Matty flew in from Dallas by way of Los Angeles (as you do), arriving in Panamá at 6 am. Few people can convince me to be across town in Panamá traffic at that hour of the morning, especially when it means coming back into the city when 800,000 other people are trying to get to work. Luckily for him, Matty is one of those people.
After checking Matty into Hotel Paris and letting him say hey to Eric while I grabbed a shower, we headed off to the Canal. You may recognize the sites of these photos, as I’ve begun to take similar photos with each guest.
We met up with Eric for an early dinner in Casco Viejo at a restaurante called Casablanca (for no apparent reason) and couldn’t quite convince Matty to try ceviche yet.
The next morning, Matty and I figured out how and where to get tickets for Friday night’s activity while Eric worked. Later, Eric had a break in his day, so we picked him up and headed out to Amador Causeway for lunch. We tried a new restaurant (for us) called Mi Ranchito where we tried chiladas for the first time, at the suggestion of Marianela, our Spanish teacher. Chiladas apparently have many variations, particularly in Mexico. The variation that we’ve found here so far and that we’ve begun making at home since then is a Corona with lime juice and hot sauce with a salted rim. It’s pretty amazing.
That night, Friday, thanks to Matt scoping out the schedule and finding out about it, we went to the Panamá v. Uruguay futbol game! Very exciting. Uruguay has a great team, so it was supposed to be a good game. And it was a competitive game, but sadly we lost 0-1. Boo. However, there were many exciting parts of the experience that night. First of all, our neighbor Elliott came with us, and he’s always fun. Secondly, Mahalia came with a few of her friends, one of them being the kind of guy that buys everyone else pizza and beer. Super nice. Third, speaking of beer, this part was just amazing…
Unlike the $8-10 beers you get at stadiums in the States, these beers were 32 ounces each. Serious beers. And they were $2 each! This is not like hey, well yeah, you’re in a 3rd world country so of course they are. This is a very expensive city! These are the cheapest beers we’ve seen here. It’s worth it to go and treat the stadium as a bar even if you hate soccer. Better yet, these beers had LIDS!
USA – listen up for a minute, cause this is important. If you have ever been to a concert or a sporting event that was not governed by the NCAA, you have had some idiot spill beer on you. Or, you have been the idiot who spilled beer on someone else and the realization that it is impossible not to do this when they put the beer in flimsy plastic cups, overfill said cups, then send you into a crowd of 47 million screaming fans who are either jumping up and down, waving their hands about in disgust over a call, trying to squeeze by you to take a selfie, or all of these at once. The solution is simple, people. Fast food restauranteurs figured this one out at the dawn of time. Panamá simply has us beat on this one, Uncle Sam. Get it together and put lids on the beers.
Not only did these giant cheap beers come with lids, but the concession stand would give you a styrofoam tray-type thing filled with ice in which to carry your beers, in case you needed, as many fans did, to retrieve 12 giant beers at a time. And remember folks, this is not American football we’re talking about. The game is only 90 min long. There is limited drinking time allocated to fans, so they make it count.
With sad hearts from the loss but happy temperaments from the drinking (at least for the boys…I was driving the bunch of hooligans), we left the stadium and decided to find a nearby bar and wait out the traffic. There were a few options right near the stadium, including a casino next door. However, Elliott knew exactly where to go. In his charming accent, he insisted that we try out the “quite sparkly” place he had seen on the way in. I’m a girl who likes a little sparkle and Eric and Matty didn’t have any better suggestions, so off we went.
The “sparkly” place turned out to just have a bunch of lights on it. No glitter or sequins, sadly. No harm done though. We were wanded/patted down – don’t worry Mom, there was a separate women’s entrance with a female employee doing the pat-downs – then allowed in. Turns out, Elliott had picked the perfect spot. The place was pretty packed with fans who seemed to be over the game as soon as the music started. Big bar, lots of seating, and outdoor seating area, and a big dancefloor in the middle.
Elliott went up to the bar and tried to order. It seemed like a good idea to have the 6’3″ guy ordering, but alas, I saw that he was getting nowhere. I stepped up on a barstool (not on the top of it…just on one of the things where you put your feet, you know, to make me normal human height) and chatted with a waitress for a second. She motioned to someone and pointed at me, at which point I was directed to yell my order down the bar. Awesome. I ordered a bucket of Balboas for the guys, but wait…they were out of Balboas (a Panamanian beer) and only had Miller Lite. WHAT?! So weird. Whatever, yes, Miller Lite is fine, yes, thank you. Managed to make that work, and again, cheap beers. We’ll have to get out to the seedy part of town more often.
After they polished off the bucket, I somehow convinced these three white boys to dance. Matty’s usually up for dancing, so that wasn’t so hard. Eric will occasionally do it, but doesn’t love it. Elliott insisted that he had no rhythm but said he’d go with us anyway. I ended up getting each of them onto the floor at least for a time. We danced salsa and bachata (THANK YOU DIANA FOR TEACHING ME!), and it turns out that Elliott had some moves after all…he just hated being out there.
Matty, on the other hand, had a great time! Here’s a picture that Elliott caught of us, although I think Matty’s real shining moments were when the bachata music stopped, the electronica started, and for a good 4 minutes or so, he was the ONLY person on the dancefloor. All eyes were on our Gringo. It was awesome.
Matty and Me Ownin’ the Dance Floor
We decided to call it a night after giving folks just a taste of our dancing as we didn’t want to make anyone feel badly about their own skills. On the way home around 2, it was decided that some kind of fried chicken was required. Now, in Panamá, there is a chicken place called Pio Pio which is, of course, the sound baby chicks make when they speak Spanish. There are hundreds of these places. We passed 3 before we decided that we were going to stop and try one out for the first time. There was some doubt about the sanitation grade of these places, but I think the standards for sanitation go down as the evening turns into early morning. So I had the pleasure of ordering for these three goofuses, then ordered yuca fries for myself. The cashier asked me how many I wanted. How many fries? What a weird question! I have no idea! Apparently they come in 4’s and are 10 cents a piece. It’s very strange.
The conclusion? Pio Pio is perfectly adequate late night food. And it’s everywhere. Excelente.
