Rain, Tacos, and Humidity: Our First Weeks in Panama City

Follow our journey from Oregon to Panama City, Panama. This blog post shares insights into our experiences during the initial weeks of international nomadic living, covering everything from overpacking to exploring local eateries. Get a straightforward look at the challenges, surprises, and reflections that shaped our early travels. Join us in navigating the realities of the international travel and discovering the simplicity and joy in the everyday moments of retirement on the move.

This is a story all about our life got flipped, turned upside down….. Sorry, my apologies to the Fresh Prince…..

This is us. This is our life now. A whole lot of planning has gone into launching our nomadic journey with the understanding that not everything will go according to plan, and that’s ok.

We left Oregon in the middle of November with 2 backpacks, 2 daypacks and a small rollerbag – we erred on the side of caution and overpacked. The original plan was to each carry just a backpack and a daypack but multiple practice packing attempts failed to fit everything into just backpacks thus a suitcase was procured the last week before departure. We plan to condense our luggage even further before we get too serious about wandering Europe by bus and train but we headed out with a lot of unknowns so we overpacked a lot of ‘what ifs.

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It was not warm when we left Portland Oregon and it was raining a little bit. It was very warm when we arrived in Panama City, and it was raining – a sort of on again, off again rain – and regardless of whether is was actively raining, or not, it was muggy. During our drive from the airport to the hotel we went through a pretty good deluge with the rain getting more and more intense as we approached the city. Then the rain was basically gone by the time we arrived at the hotel. But it was still hot, and still muggy. For those of us that are used to a high-desert region of central Oregon, the humidity was quite a shock even though we knew it was going to be hot a muggy. You just don’t truly understand this kind of humidity until you experience it first hand.

Panama City greeted us not only with climate contrasts but with a driving culture that appears to be more what you’d call “guidelines” than actual rules. ‘Alto’ in Spanish literally means ‘Stop’, but it seems like in practical application it means ‘Yield’. ‘Ceda’ means ‘Yield’ and the very few of those signs we saw were pretty universally ignored. Lane changes are a more casual affair – maybe it takes 500 feet to get completely over, maybe 1,000 feet…. whatever. And the lines on the road are apparently just suggestions. It wasn’t uncommon to see three lanes of traffic on a road that had a single dividing line. Renting a car suddenly seemed less appealing.

Studio Coliving Hotel: A Nomad’s Oasis in Panama City

Studio Coliving Hotel, our chosen abode for the next 12 days, checked all the boxes, with a spacious king room, where the rooftop pool offered a tranquil escape under the Panama City sky, co-working space, and kitchen access. The cost, a mere $521 for a dozen nights, felt like a steal. Details about the Studio Coliving Hotel specifically are in this post and mentioned in our launch video

Tasting Panama: From Grocery Shopping to Street Tacos

After checking into our hotel and getting our room sorted, we started our Panama City adventure with a walk across the street to ‘Pipo’ which advertises they have pastelitos and empanadas. We had no idea what a pastelito was but we were hungry and it was close. Since pasteles is cakes I figured I’d find dessert. Not what happened.

Pastelitos look and feel like empanadas to me. Apparently there is a difference in the thickness of the dough and the complexity of the fold. They were really tasty although we did suffer some language difficulty in trying to get fed. The display case has some labels on it that didn’t correspond to the items displayed behind the label. We visited Pipo several times during our stay and the availability of various options was super random. Not a problem except that we couldn’t identify the filling in the displayed pastelitos so I was forced to question each time. “Pastelitos, dos carne y una pizza?” “no pizza” “Okay, pollo?” “Dos?” “Si, dos carne y una pollo” 

I never did successfully pronounce ’emparadado’ even with extensive coaching by the proprietor of Pipo. As near as I can tell it’s closer to emparathatho (with a hard ‘th’ like ‘the’ and my mouth simply would not do it twice in the same word). It’s essentially a ham and cheese panini and also really tasty. As I say, we visited several times for a little snack or for a meal.

That’s half of the sandwich there in the picture because we were too busy mowing through the food to think about future photo requirements for a blog post.

We got coffee at Pipo a couple of mornings and while it was better than the hotel coffee it wasn’t our favorite. But the food was tasty and very good value. Our most expensive meal we had was 4 pastelitos, an emparadado and 2 soft drinks , all for just $10 (have we mentioned that the currency of choice here in Panama is the US Dollar?)

The next day we had a quick wander around the hotel to check out the facilities and then headed off to the grocery store. Based on prior research we got the impression that any of the 3 big chains – Riba Smith, Rey and Super 99 – would fit our needs. Riba Smith was more likely to have a wider selection of brands we were already familiar with but maybe priced a little higher. Rey was also several blocks further away….. and it was hot and muggy. Have I mentioned the ‘hot and muggy’ part ?

So we strolled off to Riba Smith and picked up some basic sandwich and snack stuff – lunchmeat, cheese, tortillas, sandwich rolls, yogurt, chips, Skippy Peanut butter, jam, etc. Overall pricing felt lower than the US. We stuffed our grocery bag full and it was just over $50 – although some individual items, like the Skippy, were higher. I documented our Riba Smith excursion on YouTube if you’re at all curious what that shopping process looked like

Dinner that night was a place I spotted on our stroll to the grocery store trip (because my navigation skills are weak, you can see on the map below) – “Las Tacos de Villa”. If you think I’m not making a trip to the house of tacos you obviously don’t know me very well.

The decor is pretty eclectic and sort of feels like someone described a Mexican restaurant to the designer and they just ran with it. More fun than what we see in most American Mexican restaurants

The chips and salsa they brought out while we were waiting was absolutely adorable. No danger you’ll fill up on chips and spoil your meal

Sandra ordered the bistek tacos. They were well stuffed and the steak was very tasty

I ordered the ‘al pastor con queso’. I was thinking, since I’ve been an American all my life, that they would sprinkle cheese over the pork. No. The cheese is grilled onto the tortilla and then the pork goes over top of it. WAY better. Like, WAAAAY better.

They also have a little market area inside the restaurant with a variety of goodies including the tiniest bottles of Tajin that I’ve ever seen.

It was a very filling and tasty meal. Including drinks and the tip it was less than $30. Each of those taco plates would have been $16 at a food truck in Bend and my beer would have been another $7. It wasn’t a cheap meal but it was a good value and we were very happy with it.

As we were finishing our meal it started to rain but it wasn’t cold so we figured we would just get a little wet. (Check this video to see how that worked out for us) However it then began to rain in earnest and it helped us solidify the decision to go check out Albrook Mall the next day; umbrellas were apparently going to be key to enjoying our stay in the city.

Some mornings we strolled up the street (Av Federico Boyd) to Noel Petit Cafe where the enticing fragrance of freshly brewed coffee beckon to us to come in and savor the coffee and goodies. It’s like 2 blocks from the hotel and very cute

Super friendly people, very tolerant of my crappy Spanish skills and really tasty food. They have quite a variety of sweet and savory (mostly sweet). We had different things each time we went in and everything we tried was excellent.

The first time we went in I had sold myself on the almond croissant when someone brought out fresh pizza. So breakfast that morning was pizza and a croissant. And it was good and I felt zero guilt. Zero.

We did hit a number of coffee shops while we were in town because that’s just a thing we do. The most notable of those was Coffeemax which was a little further to go from our hotel. We wound up only doing it once but quite enjoyed the coffee and the breakfast sandwich we had.

The ham and cheese part is pretty straightforward but that bread. Oh. My. Goodness. That was FANTASTIC. A cappucino, a mocha and the two breakfast sandos was $10.45

We traveled across the main drag (av Central Espana) one evening to have dinner at Pizza Grecia and it was good pizza. The personal size were a bit small for me. Fortunately, it was one slice too big for Sandra so it turned out okay.

Pepperoni for me……

Hawaiian for Sandra…. 2 pizzas and 2 fresh fruit juice (we are seriously drinking SOOOO much fruit juice here because it is sooooo good everywhere) was $15.50 including the $2 tip.

We went and visited the Multi Plaza mall one day to compare it to Albrook. Multi Plaza felt much more high end. There were a lot of stores I would personally not shop in – Ferragamo, Jimmy Choo, Cartier – but it’s a really nice mall.

We had lunch at Crepes and Waffles while we were there because I’d been seeing it on the map and how could I NOT? I mean, it’s CREPES and WAFFLES!

The crepe Bretonne Serrano was very tasty. Jamon Serrano is very nearly prosciutto; there is a minor difference in the curing process. The serrano is fairly common here in Panama and it’s a nice addition to a turkey sandwich, too.

Sandra had the ‘French Connection’ which is smoked ham and ricotta. She said it could have done with less ricotta; she expected a smear but it was laid on pretty thick.

That catches us up on the first couple of weeks of our grand adventure. So far, retirement doesn’t suck nor does travelling.

Safe Travels!

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