Riding the Red Tour Bus

There's a Double-decker Red Tour bus ("hop on/hop off!") that travels around many of the places I've visited in Panama City, and I've long thought it would be fun to ride it. 

For one thing, I have fond memories of riding in double-decker buses when I was a kid in London (my family spent 6 months there while my parents were on sabbatical).  For another thing, I figured this bus would be a good guide to many of the things I ought to see while in Panama but haven't yet, and would therefore be a nifty way to see what else I ought to visit.

So, this past weekend, my husband got us a pair of tickets, and we planned to hop on.  Later on in the day, we found an app for the bus that tells us where all the buses are along the route, and I'd say Takeaway #1 for the day is download the app before you wait for the bus.  

The route map that's on the website isn't up-to-date, and it's particularly incorrect as the bus passes through Ciudad del Saber, which is where we waited for it.  The map said to wait along road A, but I very distinctly remembered seeing the bus head along road B in the past; I just wasn't sure where along road B I'd seen it stop.  

After waiting a half hour along road A, I finally asked a passing security guard where the bus came.  He said he'd seen it come along road B; he just wasn't sure where it stopped.  So I went into a nearby Mailboxes Etc shop along Road B where a guy I know named Carlos works. Carlos said just what I and the security guard had said: he remembers seeing the bus head along road B, but wasn't sure where it stopped. A theme had emerged.

Later we discovered that not only did the bus not follow the route along the map, but that if they didn't have any passengers saying that they wanted to stop or be picked up at the Ciudad del Saber, they didn't even necessarily go to that stop. Anyway, we didn't know this, so after waiting a while, we took an Uber down to the Mira Flores Locks, where – just after we arrived, a red tour bus showed up, so we hopped on. Success at last!

Takeaway #2 for the day that is I've been doing a good job so far of finding the best Panama City spots to visit, and so has my husband. Almost everything we ended up seeing along the bus route were places that we had already been. I'm not really disappointed; it was fun seeing them from the second story of the bus, and also fun seeing them together with my husband.  In fact, just about the only thing the bus chugged past that we hadn't seen was the Mira Flores Locks, and so we're definitely going to have to go back there again someday.

Here was our schedule.

10:40: Hop on the bus at the Mira Flores Locks.  Head through a traffic jam (there had been a fatal car/bus crash on our route), so it was slow going at first. 

11:15 Arrive at the BioMuseo on the Amador Causeway; continue down the Causeway.  We hopped off briefly at Isla Flamenco to try to find a raspado (fancy shaved ice), but the shop was closed.

Not a raspado,
but a nifty decoration on the side of the Isla Flamenco Hotel.

From there we travelled across the Cinta Costera Bridge, a nifty bridge that heads in a giant "U" out into the ocean and back to the shore. 

I ran/walked a 5k on this bridge one weekend;
it has a nice walk/bike path along the side that
both my husband and I have been on several times. 
He loves biking along the side path!

11:50:  We got to see an authentic Panama City traffic jam heading into Casco Viejo.  Once again, been there/done that.  

Behold the traffic jam; a genuine Panama City experience
not to be missed, even if you want to miss it!

11:55:  Our bus guide, Candy, informed us that the bus we were on was "going to the mechanic".  It seems, however, that the "mechanic" is not part of the tour we'd paid for, but she told us that fortunately there was another tour bus right there, and so we hopped off one bus and hopped on another.  Lovely! 

The new bus continued from Casco Viejo down the Cinta Costera, a really nice place to walk and bike, between the city and the ocean.  

We'd both been along this strip, separately, and seeing it together meant we were constantly pointing out things to each other.  I asked my husband later if he had a "takeaway" from the day, and so I'll add his here: Takeaway #3: It's hard to tell each other the things you want to say about the city and not also speak while the tour bus guide is speaking.  

From a bus, you can hardly see the walkway of the Cinta Costera;
when you're on the walkway of the Cinta Costera,
you're pretty well protected from buses and traffic, so that's fair.

12:05:  When the bus got about as far down the Cinta Costera as either my husband or I had been, it turned around and went back the other way.  I guess that means we'd already seen all there was to see of that, which was good to know.  As we headed back the other direction, my husband animatedly pointed out to me the bike shop he'd visited, . . . 

There it is!  That's his bike shop!

. . . and also a place he replaced his Mac battery, in a set of shops called (I kid you not) "Panama Strip Mall".  

"Panama Strip Mall"

Zoomed in, so you can see I'm telling it like it is.

12:15:  We passed by the Balboa Statue.  Balboa discovered the Pacific Ocean, and also founded the first [European-inhabited] city in Panama, our tour guide told us.  I have not fact-checked these statements.

The Balboa Statue. 

From there we headed back into the parts of the city that aren't quite as touristy, and yet I'd been to most of these places, too.  Here's the Cinco de Mayo metro station, which is how I get to the Cinta Costera myself.

12:21:  Cinco de Mayo metro station, very much in a
crowded, traffic-y part of the city.

12:26: We paused briefly at the base of the Cerro Ancon, the top of which is the highest point in the city.  My husband hasn't been up that hill, but I have. 

12:32 We were heading back toward the part of town where we are currently living. When we passed across the Canal Administration Zone, the bus guide pointed out the "American style houses" here.  It's a bit of a jarring description.  Of course, these houses were built by the U.S. during our occupation of the area, and it's also true that this style matches nothing else in Panama.  But it also doesn't match anything I see in the U.S.  

"American Style houses", which I guess is accurate,
but feels like a funny descriptor.

12:37:  We stopped at the Albrook Mall, which is one of the larger malls on the planet.  It's certainly not the absolute biggest mall world-wide, but it might be the biggest in Latin or South America.  Anyway, we didn't hop off here, not even to see the giant-green-glitter-Christmas-penguin. 

Also, there's a Christmas penguin display just through
the doors inside the mall.  

From there, we headed back up the road to Ciudad del Saber.  The same fatal traffic accident that had slowed us down earlier in the day was still closing down most of the road, so it was slow going.

1:10. We "hopped off" the bus at the Ciudad del Saber, right in front of the Mailboxes Etc store that I'd popped into earlier that day.  We had a lovely lunch in the plaza, and decided to take the usual MiBus back to our AirBnb, rather than return to the Mira Flores Locks that day.  We'll go visit that place another day.

And that's our tour bus experience!