Panama
Trip Start
Sep 24, 2008
1
14
114
Trip End
Jun 20, 2009
Panama City,
Panama
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
We took the bus to town (only $1!) and it was packed, just like the buses in Guatemala with 3 people sitting on each two person seat. The buses look really cool here. They´re old American school buses, but painted in really vivid colors, almost like graffiti, and with a lot of representations of Jesus. When you arrive in town (which is on a peninsula) you are greeted by huge skyscrapers. They seem to grow like seaweed. What a change for us.
We found our Hotel (welcome to the hotel California, such a lovely place, lalalala) easily, in the Bella Vista quarter
nice flower
. Lots of US peace corps seem to stay here. What seemed to be a very modern city at first, turned very old and poor. The inner city is really poor and quite dangerous. We have been told by several people that Panama city is quite dodgy and to take taxis everywhere we go. That´s great, we thought! I think Rio is going to be similar with extreme wealth and extreme poverty. Later we went to an exhibition that I had seen in a magazine on the plane, called Bodies Revealed. It was made up of human bodies that had been donated to science and skinned so that you could see how the body works, all the organs etc ... I had heard of this exhibition before and it was really impressive. You could also see some fetuses at different stages of life. That was what Sean liked the most, I think.(Van, t'aurais adoré ce genre de truc dégueu!)
Then we went to the old part of Panama city (Casco Antiguo). The drivers all seem to drive like maniacs, beeping all the time, with no sense of priority, and the seat belts were just like handbags or earrings ... an accessory!
Casco Antiguo looks like La Havana, on the sea. The area is under renovation, and I am sure it will be great when finished. The narrow streets, balconies, and little churches are really pretty. The French Embassy has its headquarters there, on la plaza de Francia, nice spot. Now and then, you can see the French influence in Panama. The French actually started the construction of the canal and more than 22,000 people from France, Guadeloupe and Martinique died while building it, mostly from yellow fever and malaria.
We found a great spot near our hotel to get food
In teh botanical garden
. It is like a crappy carvery, but really good and really cheap: we paid $2 for a meal that looked like stew with rice. We just kind of pointed at the stuff we wanted her to put on our plate. One day, we pointed at something and she said visceras de pescado (fish guts), so thank you ... but no thank you. She laughed. I'll eat your guts if you eat my snails! This place became our headquarters for getting food, the girls were so friendly there. The next day, we got up early to go to the famous Panama Canal. We tried to get the bus there, but the network is not as good as in Mexico, so we had to give up and get a taxi. We stayed there for nearly 3 hours at the Miraflores lock (écluse). There are 3 sets of locks that boats pass through in order to cross from one ocean to the other, and it takes a full day to go the whole way through. The boats are just huge and very impressive, they are pulled by 6 locomotives through the lock (tu peux en mettre de tonnes de contre plaqué là, Papa). It takes the boat an hour to go through one lock. The cost to go through Panama Canal is on average $30,000. The highest amount paid was $200,000 and the lowest $0.40 by a guy who swam accross in the 40's! All the boat passages are planned way in advance and there is one vacant slot a day that is decided by auction. The museum taught us a lot about the construction of the canal (first by the French, then totally taken over by the US which created friction with Panama that lasted years, and finally the expansion that started in 2007 and should be finished in 2012 - so 2030 if they are like Ireland).
After the Canal, we went to the Botanic gardens and zoo of Panama city. You could see various felines, toucans, tapirs, monkeys ... all local animals
13
. The place was well kept with nice exotic flowers. We shared a taxi with a young couple going back (and therefore got the non-tourist rate) and got out in the old town. We passed by the president's house and got our bags searched just to pass in front of his house! Some indigenous people from the country come to the city to sell handcrafts, some of which look a bit like patchwork, except done in different shapes (birds, trees, flowers). They all have bandannas on their heads, tops and skirts of different patterns, and finally socks and gloves made out of beads (Clodagh, you'd make a fortune, here!). We had a nice surprise when we discovered that our hotel had a small swimming pool on top of the building (merci Lonely Planet) to cool down. We splurged for dinner that night with sea bass for $6! The following day (16/10) we had a sleep in since we were tired from the previous day of walking. We read a bit by the pool, collected our laundry, and then walked to the business district. That place is just so strange. Everything was so new, very American - large air conditioned malls, fast food, 5 stars hotels. So different from a kilometer away, where it is basically slums. The quarter in between seemed quite posh, more residential, with nice houses that looked like haciendas, and nice-looking restaurants and wine bars.
Everywhere is decorated for Halloween
bambu alley
. I wish I could decorate my place! Tonight is our last night in Panama City before heading to Costa Rica. We´re not disappointed to leave as the lack of freedom to walk around the place because of violence makes you feel trapped (there is a guard with a shot gun in front of the hotel). One good thing is that there doesn´t seem to be any mosquito's in the city! (c'est pour toi Marine)
Congrats to Dani for getting the keys of her new house. Do not buy any more furniture before the house warming! Finding presents for next Xmas and your birthday will be easy!
Merci a Meunik et Marjo pour le carnet de voyage. Je m'en sers chaque jour pour écrire des mots clefs pour me rappeller de ce que je dois raconter sur le bog. Super pratique car mine de rien, on oublie vite les détails!
Comments
exposition
cette expo est assez connue on l'a loupé à las vegas car ca fermait tot!!!
J'aurai adoré effectivement ;-)
Tjs un plaisir de vous lire meme si là je me rends compte que j'ai bcp de retard!!!