Our introduction to Panama was a good one, and continued throughout our five weeks here. We found it is an easy country to travel around with good roads, friendly people, reasonably priced food and lots to see and do.

Our first stop in Panama was Boca Del Toro. What a very special place these islands are,  one of our favourite places of our whole trip. To find out more about our time there read Boca Del Toro – Paradise Found

We had a limited time frame for exploring northern Panama as we had to be in Nueva Gorgona to start our next house sit. After leaving Boca Del Toro we drove back over to the pacific coast and headed for Boca Chica. We had heard this area was great for wild life and game fishing. Once we got to the town we realised that there wasn’t a lot to do here without a boat, as you needed to get out to the islands. Unlike Boca Del Toro there was no public ferry or launcha waiting to take us out to the islands. So we carried on driving south to Playa Las Lajas where there was a camp ground on the coast. It was Saturday night so the music was pumping as the local Panamanians were away for the weekend enjoying themselves.

If we had time we would have loved to spend a few days checking out Santa Catalina, a small surf town further down the coast. Next time.

Nueva Gorgona is a fishing town, and we where housesitting here for three weeks. Developers have made their mark on this lovely little fishing village with massive apartment buildings going up at a steady rate. That’s progress I suppose, but it really is a blight on the skyline, and has an impact on the local roads and infrastructure.

Just north of Nueva Gorgona is Coronado a gated community that is popular with middle class Panamanians and expats. In Coronado they have a mixture of large apartment buildings on the coast, or free standing homes. Within the gated community is a golf course, a country club, church, and restaurants. Outside the gated community on the main highway are lots of strip malls catering to the expats, with trendy supermarkets, restaurants, hardware shops, dentists and doctors. It was a big contrast to the local communities north and south of Coronado.

Although we are not drawn to these communities we do enjoy the variety of products that can be found in the supermarkets. In Riba Smith a Panamian supermarket we found fresh organic produce at a reasonable cost. They also had really yummy ice-cream. Down the road Glen found some gluten free beer, so he was happy.

During our three weeks housesitting, and looking after Tootsie and Zoe in Nueva Gorgona we did a lot of walking along the beach. It was good for both our four legged friends and us. Glen even taught Zoe how to swim – she use to be afraid of the water.

To make life more interesting for both the dogs and us, we went on missions to find good dog friendly walking spots away from the coast. Our favourite walk was in the hills of El Valle, about an hours drive from Nueva Gorgona. El Valle is in the crater of an extinct volcano, and is a popular weekend retreat for locals from Panama City.

We found two lovely walks to take the dogs on. The first walk was along a river to a waterfall. We didn’t realise but Tootsie and Zoe had never seen a river. Before moving to Nueva Gorgona they were New York City dogs, so hadn’t spent too much time out in the country. The first thing they did was walk straight into the river and got a hell of a fright as the ground fell from under them. Tootsie was ok because she was bigger and could walk back out. Poor old Zoe went off floating down the river. Luckily Glen was ahead of her and managed to fish her out. Zoe and Tootsie were troopers and carried on with the walk, putting their traumatic experience behind them.

The water was refreshing, we had a swim in the river and had it to ourselves which was great, and a little unusual for a weekend. On google maps it states that the waterfall opens at 10am. We got there at 9:30am and they still let us in, so maybe that was why there was no one around. Lucky us!

After another shorter waterfall walk around Chorro El Macho we headed to La Casa de Lourdes restaurant for some lunch. This was one beautiful restaurant, with a lovely owner Lourdes Fabrega de Ward. She was a famous restauranteur in Panama City and retired to El Valle. Her retirement didn’t last long, she got bored, and opened up a restaurant in her fabulous home. Wow! It was definitely the flashest place we had eaten on our trip, although in saying that it was very affordable. The owner was there when we arrived, and was happy to accommodate the dogs, which was brilliant. Although at this stage the dogs were stuffed, so slept peacefully in the grounds.

Due to the cooler climate a lot of the fresh produce is grown up in the hills, so we stocked up on fresh fruit and veggies at the local market, and then headed home back to the beach.

Panama Canal

Glen was keen to check out the Panama Canal while we were here, so we drove down to Panama City from Nueva Gorgona in our van. We went to Miraflors Lock first as we had heard there was a good museum and viewing platform. Unfortunately so did every other tourist in Panama, including a beauty pageant?! We hadn’t expected it to be so busy. We were kicking ourselves that we didn’t get up earlier. It is one thing we have learnt on our travels, the early bird is rewarded with an uncrowded attraction. You can drive along the canal to the next lock, it is a beautiful drive through a lush jungle.

I was keen to check out Cosco Viejo (Spanish for old quarter) in the historic part of Panama City. It was nice to spend a day wondering around the cobblestone streets and checking out the old buildings and cafes. Although I went into some of the designer shops, they had designer prices, so no purchases that day.

One major project we had to accomplish while in Panama was to sell our van. We were a little sad about this, as we had such a great time touring around in her. Lots and lots of great memories and lessons learnt along the way.

Selling our van meant getting all our personal stuff that was spread out in the van and fitting it back into one suitcase and a backpack – this was never going to happen! Glen managed to sell his surf board and fishing rod, the rest of our excess crap we gave away to the local Panamians.

We sold our van to Luis who is a car/van dealer from Costa Rica. Our van is now a rental van for touring tourists. I hope people have as much fun as we have had touring around in her.

Now we have to travel via public bus, boat or plane, it is a very different sort of travelling.