Back to Panama

We had no sooner returned to Volcan when our friend Darrel’s mother passed away back in Canada. We stayed with his wife Susan to keep here company while Darrel went back, this was at the beginning of the Virus outbreak. When Darrel arrived back, he was going into quarantine for 14 days.

At the time of Darrel’s return was the time we had decided we would be heading south along the coast towards Panama City. Susan dropped us in David where we would spend a couple of days.

From David we rented a van and headed to Panama/Costa Rica border where we would pick up both of Catherine’s sisters and their husbands. We had booked a few days at Los Olas Resort located on the coast. Were we spent this time catching-up, wining and dining. We also took long walks along the beach and drives to see some of the local sites.

The Motley Crew – Left to Right: Jim, Judy, John and Jane, Catherine & Stewart.

After our time together we returned them to the border so they could retrieve their vehicle and continue back to Jim & Judy’s place in Costa Rica. We, on the other hand continued south to Nico’s Beach.

We had booked 10 days here, planning to move closer to Panama City after that time.

When we arrived, there were two other couples staying there but would be leaving the following day. As it turns out the first couple of days there the hotel kitchen would be closed for some deep cleaning. As we had booked breakfast with our accommodation, the management made alternative arrangements for us. This meant strolling along the street to another property the hotel owners also owned where breakfast was provided.
A couple of signs along the way to breakfast.

Nico’s was located approximately 2 hours from Panama City. In this area there were some large hotels that cater to the tourist that come here to enjoy the beaches and the nearby golf course.

Our room had its own patio overlooking the Pacific. We had with us a bottle of Prosecco that we had been carrying around for a couple of months and finally found time to drink it.


While here we walked the beach and enjoyed a couple nice sunsets.

As this virus was picking up steam and rampaging around the world, we were quite happy to ride out the storm on the beach in Panama. All was well until we heard that Catherine’s 85-year-old mother may have been exposed. This made our decision to return to Canada.
We tried without any luck to contact the airline we had been travelling with, but with no luck. We assume they were just overwhelmed with the volume of people trying to book or reorganize their flights.

We performed a search for available flights and booked one-way tickets back to Calgary for two days later. Phillipe, the hotel owner managed to arrange a bus to take us to the airport from the close-by Decameron Resort. So, it was off back to Canada. Thankyou Phillipe and your staff for all the help provided.

On our way to Tocumen airport our driver took us over the Bridge of the Americas. This bridge is part of the Pan-American Highway, this highway ends approximately 300 kms/186 miles southeast of Panama City at the Darian Gap. People travelling the Pan-Am have to ship around the Darian Gap to South America, or visa-versa to continue their journey.

This route took us on the causeway past Old Town in Panama City.

We left Panama, and arrived back in Calgary where we had clear blue sky’s, this was the only similarity to Panama as the temperature was around 30C/86F when we left, we arrived back to -10C/14F in Alberta, quite the shock to the system.

We arrived late and were fortunate to have our daughter drop her car off at the airport for us so we could make our way to our hotel, next morning we reclaimed our vehicle from storage, picked up the groceries and money our daughter had sourced then headed to self quarantine for the next 14 days. At present we are like everyone else in a lockdown environment.

We are chomping at the bit to get back on the move, as we do have another trip planned for the summer, all being well, restrictions will be removed in the next month or so. Until next time, stay safe and be well.

Stew & Cat.

4 thoughts on “Back to Panama”

  1. Welcome back, under strange circumstances. We send our best wishes regarding Catherine’s Mother. Hopefully this present situation will resolve sooner rather than later. We are staying completely to ourselves, Linda is high risk so we take no chances at all.

    1. Steve,
      Thanks for the well wishes, luckily Catherine’s mother has not shown any symptoms.
      You are doing the right thing staying to yourselves, best to be safe than sorry. We only go for walks, complete with social distancing.
      Stay safe and well,
      Stew & Cat

  2. Welcome back
    Give Pat our best wishes, we are in Trail BC looking after our grand daughter as mom had to go back to work. Fighting this Covid is no fun.
    Doug and Gail From #113 McCrae.

    1. Doug,
      Thanks, we’ll pass along your regards. Enjoy Trail while there, stay safe and well.
      Stew & Cat.

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