Panama City
Panama
 Panama City,
Panama is one of those places that is perhaps best explained
by using the various nicknames it has earned over the centuries.
Some historians call it "the movable city" because it has
relocated several times during the past 300 years. When the first
Spanish governor arrived on the isthmus, he wisely moved the
capital from Acla on the Caribbean and established Panama City on
the healthier and drier Pacific coast. Today, only photogenic
ruins remain of Old Panama City; the English pirate Henry Morgan
looted, sacked, and burned the place to the ground. The Spaniards
moved the capital and their treasured "Golden Altar" to the more
defensible peninsula, now called the Casco Viejo (old compound).
Travelers should
plan to see the Altar along with the architectural treasures to be
found on the Plaza Bolivar and Plaza Herrara, including the
President's Palace of the Herons and the recently restored
National Theater. For 90 years, Panama City's growth was
restricted to a narrow strip of land between the sea and the
border of the U.S.-controlled Canal Zone. Modern Panama City, with
buildings similar to those found around Miami Beach, is actually a
series of suburbs about five miles west of the Casco Viejo. Within
hours of the transfer of the canal to Panama, growth began again
near the city center as buildings quickly sprouted and spread
across the previously sealed off border.
 Because of its
proximity to the Canal, Panama City earned the title "The
Crossroads of the World," and the 450,000 residents are a mixture
of all the travelers who stopped here to rest awhile and decided
to stay on (or at least leave evidence of their visit behind
them). The city has a cosmopolitan vitality similar to San
Francisco, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, and Hong Kong, set off with
competing rhythms from tropic tamboritos and the hard-cash
tinkling of slot machines. There is a saying that "nights are too
short" in Panama City, where drinking has become a full-time
occupation for many. Residents claim that the consumption of
alcohol has medical benefits, since it keeps away any mosquitoes
that bring malaria. Bartenders are sworn to keep secret the fact
that malaria hasn't been a threat in Panama for the past
quarter-century.
 The word "Panama"
is said to mean "an abundance of fish" in the native Indian
language, and almost every restaurant serves items from the
Atlantic or the Pacific or the rivers in between them. With
hundreds of restaurants to choose from, you can find great Central
American food as well as meals rivaling the best dishes served in
Miami, Tokyo, Hong Kong, or Bombay.
Tourist guides
frequently refer to Panama City as "a bargainer's paradise" or "a
shopping Mecca." Because of numerous free trade zones, shopping is
the second most popular occupation in the city. Driving in from
the airport on the Tumbo Muerto road, one passes the Centro
Comercial Los Pueblos, which advertises itself as the biggest
shopping mall in Central America. For a more "authentic"
experience, one might try to visit the early morning, wharf side
market at Salsipuedes, where produce and fishing boats jostle for
space to sell their bounty.
The Panama Canal
was called "One of the seven wonders of the modern world" when it
was constructed, and it is still a mighty impressive endeavor.
Many visitors are surprised how much of the canal looks like a
wide, slowly flowing jungle river instead of a highly mechanical
system of pumping stations and locks. One of the best places to
view the canal is only an hour's drive from Panama City, in the
Soberania National Park. While you are there, you will probably
get to see huge turkey vultures soaring and circling overhead.
These huge birds are so numerous that locals refer to them as the
"Panamanian Air Force."
 Things to do in Panama City:
Day life
- Shopping, for a start! Everything from bond issues to boa
constrictors is available in Panama! Visitors from all over the
world are received and sell their products, many at duty-free
prices. After shopping, tours. First and foremost, see the
Canal. To visit Panama without checking out the Canal would be
like visiting Niagara without seeing the Falls!
Nightlife
- Casinos, restaurants, discotheques, bars, and floorshows. The
rhythm of the tropics is alive and well. There are restaurants
beyond your wildest dreams-you can even choose between Peking,
Tokyo, or Seoul.
People -
Panama has been called a melting pot, but actually it is a
sancocho pot, as in the local dish. All ingredients are there and
contributing their own flavor, but keeping their own identity in
the process. Here is a sample of the ingredients:
-Criollos-Iberian-descended
Panamanians, as proud of their ancestry as New Englanders are
flattered at being called English.
-Mestizos-The Crioolo-Indian blend
that is the non-silent majority in most of Latin America.
-Blacks whose fathers signed on in the
then-British West Indies to dig the canal.
This sancocho of
people is the specialty of the house only in Panama City. Travel
to the Interior, which in practice means anywhere beyond about
five miles from the Canal in the direction of Costa Rica, and you
will be in a land of Criollos and Mestizos.
History -
Panama City has been on the move, geographically, as well as
figuratively, for the past 300 years. In fact, you could call it
the world’s only moveable fiesta.
The original
Isthmian headquarters of Balboa and the Spanish was Acla on the
Atlantic coast near the Sam Blas island of Mulatupo. The first
governor also known as Pedrarias, paused only to behead Balboa
before relocating the miniature colony to the healthier and drier
Pacific coast where he founded what is now Old Panama, a
photogenic disposition of ruins.
Panama grew and
prospered at its new site and was a sizeable township when it
attracted the larcenous attention of the English pirate, Henry
Morgan. After Morgan and his men marched into Old Panama singing
“There’ll be a hot time in the Old Town Tonight,” the Spaniards
opted to move the fiesta again to the more defensible peninsula
where the Casco Viejo, or Old Compound now stands.
Along with them
went the Golden Altar, thought by experts on religious art to have
been made in Ecuador, which had been concealed from Morgan’s men.
The altar is a prime tourist attraction today. Also in the Casco
Viejo are the President’s Palace of the Herons and the restored
National Theatre. Plaza Bolivar and Plaza Herrera have also been
restored. In the 273 years from the rebuilding of Panama City
behind the walls of the Old Compound to the end of World War II
the fiesta that is Panama City moved no further than to about
where El Panama Hotel now stands but in the last few decades, the
pace has quickened.
The growth of the
city was restricted to a relatively narrow strip between the coast
and the border of the U.S. administered Canal Zone. In recent
years suburbs and shopping centers have spread rapidly outwards
and now that the canal Zone has been handed back to Panama the
city has begun to move over the once confining border.
Tour the
City - City tours take about two and a
half hours. A typical city tour will take in the ruins of Old
Panama, Colonial Panama (El Casco Viejo) and the modern sections.
Visit
the Canal - Tours of the Canal area
usually take about two and a half hours and can be combined with
the city tour. You can also transit the canal. Both partial and
full transits are available, depending on the dates.
Visit Mi
Pueblito - an exact replica of a small
interior town at the turn of the century. Government offices,
shops, a school and a tiny church surround a cobblestone plaza,
complete with fountain. A museum devoted to the “pollera,”
Panama’s national dress, and folklore shows are offered every
Thursday. Recent additions have been replicas of an
Afro-Antillean village and dwellings of the Kuna and Choco
Indians.
Watch a
folklore show with colorful typical
costume and traditional dances. These are offered by the Tinajas
Restaurant, the Plaza Paitilla Inn Hotel, and Mi Pueblito.Go
Eco-Touring-Check out the Metropolitan National Park, The
Metropolitan National Park, situated only 15 minutes from downtown
Panama City, is the most accessible rainforest in the region. It
is the only tropical forest in Latin America located inside a
major urban center. The MNP and several other protected areas form
the “Interoceanic Biological Corridor” that stretches from the
Pacific to the Atlantic Oceans.
The MNP is
characterized by the increasingly rare dry lowland pacific forest
and is home of the two- and three-toed sloth as well as over 200
bird species. In this remarkable park visitors can access four
walking trails, a bike trail (you must be in shape for this one)
and the Cedar Hill lookout over Panama City and the Canal. A
library and souvenir shop is also found here.
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