Panama City
Trip Start
Oct 10, 2006
1
43
110
Trip End
Ongoing
Panama City, ****,
Panama
Monday, February 26, 2007
We were always going to be somewhat inhibited in our exploration of Panama considering that we had a flight to Columbia booked for March 3rd but Panama would defo be a country I wouldn`t mind coming back to...well wouldn`t mind any of them really but especially Costa Rica and Panama.
If I had had more time (and money), I`d have gone to the San Blas islands, home of the flamboyant Kuna Indians. They interest me mostly because they have the highest level of autonomy in the Americas.
Is this Manhatten
Anyway last stop in Panama and indeed Central America, Panama City. What can I say..class place.
Panama City has been subjected to Western influences, other than the Spanish, since the 19th Century, firstly with the French and, subsequently, with the Americans, and it shows. A metropolis of modernization, parts of Panama look like Manhatten (see photo), New York. But Panama is not just a carbon copy of other modern cities, it also has its own places of interest.
Panama city is offically divided into three different types of cities:
Obviously the first and largest is the central, modern financial district which is a mass of scyscrapers (eight of the tallest ten in Latin America), 35 bank companies, McDonalds and very luxurious apartments. This is where we stayed as it was most central and safest. We also did a little shopping...I bought a pair of shorts and two tee-shirts..I went mad I tell you!! Clothes shopping is very cheap in Panama, it makes Penneys in Ireland seem like Harrods of London! I only hope that our last destination before home, where ever it may be, will be half as good and you won`t know me with my style!!!
Secondly, there is the old, colonial part of the city "Casco Antiguo" which used to be a line of tumbling, slightly derelict buildings. A big effort is now being made to restore a lot of the buildings and the beautifully-renovated National theatre is evidence of how beneficial this work is to the area. It`s quite dangerous by night but the presence of some of the city´s 148 tourist poice makes the streets super safe during the day. The area is also full of museums, including the Panama Canal museum. Very inclusive and comprehensive but a bit heavy as it was all in Spanish.
The third section of the city is the old city which literally is the old city. It was the original Panama city but was abandoned after the Pirate "Sir" Henry Morgan plundered and destroyed it, sometime back in the 16th or 17th century.
I would go as far as to say that a fourth section of the city exists..this being the "parte rojo"..the red part. The slums that would have made Ballymun look like seventh Heaven in its day. There are many ways of avoiding these slums if you have your own vehicle but you´ll inevitably pass through on some bus route if you´re there a long time.
In fact, Collins and I managed to stumble upon one of the "reddest" parts while we were walking round the city. We were on our way to the 7km boulevard known as the causeway that links three islands to the mainland (nice spot. Great view of the Bridge of Americas. Collins going crazy bout the yachts) but in order to get there, we had to go through the area which was not served by bus....hence getting a taxi.
This is one of the things I disliked about Panama city: you couldn`t walk a lot of it like Havana because you were afraid of running into red zones nor could you get round it on transport in an efficient manner like in Mexico city. They do not have a subway and the buses do not have official numbers or busstops. Most of the time, you end up going from A to Z in order to get to B. We took three taxis while we were there which is probably more than we`ve taken since 2006!
And of course, also existing within the city official boundaries is the area that is most synonymous with Panama city: The Panama Canal.
THE CANAL
Attempts to create a canal which would assist travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific without sailing down round the tip of South Argentina were initiated as early as the 1500s when the Spanish ordered surveys of Panama in order to assess the feasibility of such a project. Even one Irish doctor Edward Cullen recorded his opinion that the canal should be located in Colon, a province on the Paciific coast of Panama in the late 1800s.
The French started the process in 1880 with the creator of the Suez Canal, Ferdinand de Lesseps, running the show. The museum of the Panama Canal gave three reasons as to why this attempt failed:
1) They had miscalculated how long the project would last
2) The Europeans were plagued by diseases..mainly mosquitoe related, like yellow fever and malaria and
3) an inability to adequately deal with the problems associated with a Central American landscape such as landslides and, believe it or not, a tremendous amount of mud!
The Americans took over in 1903 when a treaty was signed between the French and the Americans which gave the Americans power over a strip of land 10 miles wide and 50 miles long. Panama were not in attendance at any of the Treaty negotiations. The Canal was finally finished in 1913. It`s said that 5000 men lost their lives during the creation. In reality, it was much more as these figures are only derived from the hospital data and many men died before the hospital period.
In any case, the Panama Canal, dubbed one of the world´s greatest engineering feats ever, is very impressive. It takes any single ship (or even little fishing boat) eight hours to move through the Canal. This may seem like a crazy amount of time to wait but eight hours of tapping your fingernails becomes peripheral when you consider that the Canal knocks a huge 7,890 miles off the journey. There are three lockes and there is a plan have build a wider one to facilitate larger ships by the end of 2014.
Now as you know, I`ve mentioned American foreign policy in Central America more than once in this pod and I haven`t always been complimentary but I must commend the "yanks" on their treatment of the Panama Canal. Ok so they should never have been there in the first place but the early 1900s was still a time when to take over a lesser country´s land didn`t seem like such a big deal but they made up for it in the latter years.
Protest at the Americans having control over the canal started as early as 1959 probably, like most other countries, influenced by the Cuban revolution. It reached a climatic peak in 1964 with many student demonstrations throughout the year, including a particularly rip-roaring incident on August 9th. Eventually Prez Jimmy Carter and Panamanian Omar Torrijos signed a treaty in Sept, 1977 to hand over the Canal fully to Panama on 31st December,1999 which they did. It gave the Panamanians time to learn the ropes (or the lockes!) and phase themselves in.
The Panama canal is still very profitable and 69% of those who use the Canal come from the US, so everyone profits and everyone is happy!
Panama city is certainly a great destination for anyone looking for a city break. It`s got pretty much everything including accomodation for all budgets. Very recomnendable.
Heading away from Panama in the morning to fly into Columbia. First stop, Santa Marta. One Continent down, one to go...so far anyway!!
