Cover Article

It had been a busy couple of weeks – interminable meetings, long workdays followed by longer waits in traffic, skipped meals, late nights and early wake-ups. It was definitely time for a mini-vacation even if we could only carve out 24 hours for a little rest and relaxation.

Entertainment

Bar Hopping in Casco Viejo -who would have thought?
Not long ago bar hopping in Panama’s Casco Antiguo neighborhood was as simple as walking from one bar to the other one. These nights the old quarter is alive with cafés and restaurants, music venues and low-key bars scattered among the ruins of monasteries, pricey residential renovations and historic plazas.

Destinations

MarViva Foundation – preserving Panama’s Rich biodiversity

Fifty-five kilometers off Panama’s Pacific Coast in the northwestern province of Chiriquí is a stunning landscape of tropical forests, coral reefs, marine meadows, grass-carpeted islands, and mangrove swamps.

Dining

In Panama City, you can find almost any kind of food from New York chic to Peruvian ceviche, from Korean kim chee to European Continental. You are in Panama City, Panama, crossroads of the world, after all.

Personalities

At age 72, Jose “Tito” Thomas remembers the Bocas del Toro of his childhood when its few hundred residents were on a first-name basis. “Everyone was like one big happy family,” Thomas reminisces. “People lived with their doors and windows open. Nobody would touch anything that didn’t belong them.”
Long before the first backpackers and surfers discovered the Caribbean archipelago, he was riding the waves in a cayuco, a dugout canoe. Today, he is still in Bocas, maintaining a bit of Bocas’ history as owner of the Gran Hotel Bahia.

Local Knowledge

How to get where you are going
Have you been repeatedly rejected by taxi drivers in Panama City? Have you had to share your taxi driver with other passengers? Are you sometimes unsure about how much to pay?
That’s normal. No matter what stage of organization or regulation, public transportation can be confusing. In Panama, like anywhere, the key is to understand your relationship with the public transportation system and what will happen to you before it happens to you. While an official system does exist, the reality may differ widely.