Hi guys, im new here and, i hope this is the appropriate forum to ask this question but im not sure where to post so i figured i can post here.

Here's my situation, just landed in Panama about 4 days ago, i made the unfortunate mistake of not changing my Canadian currency to US prior to arriving here.

I landed at Tocumen on Saturday evening and right away i noticed that there was nowhere to change $ as usually found in almost every airport in this planet, the banco at the airport was closed, thank god for the HSBC atm for allowing me to withdraw cash right away.

I brought a bit of Canadian cash with me and since then have had much trouble exchanging, i've been to 5 banks already and all have told me that i need to have an account open with them first before i can exchange currency.

That's cool, but then i found out how complicated it is to open an account here, definitely not as easy as i thought. I have already undertaken this process but it will probably take me a good week or two before i have all my paperwork forwarded from home in order to open an account.

Went to some spot called Ital exchange or something and they tried to give me 0.76c to the US Dollar, the Canadian dollar was trading slightly above the US dollar that day so i just laughed myself out of there.

So ya im in a bit of a pickle, do you guys know of any place i can change my $ and not get raped in the process without much hassle like in most places in the world?

I am a well seasoned traveller and have never experienced such frustrations in currency exchange anywhere in the world.

Please help me with some advice to a fresh newbie in Panama who doesn't speak any espanol!

Thanks!