how stressed he was at closing the gate we had some suspicions.
Luis/Lacey stayed there so perhaps he will have an extra opinion.
About 2 houses before the hostel there is a motorcycle repair shop. The owner's son is named Tony and owns a big GoldWing. He said that he regularly sees motorcyclists going to this hostel and often time fixes their bikes.
There are a few other backpackers/hostel scattered around town but when we called them they were all full.
One is called
Hostal de Clayton and seemed decent, but a bit out of the way.
We ended up in a very nice hotel for $80 called
Coral Suites, right in the middle of El Cangrejo district which after Casco Viejo is probably the most entertaining neighborhood. This is more like an appartment, with small kitchen, wi-fi and plenty of parking, even big enough to fit my Land Cruiser.
We have now rented an apartment as Shaun will be here for at least one month as I go back to the USA this week.
Since then, we have however found another backpacker/hostel near the bridge where we have met 2 other overlanders who are currently staying there. This is in my opinion the most decent place to stay in town. I can't seem to find their website right now unfortunately but I will update this post as soon as I do.
The Balboa Yacht Club is also a place that comes up often in the "overlander circle".
We went there and checked it out.
You can indeed park your vehicle there for free. The guard was very nice and they are used to have overlanders there.
The view is great and the food/drinks at the bar are really cheap.
However when we were there it was raining and the whole parking place was rather very muddy.
They have toilets at the restaurant but not sure if they have shower/wifi.
Here are few pictures of the Yacht Club:
There are a lot of well tricked out 4x4s around Panama City - this one was parked there.
Please also not that there is another Yacht Club on Balboa avenue closer to downtown which is newer and does not really have space for overlanders. There was however one big large RV (from Quebec) parked there when we drove through.