We have arrived in Central America! Panama is our first stop with Panama City being our starting point.

Our visit to Panama has already been an expensive one, with flights from Lima in Peru costing a small fortune and then before we could board our flight we had to buy a flight ticket out of Panama into Costa Rica. This was frustrating as we were planning to just catch a bus a couple of hours across the border instead but due to immigration issues with overstayers all foreigners must have an air ticket out to enter the country. After spending all of this money we were really hoping our ten days would be worth it. So far it absolutely has been.

Panama City is a mixture of cultures and old and new architecture. We visited the Casco Viejo area which is one of the older parts of the city. Here we could see the modern skyline and explore the colourful streets. We stopped for a coffee ( I had the strongest cold brew coffee I’ve ever had in my life and had the shakes for the rest of the day 😬) before visiting the Panama Canal.

The canal is a truly impressive feat of engineering, built over 100 years ago to make trade accessible from the Atlantic to the Pacific. We visited the Miraflores Locks in the afternoon to see some ships moving though. You can see in the pictures how the water level moves up and down so that the ships can pass.

We stayed in a hotel so had to buy our meals out for three days. Being a little sick of local food from Peru (guinea pig, alpaca and potatoes) we indulged in sushi, subway and dominoes pizza, very gringo of us.

Feeling fully recovered from our intense and fast paced time though Peru and Bolivia we headed up to the mountainous region of Boquete on the 7th of June.