It was a normal bus ride until we started approaching Panama City. If you’ve been in Central America for a while, heading south through the likes of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, arriving in Panama City is a bit of shocker. There are some tall buildings in San Jose, but you tend to forget about the overdeveloped world while catching chicken buses from one place to the next in the volcanic landscape of Central America.
When you get your first glimpse of the Panama City skyline, you can’t help but say holy shit, or ach du scheiße, or la puta madre. The waves of the Pacific Ocean break for one last time as they roll into the shoreline and briefly say hello to a cluster of skyscrapers. You kind of forget what tall buildings look like when you’re in Central America, and Panama City provides quite the sight.
The skyscrapers enter and exit your vision as you twist around the lush green hills approaching Panama City. As you cross a bridge that spans a large river you see a massive container ship passing beneath you and you say putain, or caralho, or cazzo, this is the Panama Canal! Really, entering Panama City is a cuss-filled, jaw-dropping experience.
How To Get From David To Panama City
Go to the bus terminal in David, Terminales David Panama, and you can buy a ticket right there at the office. It’s very straight forward. My ticket to Panama City was $15.25 and I didn’t have to wait long for a bus, they go regularly. That price was in March 2022 so it’s possible they’ve gone up a bit. The bus ride is about 8 hours and the buses are very comfortable.
I don’t think there’s a need to book online. I did a quick search to see what options there were for buying online and I found one company offering tickets for $65. Don’t do that. Just go to the terminal when you’re ready and you shouldn’t have trouble getting a seat.
Then you get to the main bus terminal in Panama City, which is a spectacular work of art, and again you can’t help but marvel at the impressive architecture. Especially in contrast with what you’ve seen in the rest of Central America. And that contrast is in full display at the Panama City terminal. You have luxury double decker buses sharing the same space with the brightly painted, chromed-out chicken buses that you’ve come to know and love in this part of the world.
What you should do now, is find a taxi or Uber to your accommodation, and that should be the end of your arriving-in-Panama City story. But I don’t always make wise decisions. I thought, well this is a beautiful terminal, and my map says that my hostel is only a 35-minute walk away, let’s get a taste of the surrounding area and make my way there on foot.
(Travel tip: the areas surrounding bus terminals are usually not the nicest or safest part of a city.)
I started walking, and just one street away from the terminal my hopes of being surrounded by more beautiful buildings quickly disappeared. I continued, which I maybe shouldn’t have, and my surroundings got progressively worse. After I turned down a side street that Google said was the quickest way, my heart started to beat a little faster. I was in the ghetto.
I didn’t turn around though. I had come this far, and my hostel was only supposed to be another fifteen minutes or so. When I say I was in the ghetto, I mean the fuckin ghetto. Like south side Chicago shoot ‘em up. Like old furniture just abandoned on the lawns projects. Like apartment buildings with doors hanging off their hinges and broken staircases blocks. Like getting cat-called by everyone around you because white boys ain’t supposed to be there ‘hood.
I stuck out like a sore thumb. And I was carrying two backpacks with everything I owned. I was a bit shocking, but I wasn’t getting bad vibes from the area, and everyone that hollered at me was saying nice things. They were complimenting my looks and inviting me for drinks. I said thanks but no thanks and kept putting one foot in front of the other.
When you’re in Central America almost everyone you see has sun-kissed bronze skin. There weren’t any of them around here. Only black people. Quite an odd sight after seeing a handful of black people in the entire month or two prior. This is probably where my resentment for Panama City began. Amidst all the foreign money that is stashed in this city, and the concentration of rich white bankers living the high life in their cushy skyscraper apartments, there’s this other side of Panama City where people have been pushed to the margins to make room for those sweet tax-free dollars. It doesn’t seem right. But, anyway, back to my journey.
As I was walking past one decrepit building after another, a police truck rolled by, stopped, and backed up towards me. The officer rolled down his window and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was heading to my hostel and it shouldn’t be more than 10 minutes down the road. He told me that I’m in a very dangerous neighbourhood and it isn’t safe for me with my backpacks here. I told him I understood and thanked him for the warning. He said no, seriously, get in the vehicle and we’ll drive you to your hostel.
I didn’t know what to do right away. I could see that I was obviously not in a nice neighbourhood, but I didn’t want to just hop in the police car and go off with the cops. It almost felt like it would be a big middle finger to the community around me. On the other hand, maybe the police were right, and I was in some sort of danger. They said the next stretch of road is even worse than where I was now.
I don’t know if you’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting Latin American police officers, but they aren’t all saints. I asked the police if I could trust them, which in hindsight was a useless question. What were they going to say? You know, we were going to keep you with us until you handed over a couple hundred dollars, but we would never lie — no, you can’t trust us.
They laughed and just said get in. I obliged. I waved goodbye to the friendly people that I’d encountered on the street and rode away in the back seat of the police truck. It was probably the most in-style arrival I’ve had to a hostel, and luckily it didn’t cost me a cent.
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