I should think you'd be pretty safe with a Larrivee, a Seagull, or a Taylor. Yamaha guitars also tend to be moderately priced, well made, and reliable.

If possible, find a friend down in Panama who is already well experienced in playing good acoustic guitars and who knows a little about doing setup too. There have got to be such people down there, and if you look around some, you can probably find one.

There is nothing better for a beginner than to take an experienced guitarist along when shopping for a guitar in a small country. I was in Trinidad once and I helped a local friend there pick out a nylon string guitar at the best music store we could find (which wasn't too great!). I must have tried 20 or more guitars before I found one that was reasonably good. Most of them were downright terrible. I finally did find one that was well set up, nice action, intonation okay, everything basically allright, and he bought it. We were there for about 2 hours trying one guitar after another, and I've never seen so many lousy quality instruments in my life before! ;-) The guys in the store were amazed at my thoroughness....I think they thought I was a visiting musical celebrity or something. Maybe George Harrison or Eric Clapton or someone like that. LOL! It was fun.