Panama is a bit of a strange country.  I’ve always assumed that Panama separated the Pacific in the West (on the left) from the Atlantic in the East (on the right).  However, Panama, for the most part, runs west to east, which makes things a little more complicated.  The Pacific is actually mostly south of the country, while the Atlantic – or rather, the Caribbean Sea – is to the north.  Here’s a map:

And fair warning – the maps are a little small in this post, but you can double-click to blow them up.

So we’ll be living in Panama City, the Capital of Panama.  The locals just call it Panamá.  It’s right in the middle of the country, on the Pacific – or South – side.  The Canal runs along the west side of the city.  Technically, I believe it runs through the city, but most of what I know to be the city lies to the east of it.  Here’s a really detailed map of the Canal.  I haven’t seen it yet, but it’s definitely on the list.  You can see Panamá in the lower right hand corner of the map.

The city is divided into barrios, or neighborhoods.  I haven’t been able to find a map of the barrios that I love yet, but this one gives you an idea of how they are divided up.  For some reason, every map of Panamá seems to be oriented in a slightly different direction.  It drives me a little crazy.

If you double-click to blow up the map, you should be able to see the name of the neighborhood where we’ll be living during January – El Cangrejo – just over the most concentrated cluster of black dots indicating hotels.  At this point, we think we’d like to end up along Avenida Balboa, the road that lines the Panamá Bay, la Bahía de Panama.  The views there are really spectacular, as you might imagine.  More on that area later.

So we will be in our first apartment from January 3 through the beginning of February while we look for a more permanent place.  Again, this apartment is in a neighborhood called El Cangrejo (“The Crab”) which is in the center of the city, about two blocks from the hotel where we stayed in January.  It is within walking distance of a large supermercado (supermarket), just a few blocks from a metro station, and across the street from a park called Parque Andrés Bello.

Fountain in Parque Andres Bello

We’ll be within walking distance of a decent sushi place that we tried in January, a churreria (if you don’t know what this is, please google “churros” right now), our taxi driver friend Jorge’s favorite restaurant El Trapiche, and countless other restaurants and bars.  Our building is right on Via Argentina, the main road that goes through El Cangrejo.  And Mom, the Johns Hopkins-affiliated hospital in Punta Pacifica is just a 10 minute cab ride away.

I’ll leave you with some photos of the new digs!