anyone in OOT travel to Panama?

[KingMedicine]

i have a trip planned for the late summer to panama and costa rica - ive spoken to many many people whove traveled to costa rica, but havent heard from anyone who's been to panama.

[shant]

Most people I know here who have traveled to Panama have only done it as a week long part of their trip to Costa Rica. I've heard that Panama City is fun and a good party town and everyone goes to see the canal as well. Sorry I can't be of much more help.

[Kneel B4 Zod]

I think the general opinion is that Costa Rica is "Central America Lite". it has a very nice/easy tourist infrasture, decent amount of English speakers, etc. it's adventurous for people who really aren't that adventurous (people like me..I spent about a month there)

surrounding countries like Nicaragua and Panama will have very similar beaches/jungles/surfing/natural beauty, but less tourist friendly infrasructure outside the major cities. they will also be cheaper, and feel more "authentic" to people who are turned off by lots of tourists, hotels, etc.

(although there are plenty of places in Costa Rica that are remote and prob. feel like Panama)

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

I went to Panama in high school as a sort of social studies class trip. We didn't do much for touristy stuff other than spend the last couple days in the San Blas islands. Most of what I remember is walking through jungles, visiting various villages, riding on boats between various small islands, and seeing the Canal.

I've also been to Costa Rica. I went there for my honeymoon in 2004. We did the resort thing, so the things we saw were much more touristy, but it was beautiful. We did rent a car and drive across the country all on our own and it was a great experience. The end destination was a resort everywhere we went, but the inbetween was not Tourist Central.

[The Glidd]

I've been to Panama on three occasions, all during college while teaching at a music camp and staying with a host family (smoking hot host sister).

I ran into some Costa Ricans while I was there. They spoke favorably of Costa Rica, especially the more moderate, mounatin climate of San Jose.

Some things I did in Panmama:

The canal of course. Miraflores locks. I got to open the locks for a ship.

Isla Grande. An island off the noth coast. Beautiful.

El Valle. An old, dormant valcano with a small, touristy village. Simply spectacular, lots of hiking up and down the mountains. Probably the highlight each time I went down.

Baseball game between Panamian all-stars and American third rate big leaguers. $1 beers!

Drive around the canal zone, former U.S. military, mostly privately owned by Panamanians now.

Hit up clubs several times. Danced a lot. Mostly by myself. Stupid American!

The old city is nice, ruins you can walk in.

The smoking hot host sister had a boyfriend, later fiance. Owned a trucking company that hauled freight along the canal from Colon in the north to Panama City in the south. Wound up dead, shot in his car by a disgruntled employee.

Sad.

But Panama is very nice.

[keikiwai]

I've been to Panama.

Panama City is just a big ugly city to me.

Canal is fun.

Bocas del Toro is a good dive spot.

San Blas is amazing! It is technically a diff. country I think. But it is a group of small islands on the Carib. side where indigenous people who moved up from Colombia live. Very very nice (no scuba [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] but you can free dive). You can get taken to these tiny islands that take 2 minutes to walk all the way around.

STRI is there (Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute ). Since I'm a biologist it was fun visiting. They've got some stuff basically in Panama City and some stuff in Gamboa.

This is San Blas:



Here is a tributary leading into the canal in Gamboa. We saw a manatee, one of those giant rat like things, and crocs...

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

I remember Bocas del Toro and San Blas being awesome places. When we were in San Blas, we ended up getting into a pick-up basketball game with the locals. None of us were really all that great basketball players, but we beat the guys we were playing, mostly due to our height advantage. Somehow, we ended up getting challenged to a game against their local team the next day.

So, we came back the next day and we end up playing against this legitimate team from the village, they've got jerseys on and everything. People start filing into the park/court area and it quickly becomes apparent that we're all of a sudden involved in the sporting event of the summer here. The whole damned village is there watching and cheering at this game! Now, I'm 6'1" and I'm the 2nd shortest guy on our team and these guys are all like 5'8", so we're pretty much cleaning up every rebound and our one guy is like Shaq out there. It's a damned good thing we had such a height advantage, though, because not a single one of us was a legitimate basketball player (mostly hockey and football players) and these guys were running plays on us, passing like Magic Johnson, and pulling all kinds of Harlem Globetrotters [censored] on us. It was an epic game - I think we were up something like 2-4 points most of the game, but we blew it in the final moments and lost by one or two points.

Short of the state hockey tournament, this was probably the best sporting moment of my life. It was such a rush playing these guys and having the whole village there cheering at every play. You could tell it really meant something to these guys - for whatever reason. It was an awesome experience.