We have been living in Panama City for quite a while now, and to be honest we both really love it here. It helps that we are volunteering at a super chill hostel right in the middle of the city, Villa Vento Surf Hostel. The owner is a ridiculously laid back surfer who runs his hostel with a great balance of business smarts and humanity. Plus, it has a pool. Ridiculous, right?
So basically we spend our days with interesting travelers and our fantastic co-workers around the pool, watching random comedies in the huge living room, or cooking in the spacious kitchen. The hostel manager is also great at organizing different gatherings every week, from Argentinian BBQs and pizza nights, to trips down the street 3 blocks to Calle Uruguay (Panama’s party street) and latin dance party nights with tequila. Our picturesque life is only slightly clouded by the fact that literally every other day we are not sure if we still have a place to live. But then the owner stops by and trails off about how we should really stick around for a few more days. So far, we know we are staying until Wednesday, September 12 at the very least. There is a huge surf film release party this Friday at the hostel that we are keen to stick around for… So hopefully we can still be useful around these parts for a few more days!
How do we spend the copious amounts of time in the day? Good question, because we don’t actually know either. We do, however, know there’s an addictive vegetarian restaurant on our block that has the best homemade tofu empanadas; Athen’s, a Greek restaurant where you can get a veggie pita & fries the size of your head for $5; el Sabor de India, where the Naan and Paneer are wonderful; we hear talk of Beirut, a yummy Lebanese restaurant only a 10 minutes walk away, and, most importantly, the frozen yogurt place down the street which closes at 21:30 and they know us well enough by sight to open the doors even when we slide up panting at 5 minutes past closing.
Mostly, we decide we want to do something seemingly simple, but which ends up turning into an epic quest. One example is when H had a craving for bagels, and we ended up spending 3 to 4 days asking innumerable people where Einstein’s head is, taking buses to random directions, and walking around town without any clear idea where we were. But by day 4, success!!!
The bagels were absolutely worth the effort. In fact, quite a lot of our time here has been spent getting lost on random buses and generally walking out of the hostel with no idea of where we were going and then finding landmarks we have been lost to before. Most recently we spent over a week getting fútbol tickets to the Panama v Canada World Cup Qualifiers. This may be the only time on our traveling where it may pay to be American rather than Canadian…
We have also been productive, of course; we made a very aesthetically pleasing flyer for our boat to Columbia. Turns out if we can fill the boat our captain will give us a deal for all the work it is; how can it get any better than this? It is quite a lot of work, though, and has been the source for many lost and bewildered ramblings throughout the city. However, we did get to visit all the top hostels in town. So far so good, but if any of you out there know anyone looking to go south, we have a boat leaving the 16th or 17th for $350. It’s 4 days & 3 nights, 3 meals a day, San Blas islands, and water included.
The highlights of our 2 weeks here have, of course, been the people we have been meeting. We have met up with some quality friends from our time at the L+F, bonded with some hilarious Aussies (and had a little bit of our hearts won by each one of them), partied with Mexicans, giggled with a former Seattle neighbor, and been in awe of a band of Columbians. There has been equal parts running and exercising in the evening down Avenida Balboa and drinking, dancing, and swimming on roof top bars (but our excursion to Hard Rock Hotel’s pool was not as successful, and we may have been asked to leave). We have enjoyed two concerts by guests here: one from the awesome Columbian band SuperLitio at the venue down the street, El Apartmento (sort of like a rock, hipster, Latin party scene – very unique), and the other in our hostel where a gorgeous ginger Aussie blew our minds with his amazing skills (H‘s video is on the NEW facebook page, if you haven’t checked it out yet!).
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Rule #2: Don't Die. 
What’s with all the gnarly fencing? Keep you folks in, or the locals out? 🙂
You know, the one directly behind us is to keep baseballs from flying out of the park, but those on the sides are to keep us from going to visit the neighbors. One is even electric! (they don’t seem to trust backpackers in this neighborhood)