Hotel 3 Bintang di La Arena

We were on the way back from Pedasi to Panama City when we got stuck for a day in la Villa de los Santos due to nationwide protests. Luckily we came through the blockade to end up 10 minutes later in the next protest in Chitre. As it was late in the afternoon we looked for a place to stay and found Hotel Cubita. booked a room without having a reservation, and got our room on the first floor with pool view. The room was clean, had 2 double beds and a small balcony. We had a good night of rest and went to have breakfast. There were 2 choices, American or Panamanian breakfast; we had both and it was OK, breakfast served at the table and coffee/juice was self-service. After breakfast we wanted to continue to Panama City, but the protest in Chitre was still there, so we stayed in the hotel for the day. We heard from a couple arriving in the morning they drove from Panama City at night so we decided to do the same. As we shouldn't stay the whole night we asked at the reception if we could do a 'very late check-out' and they needed to ask the manager (who was in a meeting). During lunch time we had the menu of the day, which was a soup, stewed beef with rice and bananas and flan as dessert for a very reasonable price. In the afternoon they told us we could stay until 02.00 without the need to book an additional night due to the situation with the protests. Next to the hotel is a small shopping mall with a Riba Smith supermarket where we stocked for our road trip back. We slept a half night and checked out to start our drive back. So we didn't want to be in Hotel Cubita but due to the situation we ended up there and had a really good stay.