Panama Day 2: Driving to Santa Catalina

After our day in Panama City, we drove 6 hours to Santa Catalina, the beach town that serves as the launch point for scuba and snorkel trips to the Coiba Island bay. After another tasty breakfast at Super Gourmet, we were on our way.

We caught an Uber from Casco Viejo back to the airport to pick up our rental car (much easier than trying to park for two days in Casco Viejo) and hit some spots on the outskirts of Panama City. I am fascinated by the Baha'i faith, and I was surprised to see in our guidebook that there is a temple in Panama City! There are only 7 or 8 in the whole world.

This one is very different than the one I'm familiar with in Wilmette, Illinois, or the one I visited in Haifa, Israel:

Baha'i Temple in Panama City

The hill was a bit daunting, but there is a spacious parking lot and a Baha'i adherent came out right away and gave us a little tour. We walked around the gardens - the Baha'i temples always have gardens! - and took in the view.

View from Baha'i Temple hill

After that, we kept heading west to the Miraflores Visitor Center & locks, one of the spots you can see the Panama Canal and learn about its history with a fairly extensive museum.

You can indeed see the canal, but no ships were going through it at the time we visited. Apparently they mostly go through (at least on the day we were there) at set times, and we missed the 9:30 and were too early for the 2 p.m. Also, entry into the visitor center was $20, which I thought was outrageous. Families argued about the price in line; clearly there were some wives being dragged by their engineer husbands and didn't want to pay the price.

Panama Canal at Miraflores Locks

The museum was very informative, and I liked the models of the ships that were used to dig out the canal. The visitor center also has an IMAX 3-D documentary about the canal, narrated by Morgan Freeman. We thought the posters of this movie were hilarious, as (1) Morgan Freeman appears very, very concerned about the canal, and (2) they clearly just copied and pasted photos of the man from Oscar red carpet shoots or something, because he is never actually photographed WITH the canal.

Morgan Freeman is very concerned about the Panama Canal

I'm glad I visited the locks even with the price, but I wouldn't do it again. $20 was ridiculous. (BTW, Panamanians are only $5. Sheesh.)

With that box checked, we went on our way. The roads in Panama are great, all paved and very smooth. We mostly took the interstate so didn't have to worry about much traffic or lights; in fact the only backup happened about 30-45 minutes outside of the city, and it must happen there all the time because all these vendors were walking between cars selling snacks and water bottles. (I guess at least they weren't selling beer.) I thought it was kind of nuts, but lots of cars stopped and bought something. The Panamanian version of a drive-thru?

Dave found a cute lunch spot in our guidebook, at Farallon on the way to Santa Catalina just off of Route 1: Pipa's Beach Bar & Restaurant. Oh man. Let me just say, stop here if you can. 

Enjoying the best piña colada of my life

Once you get off of Route 1 and past all the beach homes, you start to get into some chickens bobbing along the side of the road and some truly bizarre people watching. I got another fried fish and Dave got "summer octopus." Plus it started raining in one of the only true downpours we saw on the whole trip, and we were under the awning but still outside!

Taking in the ocean at Pipa's

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful; we had to fill up on gas, which was extremely easy along Route 1. I really cannot recommend driving in Panama highly enough - I would do that again over the unreliable bus system.

Road to Santa Catalina

I was nervous about diving, especially as we hadn't done it in a long time, but my cold was dissipating and I was feeling like the dive trip might come off perfectly after all, despite my fear. And fearless travel was one of my goals for 2019 - not travel without fear, but being brave to do something new despite the fear. Adelante!