Country Article / Postcards
24 Hours in Panama
Date: 06/06/2006Dear International Living Reader,
Panama is an adventure wonderland just waiting to be discovered. The country's expansive rainforests are among the richest and most complex on the planet. It's the only country where jaguars and pumas prowl just a short drive from the capital. Its vast, roadless jungles are home to more than 940 recorded bird species and 105 endangered species, including the spectacled bear, the Central American tapir, the American crocodile, the scarlet macaw, as well as several eagle species.
This small, untapped country offers some of the finest diving, bird watching, and deep-sea fishing in all of the Americas--yet only the most avid adventurers are aware of it. Panama boasts scores of deserted palm-lined beaches, miles of lush rainforests, great national parks, mysterious mangroves (where you'll feel like you've been transported back to a time when dinosaurs walked the earth), steamy cloud forests, mountains, waterfalls, raging rivers, abandoned forts, as well as desert.
In Panama you can spend the morning diving in the Caribbean and the afternoon swimming in the Pacific. You can explore historic ruins of the colonial era...dive for Sir Francis Drake's lead coffin (supposedly buried at sea near Portobello Bay)...see the rainforest in an aerial tram...ride a dug-out canoe to a native Indian village...discover the remote and mysterious forests of the Darién region right on the border of Colombia (where the roads end a few miles before the border, leaving you with the feeling you've reached the end of civilization)...come nose-to-nose with a red-napped tamarind monkey or a trio of colorful toucans...
Fortunately, Panama is a small country. In a short one- or two-week trip, you can see much of what this diverse country has to offer.
But what if you don't have one or two weeks? What if you have, say, 24 hours to get a first impression of this expat's paradise? With that in mind, please accept, with our compliments, 24 Hours in Panama, as a way for you to get the most out of a day in this country.
In this free report, the IL team proposes the perfect way to spend a day in Panama, from a traditional Panamanian breakfast to a trip to the Miraflores Locks to evening drinks in a little boutique hotel overlooking the Bay of Panama...we've covered everything.
Enjoy: 24 Hours in Panama.
Eimear O'Driscoll
For International Living
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