Panama City: Day 2 & Staying Alive Crossing the Street

TRAFFIC: Omg, it is so bad in Panama City. Last night I walked an hour & 15 minutes to El Trapiche for dinner and then took a cab back that distance-wise, should have taken 15 minutes, but thanks to traffic, also took an hour & 15 minutes. UPDATE: this was during "hora pico," rush hour and it is not nearly as bad during other hours of the day.

Crossing the street: Dangerous as FUCK. When I first got here, I had been standing at a crosswalk waiting for a streetlight to change from blinking yellow to red for 10 minutes. Then I lamented about it to someone standing next to me, Necesito esperar viente (20) minutos para cruzar la calle?!! WTF! And he shook his head and ran me across by just holding up his hand in front of the cars. So if I want to walk anywhere here, and given the horrible traffic, I definitely do, I have to just gather my cojones and make a run for it through the cars, waving my hand in front of the next car so that it stops for me. OR find someone else who is running across and run with them, my preferred method. Under these circumstances, I guess I'm happy for all the traffic because the cars can't really go faster than 20-30mph. STILL, you're running in front of 3+ lanes of cars going up to 30mph and it's not like they all move in tandem. I'll get a video of someone doing it before I go because it truly is nuts. UPDATE: there ARE traffic lights that turn red I found out later, just not everywhere.

Co-working space: One of three Workings locations. Here now and it is awesome, see pics below.

Dinner: El Trapiche again, but the one in the Cangrejo district near my hotel. This time I had Arroz con Pollo, kind of like chicken fried rice, but I don't think the rice is fried and there's a more saffron-y flavor to it (note the yellow hue). Delicious, comes with fried plantain, less than $6, and probably going to be my go-to lunch from now on.