Panamá

Oh Panama, one of my cheekier adventures. I knew I only had a limited amount of time before my flight the same night but I still wanted to see the country since I am already there. I got into a pickle at the immigrations as it was very difficult to get past them without my Japanese residence card to show as proof. After a long time of nervousness with my fingers crossed, the old lady let me through without any sort of ID, I managed to bluff my way into a country. That was pretty awesome in its own right. Next step was getting transportation, my phone didn’t have wi-fi and I couldn’t call Uber. There were some drivers outside who tried to get me to take their transportation which was loads more expensive than Uber but I had to swallow my pride and get back to them and just shell out that 50 bucks. Panama city was surprisingly developed with a lot of high-rise buildings with post-modern architecture. Surrounded by the ocean, my driver took me to Casco Antiguo, the place to be to see the cultural aspect of Panama.

I got down and we agreed a meeting place and time after I was done looking around. I quickly started to look around and take pictures of whatever aesthetic places I could find. The statue in the plaza, the sunset over the horizon by the beach, the Caribbean architecture with a Spanish finish, the place was extremely photogenic and empty too which made for even better photos. I could have taken an Uber back to the airport for cheaper and getting a free ride into the city, but I also didn’t want to do that to my driver so I waited for him and got back in to head back to the airport, a bit hungry now. The way back reminded me a lot of Manila, with insane traffic, we were stuck for more than an hour or so. I am very thankful to have made it back on time without any problems. The airport was more or less empty and when I tried to go back in, surprise, surprise, the same guy who gave me a lot of my headaches from Immigration was there again. He asked why I had to go in and I told him I just wanted to see Casco Antiguo, in the end he let me through. I bought some sandwiches for dinner and found out later that I needed a face-shield mask to enter the flight to Peru, one that I did not have. With just a few minute left before departure, this made me panic once again as the shop selling them was already closed. I approached this security guy and told him my problem and he gave me a very old and dirty one that he had lying around inside the cabinet. I gratefully accepted it and ran back just in time to board my flight to Lima.Read more