Leaving Panamá Ciudad after a few days here, I can tell what there is to say about any city: it’s dirty, it’s loud, and I LOVE IT!!!
Maybe I just needed some metropolis life, but Panamá certainly is a great pick!!
It has a flavor of Miami to which it is often compared, but offers a splendid mix of two worlds: shiny modern skyscrapers and international companies, wide city highways, American style shopping malls with their awful fast food courts (which no average Panamanian can afford), international food choices & bars. All that blended with chaotic driving, adventurous sidewalks, a beautiful colonial old town (much of it in foreigners’ hands), history, no-nonsense local shops and crazy chicken busses (former US school buses charmingly painted & decorated).
And of course, the nearby Panama canal, the epitome of the American-Panamanian relationship. Two days ago, Yvonne and I went to see it and learned a lot about the history and importance of the canal in the visitor's center/ exhibit in Panama city. Then we took the train to the Atlantic outlet of the canal, the city of Colon and back. The train ride was great, in a glass-roofed compartment, looking at the surrounding jungle and parts of the canal on the other side. The city of Colon... well... that is worth another entry. Let's say, I am glad we did not get robbed (or worse)!

No big city would be complete without its “bad” areas, and probably due to the described medley, there are several neighborhoods in Panamá which I know not only since Feb 7th ("BUSted") !! Generally speaking, the majority of the city turns into a no-go zone after dark. I have gotten very much used to security guards armed up to the teeth at every corner.

Until today, I’ve become quite familiar with the capital’s outlay, and its bus system, and therefore decided this afternoon to take the same bus line back from the safe main terminal to the hotel (safe Punta Pacifica) that brought me there - logical.

I get on the bus, find a seat without a hole by the window on the right sight, and after a short inspection recognize the school kid stickers on the ceiling: it is the exact same bus that Matthias and I had been on on our way to Panama Viejo before our ‘encounter’ with the police (see "BUSted??").

However, it seems that the return route of this bus line is different, and not just the reverse of how I came. The surroundings become more and more deteriorated, not what they looked like going the other direction. Now I see simple concrete apartment buildings in bad condition, nasty backyards, trashed front yards. The few clothes that hang to dry in the heavily gated windows are old and torn up. My inner alarm goes on! These are some of the slums that I had seen from the highway in a taxi. I notice that the bus front door that usually *always* stays open is now closed. The atmosphere becomes somewhat quieter. The bus boy and other passengers slide the windows closed. My window is stuck. The bus goes slowly and I cling to my purse and a careful eye on who gets on the bus. I put my sunglasses on (as if this would somehow cover up that I am a foreigner). I'm expecting someone with a gun to enter the bus at any moment.
The air is definitely a little tensed now.
Just when I think that it can't get any worse for an eternity of 2 blocks, the bus makes a right turn – and immediately passes in front of the hotel that Yvonne and I were staying at the previous nights!
Good news is that from here on I know that things get better. And so it is: windows are opened again, and 15 minutes later I arrive safely at my hotel.