 | Panamá City Local Customs | Tips 1 - 10 of 15 |  |
Popular Local Customs | Other Local Customs Tips | All Tips (15) OK, I´m a beer connosuer, I have to check out the local brews wherever I go. Panamainian beers were unknown to me before I moved here. I have found them to be a pleasant surprise.
They may not be award-winning beers but they are very drinkable and perfect for the climate, a real treat on a hot day! I love to sit on my balcony nearly every evening, and watch the street traffic with a local beer.
The locals generally get one of the four local beers; Atlas, Balboa, Panama, or Soberana.
The first two are from Cervezaria National and Atlas is the most popular, sort of the Budweiser of Panama, but not really the best tasting, in my humble opinion. Balboa is better tasting, but not as good as the latter two. Panama is made by Cervezaria de Panama in Chiriqui. My wife tells me the brewmaster is German, and this beer is definetely a German-style Lager. It is the best tasting to me, and the one I prefer to drink. I didn´t try it at first because I read that it wasn´t that good, but now that I tried it, I think the person who judged this beer as substandard was all wet! Soberana, is also good, it is my second favorite of the locals. It is a nice, light beer and is great for a hot day!
I hope if you like beer and visit Panama, that you will try the local beers. For one thing, they are cheap. A returnable bottle is 35-40 cents, plus ten cent deposit. But they are only 9.5 ounces. They sell 12 ounce cans for about 50 cents, each, usually they are a little cheaper in the larger super markets than the local "Supermercados", which are convenience stores. Except in Panama City, the beers are sold loose in bottles or just in returnable plastic cases, or loose or only in six-packs in cans. And they only come in the 9.5 oz bottles or 12 oz. cans. I have gotten 12 oz bottles of Soberana in restaurants, however, I have not seen that size in the stores. That may be a limited thing. Leave a Comment
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The city has a surprising number of Kuna Indian women who wear their traditional Molas. In most places where you see this it is mostly for tourist consumption. But here the women wear them even away from the tourist areas. Leave a Comment
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Panamanians eat as much rice as many Asian cultures, which means, nearly every meal. They have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Every type of restaurant that serves Panamanian dished serves rice with them.
Usually Panamanians make rice with shredded chicken or guangou, a type of bean.
The Panamanians also love sancocho, which is a chicken soup that is made with chicken stock broth and vegtables, usually; carrot, ñamé, celery, and cilantro, with a chicken leg thrown in. One gets a side dish of rice with it (of course). To eat it traditionally, one takes a spoonful of rice and carefully lets the broth flow onto the spoon, soaking the rice. One picks up the chicken drumstick and uses the hands.
Panama has many types of exotic fruits and vegtables. Veggies include, ñamé and yucca, which are used like potatoes. Usually ñamé is used in soups, especially sancocho, and made into dumplings. Yucca is usually fried like french fries or chips, and is also used as a batter coating for some types of empanadas. When I first came here, I thought fried yucca were cottage fried potatoes! There is also otoé, which is also a root vegtable used like potatoes, and the above mentioned guangou, which is a bean that looks somewhat like a large, green lentil, usually cooked with rice.
Among the fruits are; maracuya, a fruit that makes a whitish, tart juice. guanabana, which is green and tart, and what inspired the quayaberra shirt for men, that has four pockets so one can pick guanabana and put them in the pockets. It´s juice is orange-coloured, it looks like orange juice, but definitely doesn´t taste like it!
Panamanians also loved grilled meat, there are parrilladas everywhere. There are street vendors who sell beef brochets for a quarter. It is considered a snack here. They finish them off with some picanté sauce over an open flame before they give them to you, to give them a spicy, smoky flavour.
There are also street vendors that sell barbequed chicken, from 1/4 to a whole chicken, it is very good, and very inexpensive. Leave a Comment
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The local native costume for women is the pollera. The pollera is worn at any festive occasion and all festive occasions here have a contest for a queen, who invariably wears a pollera for the occasion. Polleras are inticrately beaded and have floral designs on them. They can cost thousands of dollars. The traditional jewelry and pearl head pieces that go with them are also very costly and are handed down from generation to generation in a family. Some people rent out their polleras, jewelry and head pieces to other women to wear in paegants and fiestas, because there are so many fiestas and paegents throughout the year, they can make a good living at renting these items out. If someone who holds these items dies without a will, you can be sure the surviving family members will fight over who gets them! Leave a Comment
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Strangely enough, there are two currencies in Panama: the balboa and the dollar (and American coins). Most likely, you will pay for things in dollars. When you get change, look at them. There might be some hidden balboas in there! A nice sovenuir of your trip to Panama! Leave a Comment
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Another example of these women in their brightly colored Molas. Leave a Comment
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For better or worse the Panamanians are nice talkative fellows who readily provide the traveller with the latest in the gossip column. Chances are that they will talk about Mel Gibson's latest exploits, meaning buying prime real estate and thus connect to you, the avid movie buff. Meanwhile he is going to pump his patriotic ego and make you practice your Spanish. What a win-win situation! Leave a Comment
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On the east end of Panama City, are the ruins of the site of the original Panama City. It was first settled in the mid-16th Century, and was there until Captain Morgan pillaged it and the Colonial Spaniards decided to move the town to a more defensible site, where Casco Viejo is now. The area of Panama Vieja wasn´t really reinhabited until the 20th Century again.
The pictures below are of a moving, stageless play that was performed on the grounds of the Panama Vieja Museum and Cultural Centre in March, 2008. It depicted the original governor of Panama and other pioneer Panamanians who just arrived from Spain and how life was at that time. Panamanians love cultural or historical plays, their Passion Plays on Good Friday are legendary, and last all day! They do them in real time! But that´s another story. We were fortunate enough to find out about this event and go to it, as it is very close to where my wife and I live in Panama City (We walked over). The City and the Tourist Ministry put these events such as this on almost every month. Leave a Comment
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Panama runs on fiestas. There seems to be one somewhere every week. They have fiestas for local historical events, religious holidays and to celebrate a town’s patron saint(s). Check the local papers or the tourist guide for events surrounding your stay. The biggest fiesta in Panama is Carnaval, of course. Every town has a celebration beginning the weekend before and leading up to Ash Wednesday. Probably the most lavish of these is in Los Santos province in the town of Las Tablas. See my Las Tablas pages for a description of this event. Leave a Comment
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Panama uses the US dollar as its currency. The official name for it is the balboa, but it's exactly the same bill. Panamanian coins are of the same value, size and metal as US coins; both are used. In most of Central America, US dollars are the only currency exchanged. In Panama City, however, you can exchange currencies from almost anywhere in the world at a casa de cambio, due to the city's large international offshore banking industry.
This is what I liked because I didnt have to change any money.
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