A Hostile Hostel in Panama

I had been told by an upbeat, always smiling, all-natural, grown-up-hippie friend of mine that when she went to Panama City (in the country of Panama, not Florida), she stayed in “like…the best hostel.” A hostel in Panama? Like, college dorm style?  I was skeptical if such accommodations could have any merit. However, the more she spoke, the more I became intrigued. I listened longingly to her tales of meeting new travelers, coming home obliterated, and backpacking through Panama. 

Backpacking. I had never done that before, but it sounded like the kind of thing an adventurous free spirit would do. And, an adventurous free spirit was who I was convinced that I wanted to become at 24 years old. Well, not that adventurous, I was of course, going to sally my best friend, to come on the expedition with me. I wasn’t brave enough to do solo travel. 

Despite our advancing age and really good salary, we were going to stay at a hostel in Panama. A hostel which only costs six dollars per person per night! The same hostel that my cool friend stayed in! Why would we do that? The prospect of feeling like real backpackers. I realized entirely too late in life that my window for staying in such accommodations was flashing by quickly, and if I ever wanted to experience a hostel, I had to do it soon. Lest, become the creepy mommy guardian in the room. 

I did trust my friend’s judgment, but felt it didn’t hurt to look at the reviews of a number of people who stayed at this particular hostel in Panama. The online reviewers who raved about “family” dinners, group bar crawls, and a built-in pool to escape the hot Panamanian sun filled me with excitement. Click. Boom. Booked. 

After a four hour plane ride, we arrived at the hostel; I was full of apprehensive excitement. We waited with wide-eyed wonder behind two folks with towering backpacks strung to their backs. At least, I think there were people under those mountainous backpacks. Check in went smoothly, and the person manning the front desk was kind enough. Amanda and I listened intently to the rules and procedures. Soon after, we received our towels, paid for locks, and were shown to our room. 

The dormitory was bare bones, but that was totally OK. In a shared public space, the less furniture collecting dust, the better. There was a fluorescent overhead light, and an air-conditioner that was difficult to figure out, but we eventually got it working. There were only four bunks in the all women’s dorm, but luckily we were the only two staying for the night. The sheets looked and felt crisp and clean. No complaints whatsoever. I was doing it! We were doing it! Backpacking, man. We were like…so cool. I face-timed my mom just so I could use the word backpacking over and over. “Yeah, backpacking is exhausting, but, really worth it man – that is – if you are a real traveler.” I spoke the way that I saw all budget travelers talk on social media, and in podcasts.

We hit the town for a night of drinking and a very late dinner. Our area of Panama City had a bunch of boutique bars. We celebrated our arrival in the country with beer and tapas. After we got back, falling asleep in the cool and clean room couldn’t have been easier. The next morning, we felt well rested for our ungodly early flight to the Bocas del Toro. 

Upon checking out of the hostel, the concierge asked if we would need accommodation for the second leg of our trip. Good point. Around this time, we realized that we didn’t have a place to stay for Thursday evening when we would be returning to the city. Considering how affordable and comfortable our night was, we contentedly booked a room for later in the week when we would be returning from the island. 

Our excursion to Bocas del Toro went off without a hitch. We had 48 hours of rest, relaxation in the sun, and as always, tons of side splitting laughter. Feeling refreshed after our vacation from travel, we arrived back in Panama City two days after we left and once again – checked into our hostel…man. 

Unlike our weekend in paradise, the return to our Panamanian hostel did not go off without a hitch. In fact – there were a series of hitches. 

The all-female dorm wasn’t available, and so we would have to stay in a mixed dorm. Fine. No problem. Or, so I thought. Our co-ed dorm had four bunk beds (so eight guests) and we had been told that with our arrival, all beds now were full. And, what a crowd it was that filled them!

There was a young couple staying in the bunk bed next to us. I’ll describe them by saying that if they were Dr. Seuss characters, they would be called the Snoraguffguffs. Lethargic, unsociable, very manatee like. Both of them spent the day laying on their respective beds and not talking to each other – very Mennonite of them. They were sweating profusely, so the entire room smelled like they left used socks everywhere. They breathed heavily all the time, and it felt like they were using up all of the good oxygen in the room. 

Thinking that perhaps we were encroaching on their private time, we packed our bags and got ready to leave the hostel and hit the Panama Canal. “Actually, before we go I’m just going to pee quick,” I announced to my travel companion. I dodged into the small bathroom next to our dorm which felt more like it belonged in a grandma’s home than a hostel in Panama. It had outdated decor and was very homely. It had a single shower, sink, and toilet. I lifted the lid, looked into the toilet, and…what is seen cannot be unseen. A giant poop. Just sitting there, like it had all the right in the world to be doing so. 

I wasn’t just disgusted, I was angry. I had been hyping up our hostel experience and how it made us real travelers to everyone back home. What was I to say now, when they asked how it went? “There was like…a poop in the toilet, man, it was far out and adventurous.” Evidently, this did not feel like it should be part of my cool, adventurous, experience. I was furious. Between the eau-de-sweat of our room and this massive and imposing crap in the toilet, I had enough. I had always felt that hostels were probably dirty, and I was trying my best to disprove that sentiment, but my experience in Panama so far was certainly making it hard. Inescapable filth. However, I figured that I would just use the restroom at the canal, and come back later when the toilet was flushed and cleaned. 

The Panama canal was a great way to spend the day. I can’t imagine visiting the city and not seeing it. To do that would kind of be not visiting Panama at all! Aside from the stress of realizing that I was wearing a see-through shirt only when we arrived, our day was full of learning and collecting information to take back to our classrooms.

We returned from the canal, and as we got back to the Panama hostel, that familiar feeling of needing to pee returned. I went back into grandma’s bathroom, lifted the seat and IT WAS STILL THERE. I was fucking livid. It almost felt like a personal insult. HOW, in the entire day that we were gone, had no one flushed this stinky assailant, nor cleaned the toilet? 

Afterwards, we went back to our sweaty room. Of course, the Snoraguffguffs continued laying on their beds, in the most useless and anti-social manner, looking like the kind of two people who shit in a toilet and don’t flush it. Because that’s what Snoraguffguffs do. Looking at them play on their phones and doing nothing of value, I just knew they did it. I felt every urge to march up to their chaste beds, shake the frame, and demand retribution for this malodorous injustice. Instead, I grabbed my evening clothes, got dressed (yes – in grandma’s bathroom next to the dirty toilet), and we headed out for dinner. 

Later that night, upon returning from our adventures in Panama, Amanda and I sat with our feet dangling into the in-ground pool of the hostel’s courtyard. Evidently, the one redeeming feature of the place. The evening air around us was still fairly sticky and humid. “I just can’t go to sleep in there. I just can’t” Amanda repeated, and sadly I agreed. We both decided that despite a five AM wake up call for a trip to the San Blas islands, we needed to run the clock out as long as we possibly could. The less time in that sweaty and smelly hell hole the better. We bullshitted about memories from Bocas del Toro and life at home. Every once in a while, a few young fellow backpackers would come by and dive into the pool, looking at us like geriatric party-crashers. 

Uncomfortable, we eventually walked into the common area and considered sitting on the couch, and continuing our conversation there. Yuck. We quickly opposed that idea. Screw the wet markets theory,  Panama uncovered the truth – hostel couches are EXACTLY where the COVID19 virus originated from, and that is a fact. In the case of our hostel, looking at the state of that couch…it only made sense.

How many dozens of pool soaked, sweaty, germ-laden asses and dirty feet sit and curl on that shared couch a day? Sitting on it was a big FUCK NOPE for both of us, and it looked like we would have no choice but to go to bed. We crept into our room which was dark, had the AC blasting (at least), and where every bed was full. The Snoraguffguffs were snoring (literally) and four Scandinavian men slept on the beds beyond them. 

I took the top bunk, and Amanda took the bottom. I pulled the sheet over myself and tried to close my eyes. However, I couldn’t. I was nervous. I had never had an experience like this before. As ticked as I was about the filth, I was also excited. This did feel very adventurous of us. The fact that we were sharing a room with complete strangers as we slept was far beyond the norm of what either of us would normally do. I was doing it! We were doing it! Sleeping in a hostel in Panama. Real backpackers. Amanda and I texted back and forth from our bunks. Knowing that we had to be quiet filled me with nervous energy. I stifled some giggles from our back and forth messages. 

A few minutes later, someone’s phone beeped from a text message. It was a single beeping sound. Bjorn, (not his real name) who was the leader of the Scandinavian men on the opposite side of our room, woke up instantaneously. Actually, maybe he was never sleeping in the first place. I could see it. His big Viking body was laying there, waiting for someone to go ahead and mess up on the hostel rules of etiquette. Maybe he had been lying there for hours thinking, “I wish a mother fucker would.” The way a Viking would. I gripped my bedsheets as his voice roared. “Whoever that is, would you SHUT THE FUCK UP! WE NEED TO SLEEP. WE HAVE AN EARLY FLIGHT!” 

My heart raced. I was grabbing the bed sheets with both hands so hard that one of my hands went numb. This especially didn’t bode well because I myself had to set an alarm so that we wouldn’t miss our five am drive to the San Blas islands! I didn’t want to even breathe with Bjorn in the room, let alone set an alarm! Terrified to set an actual ringing alarm, I put the alarm on vibrate and shoved my phone under my pillow. After that, there would be no more late night texts with my bunkmate. Terrifying. The weird part is, no one was even fazed by this outburst! For a moment, I thought I imagined his screaming. No one even stirred! I began to sweat profusely despite the room being comfortably cool. I didn’t un-clench my iron grip on the sheets, either.

The room was quiet for a while after the outburst. I lost all track of time and was too afraid to check my phone. I laid with my eyes wide open staring at the ceiling and into the abyss. The male Snoraguffguff on the bottom bunk (who slept in only his boxers) began snoring and farted in his sleep loudly. Bjorn presumably laid with his eyes open waiting to ax murder the next person whose phone beeped. His lesser Viking compatriots were sleeping in their beds soundly. 

By some miracle, I lowered my heart rate enough to close my eyes and drift off to sleep. The room was silent save for the air conditioner bringing us cold air during the very hot evening. My eyes popped open by an unexpected event.

“Hey… Hey!” I looked over, and the Snoraguffguff woman next to me was sitting up in her bed trying to get my attention. I said nothing and closed my eyes tightly. Had she missed what happened a few moments ago? Surely she knew Bjorn-Thor Thunderdick and his friends were sharing a room with us? 

“Should I go to the bathroom?” she whispered at me. “I don’t know if I should go.” Nevertheless, I stayed silent and held my breath like a victim hiding from a killer in a horror movie. Why was she asking me this? Why was she consulting with me!? “I just don’t know if I should go or not.” Why was this happening? “Alright fine. I’m just gonna go.” She huffed and flew down the ladder, sneaking out quietly. I was willing to bet anything she was on her way to poop and not flush it. 

Why is this happening to me? I continued thinking.

Finally, once Snuff was back and all settled in her bed, I shut my eyes again and once more began to drift off. 

A few moments later, an alarm went off. Set to the highest volume possible. My eyes popped open like two window shades with no slack. I was in no mood to see who was about to get their ass whooped. 

All of a sudden, Thor Bjorn Thunderdick catapulted his body out of his bed and landed on his feet like a WWE wrestler. It turns out, it was his own alarm that was ringing. This was both a relief… and not so much a relief as you’ll soon see. The sound of his alarm was a mix of heavy metal, nails on a chalkboard, and a garbage truck picking up scrap metal. “Let’s go” he growled to his pale cronies.

Straightaway, with as much clatter as humanly possible, he began PACKING HIS SUITCASE. Yes. He literally, in the middle of the night, began opening drawers and roughly shoving his belongings into his suitcase as everyone around him tried to sleep. He had a ‘rolley’ suitcase. I specifically remember that because on the way out he smashed and whacked it into every surface imaginable – including our bed – several times. His friends did the same. It was as if their bags were magnets, and everything around them was a magnetic surface. Not only were they loud enough to wake all of Panama, but it also took at least an hour for them to actually leave the hostel.

After the Vikings left, for what felt like the 700th time that night, I closed my eyes and actually fell asleep this time, for all of what I presume was two hours before my alarm sounded. Lethargic, exhausted, and delirious, we got ourselves ready. Nevertheless, we were off to spend the day at the San Blas islands. 

The truck ride to and from the boat for the trip to San Blas is very long. After a night of no sleep, I unsurprisingly conked out on both rides, and both times, I was met with violence.

On the way there, I cracked my head on the window three times. My head would fly backwards, and when we hit a bump it would swing to the right and smash against the window. Somehow, my body instinctively knew that resting my head the opposite way was much safer and more comfortable. The only problem was that my head was on some strange man’s shoulder. I totally wasn’t even aware, my body was literally just shutting down at this point. I drooled on his shoulder. He was cool about it. 

On the way home, a tall, leggy Dutch girl kicked me in the shins every time I fell asleep in my seat. It turns out my small, baby legs were encroaching on the room she needed to fit her ladders for legs comfortably in the truck. She was very brutish and pronounced her “s” sounds as “sh” sounds. Every time she spoke I would burst out in giggles. I didn’t even have the strength to be polite. 

Later that night, after our return from the islands, we booked a hotel room for exactly $68 dollars. I don’t think we would have lasted another night in that hostel, or any hostel, in Panama or otherwise. That hotel stay was the best one I have in my memory. The ‘normal’ things that a hotel offers suddenly felt like a luxury reserved for celebrities. It was private, for starters, which felt glorious. The pillows were clouds. The blankets and mattress swallowed us whole. It was immaculate, complete with a flat-screen television and a waterfall shower. Washing the filth off of our bodies and laying in a pristine bed felt like nirvana. In fact, we were so relaxed, we nearly missed our flight the next morning. We were in an incredibly deep sleep. I still remember that as the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had. 

It’s safe to say. I don’t think I’m cut out to be a backpacker. I’m much more of a hotel packer. 

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