Panama & Panama City

Thrusday – 21 September

We began our sojourn in Panama with a night in Guadalupe, about a two hours south east of the border, high in a valley on the flanks of Volcan Barú, Panama’s only semi-active volcano. Even Volcan Barú isn’t terribly active, at least not by central American standards, as it just has a few steam vents in the crater at the top. Guadalupe is a very small town on the northwest slope, with a patchwork of cloud forest mixed with coffee fields and intensely cultivated small fields of vegetables. This region produces most of the vegetables eaten in Panama, and everything grows like crazy in the rich volcanic soils. Gardening, not just agriculture, is also very big here. Every little house had a flower garden in the front and often their entire lot was covered in every imaginable flowering herb, shrub, or tree.

We stayed at a nice hotel called Los Quetzales, after the spectacular bird which is quite common here during the spring nesting season. Following our night in Guadalupe, we headed south and east to Chitre on the Azuero Peninsula. We were pleasantly surprised again by the continued fine quality of the roads, as we rejoined the Inter-American Highway for much of this leg, and it was not just well paved, but sported four divided lanes for much of it’s length! The countryside in Panama is very picturesque, with rolling farmland of pasture, sugarcane, and rice interspersed with patches of remaining rainforest throughout much of this region. We traveled through a variety of interesting towns and small cities, each with different local handicrafts sold on the roadsides, including baskets, straw hats (yes, Panamanians actually do wear “Panama” hats!), colorful dresses, and typical souvenirs.

Ultimately, we headed out to arrive in Panama City by Thursday, Sept. 8. We drove the Inter-American Highway straight into the city, and managed to find our hotel without trouble, even with the crazy traffic. Panama City really has no peer in Central America when it comes to traffic. Buses called “diablos rojos” (red devils) are everywhere jockeying for space, taxis are darting in and out like you are in Manahattan, and there are plenty of private cars too, all moving along at surprizing speed. The streets are wide and well maintained, and there is a hustle and bustle that is remarkable. The city has miles of waterfront promenade along the Pacific, and the skyline easily rivals San Francisco or Sydney—it is really a striking city.

Our hotel was in the financial district, tucked in among high rise office towers and with lots of places to walk to for shopping or restaurants close by. We spent our first day in Panama City visiting “Casco Viejo,” the old city. Most of Casco Viejo dates to the late 19^th century or early twentieth, though some structures, particularly the churches go back to the early 18^th century or older. Casco Viejo is architecturally quite similar to Granada, but in terms of physical condition, it looks much more like Prague when we first visited in 1993. Much of the area is very run down, with crumbling plaster on the classical facades and pealing or long absent paint on all the wood surfaces. There is a lot of restoration work going on, and the government has a great historic preservation plan for the area, so in about 10 years, the place should be pretty remarkable. Our time in Casco Viejo was made even more remarkable by the attention we got from one of the local bicycle cops. Due to it’s poor physical condition, and proximity to other run-down neighborhoods, the area has a somewhat dicey reputation in terms of safety (lots of minor street crime like pick-pockets, etc.). When we arrived in the area by taxi, we began walking around and within 5 minutes, we were greeted by a very friendly policeman named Daniel on his mountain bike. He then spent the next three hours personally guiding us around the neighborhood, including a variety of buildings (and their interiors) that we never would have gotten into without his help! We wandered through several churches (each with grand gilded alters), the old fort on the waterfront, the national theater, the foreign ministry, and were introduced to the President of Panama’s personal guards outside his residence. We visited a great museum that focused on the history of Panama City and the construction of the canal, as well as another that highlighted nearby emerald mining activities in Columbia. Norma particularly enjoyed the emerald museum, as I got her birthday present there—a beautiful emerald ring, set in silver.

Prices for almost everything in Panama were less, ranging from food, to appliances, to electronics, not to mention the emeralds (which are reputed to be 30-50% less than in the US). Knowing the prices are good, we spent the balance of the afternoon walking along Avenida Central near our hotel shopping for all kinds of goodies. Needless to say, Norma has all the Christmas shopping done now… hopefully we can fit the stuff in our luggage come December ;-)

Our second day in Panama city was the day that Norma in particular was waiting for… a half “transit” of the Panama Canal in a small tour boat. For those of you that really know Norma, you’ll be familiar with her unusual interest in all things industrial (she loves factory tours, etc.), and you wont be surprised by her fascination with the engineering and construction of the canal, as well as it’s current operation. We spent about 4 hours covering approximately 20 km of canal, including the three Pacific side locks. Niall really liked the trip as well, but after about an hour of cruising along the canal, passing two or three HUGE container ships, and one lock-through, he was like any 8 year old—bored & ready to watch TV. So Norma almost lost it when she noticed he was missing on deck and found him in the crew cabin watching cartoons with a couple of stewards… Granted, he has no TV at home, so he is almost in withdrawl.. too funny!

We finished our cruise about mid afternoon, and Norma had one more shopping mission to take care of… The previous evening in the hotel lobby, we saw several ladies come in with bags and bags of stuff (they almost filled one elevator), all from one department store—Oca Loca (the crazy goose). Norma was soon putting her new Spanish skills to work finding out where this Oca Loca might be, and was it really worth a visit (as the volume of bags of purchases might suggest). As it happened, it wasn’t far… So off we went to Oca Loca. Fortunately, we clearly didn’t have room in the car to buy too much, so even though Norma loved the prices, we escaped with our Visa card well under its limit.

That night, we had our worst sleep of the trip. In all respects, our hotel and their staff were wonderful, but every now and then, you get someone in staying in a hotel that just doesn’t know how to behave in public. Unfortunately, one of those folks got the room next door to us that night. The hotel staff finally got them to quiet down at about 4am, but only they had filled the swimming pool 7 floors below their room with broken beer bottles, and I called and asked when the “fiesta” next door might end. On the up side, the hotel staff were so sorry for our trouble, they gave us that night for free!

On our last day in Panama City, Sunday, Sept. 10th, we traveled out of the city along the canal to Mira Flores locks to see a few more ships, and then on the Summit Zoological and Botanical Gardens. While the Summit Gardens are not the San Diego Zoo, they had a couple of great exhibits on local flora and fauna, particularly the Harpy Eagle, which while endangered in much of Central and South America, remains fairly common in the rainforests of Panama. The zoo had a huge aviary with two adult harpies, and they are indeed impressive creatures. Each can weigh as much as 20lbs or more, and they have wonderful crested plumage on their heads.Norma was also able to see a Tarya or Tolumuca, which turned out to be the strange creature she had gotten a previous glimpse of on one of our walks here in Monteverde. It looks like a cross between a black dog, and an otter, and is one of the larger members of the weasle family.

From the Summit Gardens we headed back to the west crossing the canal on the new Centennial Bridge and then rejoining the Inter-Americana highway for our long return trip to Costa Rica. We were in no real hurry, as we had to stay in Panama until the 14^th (because of our Visa timing), and Niall didn’t then need to get back to school until the 18^th. So we decided to leisurely explore the long stretches of Pacific coastline on the way home. More on those adventures tomorrow!