Hello from Casco Viejo, Panama. Before I start this post about Panama, I just want to thank everyone for sending so many greetings & well wishes as I approached my five year cancerversary. It was super heart-warming and I very much appreciated seeing all of your messages.
Now on to Panama. For the next week, we’re staying in an incredibly beautiful part of Panama City. It’s called Casco Viejo and it’s very similar to the French Quarter in New Orleans, or perhaps even Old Havana. We’ve never really stayed any place like this. We’ve rented a fantastic one-bedroom loft for the first two weeks of our stay. The loft is really spacious and it has a really nice kitchen, so I have happily been cooking in it most nights. If you need the perfect loft to stay in, and I do mean perfect, send me a private message and I can tell you more. We’re loving how comfortable it is.
To say that our experience in Casco Viejo has been strange, would be a tremendous understatement. Overall, the neighborhood is beautiful. Everywhere we look we see lovely colonial type buildings and small squares with parks. There are many upscale restaurants and hip hotels. Unfortunately, most of the buildings, cafes, shops, and restaurants seem to be completely empty. We can’t tell if it’s because of Covid 19, or because the buildings are so new. Casco Viejo used to be a pretty dodgy part of Panama City. But a few years ago, the Panamanian government decided to restore it to its glory and examples of this restoration are everywhere . You can’t turn your head without seeing massive construction projects, construction workers and active buildings being renovated.
Right next to these beautifully restored buildings and squares are several buildings which look just awful. I’ve included some photos in this post.
I know these buildings still have people living in them. I surmise that this massive restoration project displaced a lot of poor people when it began. I don’t know enough about the history of this area to know where the people have moved to, but the area surrounding the renovations looks very, very poor. I also have read that this area used to be considered very, very dangerous. Now there are police officers on every single street corner, and our Airbnb is right around the corner from a police station so it feels very safe where we are.
Back to the lack of open places. It’s hard to tell what hasn’t opened yet because a renovation is finishing up, or what has shut down temporarily or for good because of Covid. Panama just re-opened on October 15 to foreigners, so perhaps more places will open up shortly. During the day, there are some cafes and restaurants open, but for the most part this area of town seems like a ghost town. It’s a weird experience to staying here during this time. In the evenings, it does seem to pick-up with young people partying at drop dead incredible roof top restaurants. Andy and I ate at one of these fancy rooftop restaurants last week and it was fantastic! We had some unbelievable fusion food. But it did empty out early because there is a countrywide curfew starting each night at 11 PM, so people head home.
As expensive as Japan?
Before we embarked on our Panama stay, we did some research to find out the cost of food and entertainment. We’ve come to the conclusion that Panama is more expensive than Japan! We can eat cheaper in Japan than we can eat out in Panama. Groceries are also cheaper in Japan. Perhaps it’s more expensive to eat out in Japan at super high-end restaurants, but a simple and filling bowl of ramen is cheaper than the cost of a typical lunch in a coffeeshop. Tofu is way, way more expensive here.
Recently we went out for lunch to a local cafe. Andy had a smoothie and a burrito, I had a salad and water. Our bill with tip was $31.00. My $12 salad was delicious and fresh and Andy did like his burrito so were both happy campers, but a similar plate lunch in Japan would have cost us $17 tops.
Groceries are very, very expensive too. Much more than Mexico and much more than the United States. If we lived here full-time, I think a $550-600 a month grocery budget would be needed. That would include the purchase of some American products including Beyond Burgers, and other imported items. Fruits and vegetables also seem pricey to me. An apple costs 50 cents, but an artichoke costs $4.50! A small container of mushrooms is around $4. We’ve been careful to keep our grocery budget down so far and we haven’t bought many American products (except for Fieldroast which I love) and some bagel thins. As in most places around the world, beans are cheap. I think pineapple is reasonably priced too. Other staples like rice do not seem reasonably priced to me. We miss Mexican $4.50 breakfasts terribly.
Covid 19
Having to spend a little bit more money on groceries and on eating out at restaurants is worth it when you get to live in a place with such stringent Covid 19 restrictions. It’s really incredible to see how much the population has embraced mask-wearing. We never see people without masks here! Everyone is fully masked at all times. When we enter a store, or restaurant, or cafe, we are forced to submit to temperature checks (usually with fancy machines) and we are always forced to use gel. In Mexico, temperature checks and gel happened about 40 percent of the time. Here’s it’s 100 percent. Plus, in general, Panamanian’s seem to respect social distancing. People stay far away from one another. They don’t crowd one another on the streets, and when they take their masks off to eat, they put them back on immediately after eating.
We’ve got one more week here in our loft. Then we’re going to move to a different part of town. I think we might rent a car next week for a few days because we have a parking spot here we can use.
BelieveitOhrNot 