A man, a plan, a canal: Panama

Panama City

Sept 22 - 25

Marbella

If you ever find yourself in need of a hostel in the Marbella district of Panama City, we highly recommend El Machico, which is brand new and is run by two extremely friendly and helpful Italian guys. These guys will wait in the street with you in order to help you negotiate cab fare. They will proudly serve you a free breakfast of white bread and grape jelly. They are eager to provide you with directions, even when those directions all start sounding a lot like "leave the hostel and turn left and then you are there!" They´re stoked about doing your laundry. They are the best and the whole world could benefit from having more effusive Italians in it.

We checked into El Machico on the evening of the 22nd just in time to watch a group of young Australians push each other into the pool and threaten drunkenly for hours to order pizzas from Pizza Hut.

Casco Viejo

The next day our first stop was Casco Viejo, the city's old town. The route that connects Casco Viejo to the towering financial district where we were staying is a walkway along the bay that is exceptionally pleasant and almost aggressively well planned, with its play structures, outdoor gyms, waxy lawns and gardens, and periodic art pieces. Panamanians treat fitness like a religion -- as soon as 5:30 rolls around, those outdoor gyms are full of young business-people just getting out of work, and the walkway looks like the route of a marathon with all of the serious joggers passing through in pristine workout gear.

Casco Viejo is about half beautifully preserved old buildings, and half just old buildings with rusted door hinges that smell a little like urine. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site, so it's slowly working its way toward refurbishing the whole area, and is for the most part very picturesque and not sketchy. And it is home to the absolute best mojito you will ever find, at a cafe called The Da Vinci, where they hand-make their own pasta and the wait staff scare away their customers by hovering austerely over anyone who pauses along the sidewalk to glance at the menu. It is delicious and always empty.

Casco Viejo by day!

 

Casco Viejo by eve'!

The best mojito ever made (ignore the embarassing drink choice to the left)

A second Honorable Food Mention to the restaurant Sake, where they draped sauteed plantains over their sushi rolls and it was so good, even if they DID make us sit on the patio because we were wearing shorts.

Panama Canal

This year is the Panama Canal's 100th birthday! We went to the Visitors Center at the Miraflores Locks of  the canal and arrived just at the right time (9-12 daily!) to see cargo ships passing through. We ate hot dogs and potato chips, and sat to watch boats wedge their robust frames through a gate only a meter wider than their own breadth. Now, the Panama Canal is unquestionably an engineering marvel, and very cool to see in person. Were the hoards of tourists gathered on the observation deck really justified in pushing each other aside to take minute by minute photos of a cargo ship moving at a glacial pace through a 30 meter gap? Jury's still out on that one.

We walked through the four floors of the museum, which in addition to explaining the mechanics and history of the canal, also tries admirably to position it to children as something really fun and adventurous. There is a room devoted to describing all manner of fearsome insects and wildlife that inhabit the surrounding area, an animated 3D video, and a "simulation room" which shows you a captain's-eye-view of a cargo ship moving slowly through a narrow passage. A for effort.

This is a lock

Odd chunks of the canal's history, particularly the parts involving its transferral as a project from one nationality to another, are skimmed over entirely. But one thing is notably clear throughout the exhibit -- the canal may be an incredible feat of engineering, but the truly laudable success is in Panama's triumphant repossession of the canal in 2000 and its recent decision to expand the locks for enhanced commercial prospects. If your knowledge was based solely on the literature of this museum, you would assume an impassioned rebellion on the part of the Panamanian public had forced the grudging hand of the United States to loosen its chokehold on the rights to the Panama Canal, and turn it back to its rightful owner-- the PEOPLE! Its a much better story than saying that Jimmy Carter just signed the handover into motion in 1977 due to boring business matters with China, which is what actually happened.

Amador Causeway

Everybody told us that a really nice thing to do in Panama City is to walk along the Amador Causeway, which is a strip of land that extends out into the bay and is scenic and has little shops along the way. What exactly nobody told us before we stepped out of the taxi that took us to the very end of it and then sped away (presumably laughing) was that the Amador Causeway was under construction, and thus all of the views were obstructed by temporary walls and burlap-covered chain link fence. We walked the length of it anyway, in what was essentially a really hot, paved tunnel. And then, perhaps because Eian just felt a spiritual tug leading him to the promised land, we continued to walk for another two hours, down unpopulated stretches of frontage roads, following some locals over a highway.

"Wait," Eian said at last, his eyes turned toward the water and the setting sun. "Do you see that?" He sniffed the air. Tested the wind.

"What is it?" I asked. "Is this the wrong highway?" I had been suspecting that it was.

"No. A skate park." He broke into a run, the teeth of his backpack's broken zipper tearing away from each other with his every joyous leap. And there, off of the overpass, around the corner, across an expanse of grass, were the trucks of airborne skateboards glinting against cloudless blue sky. As though coming upon an oasis in the desert, Eian's face shone with disbelief and enchantment. Borrowing a board from a Venezuelan teenager, he proceeded to skate the cement bowl for three glorious minutes, torn between concentrating on his craft and gazing happily at the surrounding green hills and the distant pastel walls of Casco Viejo.

And then we stopped on our way home at Da Vinci for celebratory mojitos.

Next stop; Boquete and the worst volcano ever hiked.