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PANAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!

francis buxton

By francis buxton
in Channel Zero

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MayorMeanBeans

MayorMeanBeans

Posted
Posted

as time gets closer ill pm you some contacts about people who paint around here. granted, the dudes i know are older have wives/kids so they don't really get out in the streets, but know a lot of spots and might be able to help you out. they can get you euro paint, but machetazos (a dept store) has paint that should do fine. not sure what the cap compatibility with those tho.

 

- go eat some ceviche at the causeway. the causeway is a fake peninsula created by land excavated from the canal. i go fishing over there sometimes too, you can buy some cheap poles and stuff at machetazos.

 

- i live in casco viejo which i'm sure you will have read a lot about in your lonely planet. i teach kids photography here - we have a shortage of cameras at present. if you have a nice camera and want to hang out with kids that aren't on the tourist side of things, we can show you around. Likewise, I've been a professional photographer here for some time now, and i know the 'community' that doesn't include the business leaders/tourist guides/etc. Not sure you'd want to go on vacation to hang out with poor people though. still, its an awesome place to check out, full of buildings like this:

 

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- don't eat at the tourist-friendly spots. i get fat plates of food for 2 bucks from any of the chinese-owned cantinas.

 

- via argentina has a lot of cool spots to eat/chill at. i go to cedros a lot for shisha and lebanese food. tell the taxi to go to the park on via argentina, the spot is right next to it. Alot of venezuelan spots over there, get an arepa.

 

- you can drink the water, malaria isn't so much of an issue, but dengue is a big problem right now. dengue mosquitoes bite in the day, and have zebra striped legs.

 

- the albrook mall is like an american mall but cheaper, if you wanna go shopping. theres a movie theater there too.

 

- scoop some tourist biddies at Relic Bar, next to Luna's Castle Hostel, which is a center of backpacking dirty hippies coming through this area.

 

- can't really speak on Bocas del Toro since I pretty much stay in the city 100 percent of the time, but i hear its real nice. Probably easy to find a place out there right now too seeing as its the offseason.

 

- If you're into the sort of the thing, the brothels are just down the hill from the entrance to Casco Viejo coming from Avenida Balboa. Can't miss them. You might get robbed though, use your judgment.

 

- Can't speak on the casinos, gambling was never really my thing.

 

- it's pretty easy to find drugs in Casco if you're looking for it. Can't speak on the quality though, not really trying to cop off my students' fathers. Perico = Coke ; Mai/Weed/Mary = Trees, don't ask people, you'll hear people shouting it out soon enough if you're white/looking like a foreigner.

 

- Gangs change from street to street pretty much. if you get cool with one and run into trouble a couple blocks away, don't mention that you're cool with the other, obviously. Like I said previously though, don't go to Chorrillo or Santa Ana (which are adjacent to Casco Viejo), you'd have no reason to go to San Miguelito but don't go there either. As far as Chorrillo goes, Calle 12 is the divider between Casco and Chorrillo. You have to drive through either Santa Ana or Chorrillo to get out of Casco so you'll see what it is I'm talking about and can judge for yourself.

 

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in casco, don't go down the street that has this graffiti on the side of the basketball court on that corner, in Plaza Herrera, and has a colorful mural on the otherside of the street. There's nothing much there, and dudes pretty much wait down there to rob tourists:

 

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- Take a walk on Cinta Costera (Avenida Balboa) and see all the drug money high rises going up. Paitilla and Costa del Este are the two groups of highrises that jut out into the water, also rumored to be full of drug and corruption money.

 

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- You can go to Miraflores if you want (the Pacific locks of the canal), but its not very exciting.

 

- Your options increase dramatically if you know spanish. if you don't youre kind of a mark for gettng ripped off. Don't get mad if your taxis cost upwards of five bucks, but to go from Casco to Albrook (more or less opposite sides of downtown), costs me anywhere between 1.50 and 3 bucks, depending on traffic and how many people are in the car.

 

- theres a really fancy steak restaurant on avenida central and calle 10, but i haven't been there.

 

- On sundays on the beach of casco there is some awesome semi-amateur baseball. Beers cost a dollar and so do hot dogs.

 

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- I find that panama is one of those places where its better not to have definite plans. very spontaneous, you an easily happen upon parties in ruins, reggaeton freestyles, etc.:

 

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- carry your passport/id wherever you go. its illegal to not have a document on you and you will be arrested.

 

- theres a cajillion other things to do, but keep in mind that its only a city of 2 million. and im not exactly caking, so the more baller shit i'm not really attuned to. I hear that Isla Taboga is nice, as is El Valle, but haven't been to either of those places.

 

Let me know if you got any questions

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Manute Bol

Manute Bol

Posted
Posted

Wow, great post man, I might be visiting in the next few years actually. The plans are still in the air but my Grandma wants to visit family as shes getting really old now and I'm guessing she would like to see her country one last time. I just wanna travel some in my life time.

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RESTO1981

RESTO1981

Posted
Posted

Hey Mayor Menino,

my name is Resto I come from Belgium and am stayin here for a month with my girlfriend who is a photographer.

As i was looking trough the net to find some info about painting in Panama, I bumped into this site.

Already you provided me with some great info here thx for that.

The both of us are here on a mission , her goal is to make a docu about teenagers and their behaviour in Panama city (and also other places) and we think you might be of great help for that. You can check out her work on http://www.zazabertrand.wordpress.com

Me I am looking for big walls to paint, I prefer to go ask for permission since I'd rather do things that will stay a while.

We would like to get in contact with you, it would really help us, especially my girlfriend, a lot if you could. For the moment most of her contacts are of not much help but I hope you can.

For the moment we are staying in Via Argentina.

You can check out my works on http://www.flickr.com/resto1981

Hope to hear from you asap man!

Greetings Resto

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