Panama Chat

Panama's country room is #panama and it is young, so it is worth saying up front: depending on the hour you may find it quiet. That is why joining from this page also opens #latinoamerica, the server's general Latin American room, which is consistently busy. You enter both at once and are not left talking to yourself while the Panamanian one fills up.

Panama runs on UTC−5 and never changes its clocks, which matters more here than elsewhere because it lines the country up northwards rather than with its neighbours: same hour as New York and Miami in winter, one behind in US summer, and one hour ahead of the rest of Central America. For anyone writing from Panama City, the evening overlaps with Colombia and the US east coast.

The whole country fits in the room: the capital and its metropolitan area, where a large share of Panamanians live, plus Colón on the Caribbean, David and Chiriquí near the Costa Rican border, and Chitré and the Azuero interior. Baseball and football, prices and paperwork, and a noticeable number of people passing through — Panama is a place of layovers and arrivals, and it shows. More at Panama rooms.