Re: random countries, sometimes with PIA the Panama exit has a crazily low ping time (I'm physically in California). I wonder what leads to it? Hawaii I can understand, there's a cable landing not far from my physical location, but Panama is a mystery to me.

If you look at the list in the PIA menu, you'll see Panama has the "geo-located region" icon, which means that it's a virtual one and isn't in Panama.