Day seven — Panamanian breakfast, a laundry education, and the great lime slushy mistake

Day seven. We broke from our routine.

We’d been back to El Trapiche for dinner a couple of nights earlier and enjoyed it enough to wonder what breakfast there looked like. The answer, as it turns out, is: considerably better than Wendy’s, for almost exactly the same price. Brian had scrambled eggs with bacon. Kent had an omelet. Neither of us ordered anything adventurous, but sitting down to waiter service in a proper restaurant on a Tuesday morning in Panama City, with salt brought to the table and the kind of quiet that fast food restaurants simply don’t have, felt like a significant quality of life upgrade.

Tim Hortons followed, as it always does. Some routines are worth keeping.

The great laundry expedition — a Spanish learning moment

Here is something nobody tells you before packing for Panama: dark clothes are what you want. In Florida — where we live — light colors and patterns are the norm. We packed accordingly. What we discovered over the first week is that Panama’s heat and humidity produce a level of perspiration that light colors broadcast with uncomfortable clarity. Dark shirts and shorts hide the evidence considerably better. Six days in, with limited dark options remaining, laundry had become non-negotiable.

Kent had spotted a drop-off laundry service near Riba Smith on Google Maps and set out to check the prices and turnaround time. Taking a different route for variety, he found something better: a coin-operated laundromat on Via España, less than two blocks from the hotel. He went back to the hotel, gathered the laundry, and informed Brian of the plan.

Brian came to supervise. This is a pattern that will be familiar to anyone who has ever done laundry with a partner.

The laundromat on Via España — cleaner than most we’ve used in the U.S., very reasonably priced, and air-conditioned enough to be bearable while you wait.

The place was genuinely impressive — spotlessly clean machines, well-maintained, air-conditioned (two units, though the nature of the business means it’s still warmer than ideal). The women running it were friendly, helpful, and patient. Kent’s laundry vocabulary, it turned out, was a gap in his Spanish preparation that he addressed in real time with his phone’s learning apps while waiting for the wash cycle.

An hour and a half later, mission accomplished. Dark clothes, clean and folded, for the remainder of the trip. Brian returned to the hotel to enjoy real air conditioning. Kent stayed, learned the Spanish for “dryer cycle,” and reflected on how many vocabulary gaps a single errand can expose.

Furniture — rough pricing at Ancón

One of the practical questions hanging over this entire trip is what we’d ship from the U.S. versus buy new in Panama if we make the move. Furniture is high on that list — expensive to ship, available locally, and very much a matter of personal taste. We weren’t doing detailed pricing on this visit, but we wanted a baseline sense of what the market looks like.

The Ancón furniture store gave us that. Three floors of living and dining room sets, bedroom furniture, and a genuinely helpful staff who explained trends and options without pressure. The prices were illuminating: we bought a large sectional sofa in Spain in 2007 — nearly twenty years ago — for around €3,500. Most of the comparable sectionals at Ancón were priced below that. In 2026 dollars. The math is interesting.

Kent was particularly taken with the wall-mounted entertainment centers, which would solve a problem we’ve been thinking about for any Panama apartment or house. He was also inexplicably drawn to a display of retro Waring commercial milkshake blenders, which are not furniture and are not something we need. He did not buy one. He thought about it.

We’ll go back once we’ve chosen a home. Knowing the furniture market exists and is reasonably priced changes the calculus on what’s worth shipping significantly.

The lime slushy incident — a cautionary tale

Emboldened by how good our first lime slushies at Qbano had been — the ones made from whole blended limes, seeds, skins, and all — we went back. $2.50 each, which is outstanding value for one of the most refreshing drinks we’d found in Panama.

On the menu, the slushies were listed as Limonada Natural or Limonada Cero. Qbano serves Coke products. When Brian saw “Cero” — zero — he made a reasonable assumption: a diet version, lower sugar, same great drink.

What arrived was the most aggressively tart drink either of us has ever consumed. The natural version balances the lime’s intensity with a proper amount of sugar. The Cero version removes all of it and leaves you with the raw, unmediated essence of three whole blended limes. It is not unpleasant in the way that something bad is unpleasant. It is unpleasant in the way that biting directly into a lime is unpleasant. Your face does a thing. You appreciate the experience. You do not order it again.

The home experiment — don’t do this

Back in St. Petersburg we did what any reasonable person does after experiencing something unexpectedly wonderful in another country: we tried to recreate it at home. We bought three limes. We followed the same basic process — whole fruit, blended, ice, sugar. We were optimistic.

Our mouths puckered immediately. The tartness was aggressive, the bitterness underneath it even more so. We added more sugar. And then more. It did not help. The bitterness in particular was impervious to sweetening — it sat underneath everything, completely unbothered by our attempts to fix it.

We did some research and found out why. Panama has meaningfully different lime varieties than what you find in U.S. grocery stores. The lime most Americans know — the Persian lime, the standard supermarket variety — is more acidic and significantly more bitter than the limes used in Panama. Panamanian markets carry varieties that are less acidic, less bitter, and considerably more aromatic. Some Panamanian limes are genuinely sweet on their own, before any sugar is added at all.

The Limonada Natural at Qbano works because of what’s in it — the specific fruit, not just the recipe. The same process with U.S. supermarket limes produces something that tastes like a punishment.

Dinner — Athens Pizza, and a menu that shouldn’t work but does

We’d seen Athens Pizza at two different locations around the city. The name alone was enough to make us curious — a Greek name, in Panama, on a pizza restaurant. The menu, when we arrived, matched the name perfectly: Greek dishes alongside Italian pizza, coexisting without apparent irony or explanation. We were first in the door for the evening. Brian assessed the airflow situation and claimed the table with the best A/C positioning before we even looked at the menu.

Kent ordered a pork gyro with fries. The pork and vegetable flavors were genuinely good, the tzatziki sauce was exactly right — properly made, not the watery approximation you sometimes get outside Greece. Brian had the Pizza Atenienne with ham, pepperoni, and mushrooms, which delivered the specific kind of comfort that a good pizza provides when you’ve been eating adventurously for a week. Both meals were solid.

The bill came to $31.29 for two, which felt a touch high relative to other meals we’d had, but this was a sit-down restaurant with table service and properly made food. We needed it and it delivered. Worth knowing about for evenings when you want something familiar and well-executed.

Day seven done. We had eaten breakfast like adults for once. We had clean dark clothes. We had a furniture baseline and a new Spanish vocabulary subset. And we had learned, with some emphasis, the difference between Limonada Natural and Limonada Cero.

Tomorrow: the Panama Canal.

— Brian & Kent