Panamaniacs
Trip Start
Jun 11, 2005
1
13
25
Trip End
Jun 05, 2006
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Panama City,
Panama
Sunday, September 11, 2005
The next morning we were up at dawn for our flight to Panama City. Although we arrived to check in a good 2.5 hours before our flight, we only just made it through to the gate on time, due to umpteen queues for various things. One last cerveza from the Venezuelan brewery of bureaucracy that had kept us merry during the last 2 months.
Panama City
The heat of Central America washed over our faces as we stepped onto the Panama tarmac, despite our early morning arrival. Guadeloupe, a lady from the hostel we´d booked came to collect us, but before dropping us off, kindly took us on a tour of the town. The approach to Panama City from the airport is quite dramatic. Caribbean landscape - palm trees and green, green grass slowly giving way to reveal a skyscraper skyline in the distance, overlooking the blue of the Pacific. The city on the whole was very picturesque, fine-looking modern skyscrapers, set alongside some splendid colonial architecture, but a good few run-down areas, and lots of construction detracted from the overall splendour.
After getting to the hostel (which wasn't as nice as Guadeloupe´s kindness might have suggested) we explored the city a little.
The language here is Spanish, but English is quite widely spoken, with the history of Panama being more than a little influenced by Uncle Sam, due to it's geography. Panama spans the very narrow land bridge (or "isthmus" to those with nimble tongues) which separates the land masses of North and South America, and hence the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans.
01 - Panama City Skyline
With only about 45 miles of land separating the two oceans, a connecting canal had been a dream for many since the Pacific was discovered by Europeans, and then intensified when the West coast of the Americas became populated. In the late 1800s, the region was part of Colombia, but there was a growing independence movement. In exchange for a treaty permitting the building of a canal, the United States promised immediate recognition of sovereignty (with accompanying military support should it be required), and the Republic of Panama was declared in 1903. Work on the canal began soon after, and the first ship made the crossing on 15 August 1914.As part of this treaty, the canal itself, and the land immediately accompanying it on both sides (known as the Canal Zone) was sovereign US territory, controlled and maintained by the US. The canal was not returned to Panamanian control until 31 Dec 1999, and the American influence lingers still.
As we were coming back through here on our way to Chile, we decided to leave a trip to the Panama canal until the way back. Instead we spent our day exploring the city, sorting out our transit north, and... shopping! After 2 months in the consumer-desert of Santa Elena, we marvelled at the oasis of a Panamanian shopping mall. We crawled, eyes and mouths gaping, through the doors of a huge supermarket - uncomprehending at the scale of choice available. 17 different types of Colgate toothpaste! 43 varieties of breakfast cereal! 117 brands of shoe polish! What a treat!
Eventually we got a grip, and before we spent too much money, we dragged ourselves out. Next stop Costa Rica.
