December 18, 2013
So on December 10th, my friend Sam came down for a little vacation from her work-life and to get out of the snow. I’m currently in the country of Panama (for all of you who didn’t know) and have been here for about 6 weeks after spending some time in both California and Colorado. I’ll be writing some blog posts that you can read about by clicking those hyperlinks soon.
The first night of her arrival was the day after I got back from a brief trip to Costa Rica with a few friends for some sun and beach living after spending over a month in the mountains of Boquete, Panama. You can see a video from an ATV trip in the mountains of Boquete here.
So the day she arrives I end up returning a rental car that I got for the night that I rented through Budget. It turns out that at the hotel I stayed at, apparently someone scratched the front bunker of the car overnight while I was sleeping and I ended up getting fined for something that I had no idea. The rental car guy told me that the next time I rented a car with them it would be a good idea for me to just circle every single corner of the car as being damaged to prevent any further issues from happening.
(TIP for all of you who will ever rent a car)
So the day that Sam arrives starts off on a pretty bad note, however I believe in making the best of everything so didn’t let it affect me too much. Getting upset does neither of us any good and she was on vacation so I didn’t want to ruin her trip.
We then hop in a cab and head to a hotel where we end up having a great dinner which then leads to a night of singing Spanish karaoke and me dancing the salsa with some girl while on stage singing and meeting a bunch of people. The name of this bar was simply…wait for it… KARAOKE! and it was right across the street from the Riu Plaza Hotel where we were staying. 5 star hotel that deserves every single star. Truly a badass place.
The next day we end up just hanging around the pool and lounging since we were a little bit hungover from the night before.
A little later on in the day my buddy Christian hits me up to hang out and I hadn’t seen him since last year and was 100% down to chill. This night ended up being EPIC.
If any of you know me personally, you know I travel extremely light and Panama City can be hot. So I was wearing shorts, flip flops and a tee shirt. This didn’t matter. We ended up getting into one of the newest bars that had opened up in the Hard Rock Hotel in Panama City that requires dress pants and shoes, of which I had neither. #winning
We then went to a crazy cool bar that was built in an abandoned building where there was an awesome DJ along with a drummer jamming out for the crowd.
After leaving that bar we ended up hitting up another club that had a dress code along with cover. We ended up telling the bouncer that Sam was a professional tennis player, I was her boyfriend and Christian was her agent. This worked out great and we got into the club for free and they even offered me a table at another major party that was taking place in Bocas Del Toro on the 19th of this month (too bad I’m leaving Panama on the 19th)
We really didn’t like that place and ended up briefly walking into a club that had some crazy murals on the walls, seats that were made out of wood pallets with cushions, along with some cool umbrella lights on the ceiling (see picture below)
We then ended up venturing to a rooftop bar in Hotel Casa Nuratti by the name of Gato Blanco. Check out the picture of it during the day (not one I took)
Since it was night time when we got there… I believe like 3am. We stayed there hanging out until 5am. It was a beautiful view of the city and you can see what it looked like in the pic I took below:
We ended up having a great time going out in the city and Sam was 100% surprised with the experience we had while in the actual city. Most people have one view of how Panama City is going to be and it’s honestly a LOT better than I ever thought it was going to be.
Here’s a list of all the places I remember the names of:
– Gato Blanco
– Prive
– Bling in Hard Rock
– few places in Casco I don’t remember the names of (thank you alcohol)
In the next blog post I’ll share with you some of the adventures we took on the way to Playa Coronado… which involved having no plans for a hotel, talking my way into a private community and getting some upgrades in the hotel we stayed in… stay tuned!