Wandering Through Avenidad Central Panama City, Panama

Panama City, Panama is a fascinating city with old world charm and new world hustle and bustle. Lindsay and I experienced both of these on a beautiful sunny day as we simply wandered through the city. We started the morning by sitting down for a few drinks in the beautiful little Parque (park) Bolivar in the old section of the city called “Casco Veijo.” This little park/square feels very European with a large statue in the middle and colorful old French/Spanish style buildings surrounding it. There are numerous Cafes and one in particular that had outdoor seating. We nestled up in this cafe and ordered a few drinks (coke in a bottle and water) and simply took in the scene. Our waiter was extremely nice and was in love with “Americans.” His life long dream was to move to America to work and he was so excited to talk with us. As we left the café he gave me a small Panama City key chain so that “we will always remember Panama” which I still have today. After relaxing at the café we decided to start our wandering with the plan of heading up “Avenidad Central” which is one of the main streets in the city. As we wandered up this street we were blown away by the beautiful architecture of Casco Viejo (the old city). The best way to describe this area is to think of the French Quarter in New Orleans without all the tourist and cheesy shops. All along Avenidad Central are old mansions, churches, and other buildings that are brightly painted in blue, pink, yellow etc. Some of these buildings are beautifully restored and others are so old there are trees growing out of them. We continued to wander through the Casco Viejo on Avenidad Central and eventually found ourselves in another beautiful park/square called Parque Santa Ana. This square had a central park with large trees but was also an intersection so it was extremely busy. A few days earlier we had stumbled on this area and spent hours just people watching. There were old men sitting on benches, kids walking home from school, and countless “red devil buses” cruising by to keep us entertained. (The red devil buses are school buses painted entirely in graffiti that cruise chaotically all over Panama City). We then kept walking past Parque Santa Ana which is were Avenidad Central turns into a pedestrian only market street. There are lots of shops, restaurants and markets that line the entire street. What was unique about this particular pedestrian street is that we were literally the only tourists in the entire area. It was a beautiful day so the street was packed with local families out for a stroll. We wandered up the street at a slow pace stopping in one of the large markets to enjoy the AC. It was such a cool feeling to be the only tourists and it really gave us a sense that we were seeing daily life through the eyes of a local. Eventually the pedestrian section of Avenidad Central ends at another large square. Here we sat on a bench to catch our breath and sparked up a conversation with a crazy local man. :) He eventually invited us to take a tour of a nearby “crafts market” and we happily followed along with him (Lindsay thought this was a bad idea and in retrospect she was absolutely right). Luckily this man proved to be more crazy than dangerous and we even enjoyed the neat little market he took us to. Panama City is such a fun city to explore and one of the best way to do this is wandering through Avenidad Central.