Public Transport

Panama has an amazing public transport system. That is, we assume there is a method to this madness, even though we haven’t discovered it yet.

Panama is a pretty noisy city as we wrote before. Taxis assume that every pedestrian is a potential customer whose attention has to be drawn by a short double hoot. In the commercial part of the city about 1 in every 3 cars is a taxi and they all drive around slowly looking for customers. So there is a lot of hooting going on. This seems strange to us because most people who need a taxi clearly indicate this, usually by waving or jumping in front of it.

If Loes walks alone in town, she also hears another variation, which is a mechanic version of the wolf whistle. Taxis drive by even slower and often the driver actually asks “No quieres un taxi, babe?” (Do you want a taxi, babe?).

Because of all this looking for customers, taxis drive slowly and when they finally have a customer, they stop in the middle of the road to let them get in or get out. Other road users occasionally get upset by this behaviour and make this known by extensive use of the hooter. In general, when traffic comes to a grinding halt, which happens often, the drivers of stationary cars use their hooters often. This is of no use, because usually it is a traffic light that interrupts the flow of the traffic and those are not impressed by hooting.

Anyway, Panamanians love their cars and middle class households have a car for ever adult member of the household and they use their car a lot. Not very efficient, but fuel is relatively cheap in this part of the world: 2$90 per gallon (3.78 litre). Compared to Maputo, very few people walk in Panama.

Panama city and Panama country are all connected by bus services. In Panama city there is a large bus terminal called Albrook. It looks like an airport, with arrivals at the first floor and departures at the ground floor. The intercity destinations actually have their own terminals and gates on one side of the terminal. Only passengers are allowed to enter the terminals, a favour for which you have to pay and admission fee of 5 cents (on top of your bus ticket). Provincial towns have similar bus terminals, but smaller.

The size of intercity buses varies from 9-passenger minibuses to big coaches. The latter usually serve the long distance routes between the larger cities. To travel on such a bus you have to be prepared. Take a jacket or pullover because the air conditioning is always on and invariably set and locked on ‘freezing’. Ear plugs are useful as well because the radio also has only one setting which is ‘very loud’. Your MP3-player or iPod are no match for the sound systems on the Panamanian bus. Taking a blindfold can also be useful because some buses show violent action movies (definitely 16 years and older).

Panama city itself is also served by buses. These stop in a rather less organized way on the other side of the Albrook terminal and in the city you can hop on and off at nearly every street corner. You pay a quarter (pronounce: quarra) irrespective of your destination. The buses are old US school buses with a new, and much better, customized paint job. They are not as crowded as those in Mozambique and there are many, so it is actually not too uncomfortable a way to get around town.