Panama City: Marbella & Obarrio

Intro

I don't really have a ton of detailed information or great pictures to share in this post, but I think this is the story: In this small country, there are a lot of "Panama's."

There is Casco Viejo, the colonial city with beautiful buildings, full of tourists, where locals complain of gentrification. Then, there is El Chorrillo, the slum right next to it. Throughout the country, there are cities, small villages, remote islands, and farms in rural areas. Some have money and resources; others don't.

There are a variety of communities of people throughout the country, too. There are indigenous people, Mestizo people, or people of mixed Spanish and indigenous descent, people of African descent, of families whose descendants were taken into slavery, and people whose families came from other islands to work on the canal. Most people speak Spanish. A lot speak English.

Marbella and Obarrio are a wealthy, upscale neighborhoods in Panama City. I stayed in Marbella in a hostel for a few nights. The roads are well paved. There are nice neighborhoods with fancy houses. In Obarrio, which is more of a commercial area, there are tall buildings and a very nice mall. It wasn't cheap either. They use the US Dollar in Panama. I was paying "American prices" for everything that I was buying here--Food, toiletries, etc.

It was wild how different Marbella and Obarrio were to El Chorrillo and Portobelo, two other places in the same country that were only seven and 100 kilometers (four and 62 miles) away.