Some Notes about Panama

Some Notes about PanamaPanama is not the swampy, mosquito-ey hellhole that it's stereo typed as, any more than South Florida is. Panama City is a thoroughly modern city. A large mountain range runs through the country. Temperatures were tropical in the lowlands, but very temperate in the highlands.

It was safe to drink water from the tap in all the places we went,except for at Keith's house (he has unprocessed well water, which he boils before drinking). Neither Joe nor I experienced any problems. Keith drinks tap water all the time and hasn't encountered any problems.

The national currency is the U.S. dollar. You don't have to exchangemoney when you go to Panama from the U.S. In some places, they call dollars"balboas," in other places, they call them "dollares." "10 balboas" is $10U.S.

Roads are good. The Pan American Highway through Panama is four lanes in some places, two lanes in others, but well maintained. If you'veever been to Costa Rica, it's nothing like that.

Prices in Panama City are rather expensive for Central America -most things cost around 60-70 percent of what they would cost in the U.S.Prices outside the capital are cheaper. For example, a fine lunch in PanamaCity cost around $8; in David, a very good lunch was around $5.

There's more to Panama than the canal!