Panama City

My friend and travel companion, Michael Schaaf, opened the door to our hostel room at 2am after arriving on a late flight from Miami. I was sound asleep, but had rehearsed the moment in my head beforing going to bed. Following my somewhat pre-scripted plan I looked at his silouette in the doorway, dragged myself out of bed, walked over, gave him a hug and a couple guy-pounds on the back, and said something that was supposed to be encouraging, but I’m pretty sure was unintelligible.

And so our Panama adventures had begun.

The next day, Tuesday morning, we grabbed a cab down to Panama City’s old quarter, called Casco Viejo. On the way we drove past several dozen high-rise apartment complexes and hotels. The air was filled with the sounds of workers yelling from scaffolding, cranes groaning overhead, and the banging of hammers. Panama seems to have not noticed there has been a worldwide economic downturn.

Arriving to Casco Viejo, we hopped out of the cab and began walking around. After about 30 minutes of aimless wandering, on our way to Plaza de Francia, a Panamian guy walked up to us and started jabbering away in Spanish, going into a lengthy explanation about the history of the buildings we were walking past.

He finally stopped talking an hour and a half and a 4-kilometer walk later, after walking through half a dozen churches, the intact home of a pearl merchant from the 18th century, a couple of courtyards, and by remnants of the old city wall. !Ya…es todo!” From the fact that he had stopped outside a local cafeteria, it appeared that it was his lunch time as well.

We were quite pleased with our guide, and since no negotiation had been made beforehand, we were in a pretty strong bargaining position. The guide, whose name was Andres, hinted that in the past he had been tipped up to $20 for his services. I politely informed him that those people most likely had jobs, and more money than we did. We each handed him $3, which he seemed satisfied with, and went on our way.

I suppose another thing worth mentioning is that both Michael and I are unemployed right now. He just resigned from a position with Marriott Residence Inn after 3 ½ years as an assistant manager. So...we got that going for us.

On Wednesday, we went out to the Panama Canal visitors’ center, located alongside one of the locks, Miraflores. A Peace Corps friend, Josh, who had already visited the canal a year before had helped manage my expectations regarding our visit to one of the world’s most impressive engineering feats. “Have you been to the airport and seen planes take off and land?...It’s pretty much as exciting as that,” said Josh.

Despite my friend’s blasé attitude towards the canal, Michael and I thought it was pretty damn cool. Three massive ships passed through the locks as we stood watching from the observation deck.

It was also interesting to learn the history behind not just the canal, but the trans-isthmus crossing. Back in the 16th, 17th, and 18th century the Spanish shipped gold and silver coming from Mexico and South America to the Pacific Coast of the isthmus, and then packed it across with mule trains (heavily armed). Then in the mid-1800s the isthmus experienced another boom as American miners headed to California during the gold rushes.

The miners traveled to the Caribbean coast by steamer, boarded a train that ran from coast to coast, and then hopped on another steamer on the Pacific side that took them to the American West. The isthmus was an extension of the Wild West during those days, with hold-ups and armed gangs being very common.

As all of this was going on, what today is known as Panama, was part of Colombia. Panama did not become a country until 1903, once the U.S. had finally committed itself to building a canal across the isthmus, and Theodore Roosevelt helped engineer a coup which lopped off the section of land that forms the country today. A U.S. friendly Panamian president was installed shortly after. Roosevelt supposedly even bragged about creating the republic out of nothing.

So when I’m in a conversation with a Latin American, and the creation of Panama is used as an example to point out the U.S.’s imperialistic ways, it might be best to cede the point.

I was also unaware that the crossing of Central America through Nicaragua competed with the Panama isthmus crossing, and it was first considered the logical place for a canal to be placed.

All together the canal is 51 miles long and took more than four decades of labor to finish, after the French had their try, and then the Americans completed the work.

In 1914 the canal was opened, and it has been in operation ever since. Actually, the original doors are still used on the locks, so they have been in use for almost 100 years. In 2014 the canal administration is scheduled to complete a new set of locks that will allow some of the bigger boats that are under construction to pass through, thereby keeping the canal competitive.

As for my impressions of Panama City itself, I like the low prices, metropolitan atmosphere, and American food. But at the same time, it puzzles me that they can continue building with such intensity here. It seems they have so much excess capacity in terms of housing and office space, I wonder if they are not fueling their own real estate bubble.

The average Panamian living in the city seems fairly affluent and worldly, with lots of nice cars on the roadways and plenty of jobs in the service sector.

Although on the other hand, we’ve met some Panama Peace Corps volunteers here in the hostel, and they assure us that there are two sides to Panama. The prosperous, bustling city, and the very poor, stagnant small towns and indigenous villages. Here in Panama a significant portion of the Peace Corps volunteers work in indigenous communities, living out of huts and using latrines.

This seems so amazing to me while being surrounded by all these high-rise buildings here in the city. So Panama is definitely fairly affluent, but there are huge imbalances in income distribution.

Some of the volunteers have hinted that it would probably be possible to visit their communities, as most of the small towns have their hand in rural tourism to some degree, but we haven’t been able to define anything at the moment.

Tomorrow (Friday), Michael and I leave the city for the San Blas islands on the Caribbean side. The San Blas islands are governed by an autonomous tribe of indians called the Kuna. The embarcation point by canoe to the islands is only accessible by a 5 hour trip by 4x4 to the coast.

Once reaching the island, visitors have the option of staying on the main island with the majority of the tribe, or being transported out to one of hundreds of tiny islands along the archipelago. Just you, a bunch of palms trees, a latrine, and a hammock on an island the size of a football field.

Or at least that is what I have pieced together from Peace Corps friends and other travelers. But Michael and I will find out for ourselves.