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Panama trip summary in bullet points
Aug. 7th, 2017 11:29 am So In my previous post I said I would talk about my trip to Panama, but I think I'll just mention a few things that happened to make it a bit easier. I'll use bullet points even.
- We got caught in a tourist trap as soon as we got there, and some douche driver decided to charge us $20 a day (for each person) every time he took us anywhere. He was supposed to be a friend of the family, some friend eh?
- The beach was beautiful, and a guy riding a horse on the beach kept trying to get me to ride the horse...lol. Anyone who knows me knows I'm deathly afraid of horses. I'm not sure why, but I always have been. Anyway the guy was like "You scared amiga? Don't be scared! You want ride the horsie." To which I just kept shaking my head no...lol.
- Lots of communication issues due to the fact that my Spanish is pretty awful. Luckily for most of the trip we did have Spanish speakers with us during the duration of the trip.
- At one point the relative who hired douche driver had us waiting at her cousin's house for her brother to fly in from Miami. His plane was delayed, and they didn't know when he was coming. After 4 hours of waiting we got tired of waiting, and asked if they could just have a shuttle take us to the resort.
- I really don't like Panamanian food at all, and neither did my stomach. Everyone in our group got sick of it by the end of the trip, and had stomach issues when we got home.
- The food I did enjoy was at this really nice Panamanian restaurant that my grandmother's sister, and her sons took us to. The food was really good, and that's where I had that delicious hamburger (cause I'm a loser american.)
- The locals there were surprisingly really friendly, and would talk to you assuming you knew how to speak Spanish. It's such a diverse country with so many different cultures that they automatically assume you speak Spanish no matter how you look.
- The scenery was really amazingly beautiful, and I really miss it.
- My dad got emotional when he went to the old house he grew up in. I've never seen him cry, but he cried when talking about it. He told me that his mom must have went through so much to bring them to the US. She was only 21 when she brought them to the states.
- My sister bought lots of great souvenirs, and I bought some good stuff too despite my limited funds.
- The disparity between the rich in the poor in Panama is huge, and you can really see it. It was a huge wake up call for me about how much we really take for granted in the US. There were really young kids on the street begging for money. It was very eye opening.
- Electronics in Panama are really expensive, and I noticed that they had older model TV's in the resort hotel rooms. The video games there are ridiculously expensive ($76 for a Nintendo Switch game), and even though they had a really nice looking video game shop in the mall, it was practically vacant.
- The family reunion was nice, and it was cool meeting family I'd never met before. Apparently there was a relative from Germany who came all the way to Panama.
- Overall I had a great time despite a few issues we had. It's a very beautiful country, and I'd like to visit it again and see more of it.
