“Duality...”

The road to Panama City is paved with prosperity on one side of the street and despair on the other. Lost in the city for what seemed like forever, we passed upon numerous densely populated slums, heavily juxtaposed against the capitalistic towers that line the sea wall. Massive construction cranes line the cityscape, erecting large edifices of steel and glass, casting long shadows over those in the streets with no shoes. Driving precisely through the neighbourhoods the guide books warned us against, frustrations grew high as the diesel fumes filled the air, and the other drivers made up the rules as they went. There’s no time to look for signs when driving in Panama City, all 110% is needed to navigate the darting cars, motorcycles and lumbering buses that don’t seem to care whether you are there or not. Our destination did not appear to be that difficult to find on the map, but once inside the labyrinth of Casco Viejo, the old relics of the original city, we soon became disheartened, and even turned back to head out of the city at one point.

In the 1600’s Panama was plagued with pirates. Being the main storage point for gold and other riches taken from the indigenous peoples from all of Central and South America, it essentially painted a large target upon its back. The most notorious of the plunderers was Captain Morgan, prior to his spiced rum fame of late. Captain Morgan led over 2000 pirates in a raid of the original Panama City and burned her to the ground after making off with large quantities of everything a pirate fancies. The city was then moved to the Casco Viejo location, which means old compound, referring to the large sea wall that protects it from the water and plundering pirates. However, after the completion of the canal in the early 1900’s, the prosperity of the city soared, and growth ensued, leaving the dilapidated remains of old Panama to crumble. Throngs of poor people moved into the vacant buildings, once the site of many of the government headquarters for the Spaniards. However, a renewed interest in history and tourism found investors funnelling money back into the old quarter, bringing back a certain shine to the colonial city. The money only goes so far, we discovered, as straying too far from the rebuilt facades near the water front soon confronts you with the lowest of the low. You know you shouldn’t be there when people wave you away, telling you that you shouldn’t be there.

While Columbus came to Panama in search of India, having not even found the Pacific, we returned a second time after a brief reprise from the hectic driving and successfully located our destination hotel, deep in the heart of old Panama. We parked the car and checked into our new home for the next few days and took a self-guided walking tour of some of the old buildings. Returning during the sweltering afternoon heat, Denielle caught some beauty sleep while I tried to fix the dysfunctional dvd player in the computer. The man from the front desk came to our room and informed us that the police had caught someone trying to steal something from our car. So I ran out and found two plastic hubcap covers from our wheels sitting on the sidewalk next to the car. The police asked if I wanted to file a report, but I was just happy that nothing was taken, and then promptly moved the car around the corner, about 60 feet, where the front desk man said was much more safe. Silly me. After that incident, we went back out along the town, taking pictures and reading tourist signs before settling into a cafe where I had a unique pizza comprised of mozzarella and blue cheese, bacon, and walnuts, while Denielle sampled a green salad. We took a short stroll along the sea wall to capture some pictures of the skyline as the lights turned on with encroaching dusk, then made our way back to the hotel.

The night before we had stayed in the beach village of Gorgona, which is about an hour’s drive outside of Panama. We didn’t want to get into Panama City during rush hour, so decided to stay the night along the beach. We found a lovely apartment style room, part of an empty resort complex of 40 units, no doubt packed throughout the Easter Weekend, but now resembling a ghost town. I enjoyed some laps in the pool after Denielle and I went for a long walk on the black and white sand beaches. The resort complex was lined with ripe cashew trees, and next time you dig into a jar of cashews, realize that it’s probably a whole tree’s worth that you’re eating. All of which have to be removed from the fruit casing and roasted. Tomorrow we’re going to tempt fate once more with the inter-city driving chaos in hopes of finding a bookstore so that I’ll have something to do in the evenings besides solitaire, and then off to the original ruins left behind by Captain Morgan in the afternoon. We also booked our boat tour of the canal, which is on Sunday, and I’m quite looking forward to that. We didn’t see any of the big boats passing under while crossing the bridge of the Americas, but I’m sure we’ll get our fill soon enough.

Tyler.