Matt and I hired a taxi to take us to the big city of Colon. We could have taken a 2+ hour bus ride for $3 each but we wanted to do a large provisioning run and make multiple stops.  A friend of ours gave us the name of a wonderful, English speaking taxi driver, Jack who took care of us!  Our goal was to hit the fresh market, the Zona Libre de Colon (free zone), and Quartro Alto all in one day.

Jack picked us up at 0730 and we were on our way.  It was such a nice ride being in a car rather than the noisy, bumpy, rickety bus.  We were able to enjoy the beautiful rolling hillside.  Panama is very lush, green, and beautiful this time of year.  We passed through several coastal towns, tons of farms with grazing cows and horses, and a large national park.  After about an hour and a half, we arrived in Colon.

We had heard that Colon was not safe and that we should not walk around, but Jack assured us that he would guide us in the right direction and keep us in safe areas.  And he did.

The fresh market is similar to the one in Colombia with fresh fish, meats, veggies and fruits.  The free zone is a massive (thousands of stores) area where you can buy just about anything duty free and tax free, and Quatro Alto is a large outdoor mall that has a huge grocery store, technology stores, and a marine store that we wanted to check out.

The first stop was a marine store.  We were in need of a few basic items such as boat polish, friction rings, silicone grease, 4000 UV adhesive, etc.. and the marine store in Quatro Alto is small.

The first marine store was well organized, two story building mostly dedicated to fisherman.  The entire bottom floor housed fishing gear, lures, poles, dry suits, spears guns and more.  The smaller upstairs had boat stuff, but it was pretty darn small.  At this store, we found boat polish and our U.V. sealant which was good.

The fresh market was next as you want to get here earlier than later to get the freshest foods.  We were instructed to stay inside the open air building as it was located in a “not so good area.”  Jack would have come in with us but he could not find a parking spot.  He dropped us off and picked us up at the entrance.  It was similar to Colombia, but much more organized and professional looking with official stands for each vendor.  We did a quick walk through first before we decided which vendor to buy from – there were a lot, but we wanted to get as much as we could from one place.

It’s overwhelming because you can’t hide from the damage we do to animals  Again, I do eat meat, but seeing the meat section makes me sick.  We ended up buying a 9 kilo pork shoulder for $20 and lot of veggies including: 3-papaya, 3-pineapple, 2-stocks of celery, 2-cucumbers, 2-squash, 10-oranges, 5-limes, 3-green peppers, 2-red peppers, cilantro, 2-avocados, 3-apples, 4-onions, and 2-heads of lettuce for about $36.  The price stunned us, but we were too busy grabbing stuff to ask  for prices and we just wanted to get out of there.  Either way, they were fresh and looked delightful!

Next stop, the Zona Libre de Colon.  Jack did not know much about Zona Libre de Colon so we really did not know what to expect.   Liquor and perhaps an iPhone replacement were top priority for this excursion.  Friends told us that it might be difficult to get cases of liquor out of the zone and to ask before we buy:  good plan!   Jack dropped us off at a secondary gate and we went to the office to get a pass.  After showing our passports, we paid $1 each and were let lose in the jungle. This place is so big that they have tour guides on the corners to show you around.  There were well over 16 blocks in the clothing area alone.  We found a tour guide and asked where the technology section was and he pointed 4 blocks down and 10 blocks over.

Several stores had the apple logo, but many did not sell any apple products, WTF?  A few stores had the 7+ but they were more expensive than buying from the states so we soon gave up on this search.

Next we found the liquor area where we were hoping to buy a few cases of rum, vodka, and beer.  We had heard that you could buy a bottle of vodka for $4.  Once we found a good store, we inquired about the process.  We could certainly buy the cases, but they did not know how to get it out of the free zone.  Our taxi driver did not even have a permit to come into the free zone (he could not drive his car in so he dropped us off outside).  If we had a connection at the gate we might have been able to pull it off, but we didn’t  After discussing a few scenarios, we decided it was not worth the trouble and walked away.

An hour later, we were done with Zona Libre de Colon and a bit exhausted after walking around for a little over an hour.  Now we had to find our way back to the place where Jack dropped us off.  Most of the streets did not have names and did not go all the way through.  We knew we needed to get back to Calle 14 and Enrique Jimenez but the later street never appeared again.  After wondering around aimlessly for awhile we asked a vendor who pointed us to 3 exists.  We took our best guess and headed toward the one that looked closest to where we started and low and behold we found it!  Yeah.

Jack took us to Cuatro Alto to find a Mas Movil sim card, a marine store, and the market.  This was a lot more civil than the free zone.  We easily found a place to buy our sim card so that we now have multiple ways to try to get online while in San Blas.  We have the Digicel card, the Mas Movil, GoogleFi and of course Matt’s pirate ways.  Try to hide from us now, Mr. Internet!

The marine store in Quatro Alto was very, very small.  Even smaller than the first store we went into and we were not able to find much of anything there.  It looks like we will have to order the rest on Amazon so I can bring it back with me in January.

Supermercado Reys is the largest grocery chain in Panama and is owned by a single family.  It was a very clean, orderly, and well stocked market.  We loaded up two carts with almost everything on our list.  We found a 750 bottle of Smirnoff vodka for $8 (not the $4 bargain we hoped for, but not bad) so we grabbed 4.  I know, you are wondering if I lost my mind as it is not a potato vodka, but beggars can’t be choosers.  We also found a liter bottle of Abuelo rum for $10 so we grabbed 6 bottles.  We’ve heard that alcohol is very expensive on the Pacific side so we are stocking up.  We could not find cases of beer or diet coke so we swung by the Reys in Sabanitas to get the last items on our list.

Exhausted, we headed back to Linton Bay and hauled our goods to the precarious dinghy dock, managing not to dump anything in the water.

It took Matt and I a few hours to stow everything.  We removed all cardboard and labels from cans (prevents weevils), wrote expiration dates on all cans, bottles, jars.  Cut up, vacu sealed, and labeled all frozen meats. bleached and washed all fruits and veggies, and managed to find places to store it all inside the boat.

Success List:

• Food
• Beverages & Liquor
• Sim card
• Marine Store
• Fresh Fruits and Veggies

We were so tired, but we decided we deserved a reward and headed to the bar to catch the last of happy hour.  The usual crew was there, “Sweet Chariot” “White Shadow” “Wandering Rose” and a few others.

It was a fun day, full of a few adventures.  Colon turned out to be lovely, but we did have rose colored glasses on with the help of our new friend Jack!