Wandering with Tedder and Tamara

* Tamara posting *

Today we wanted to keep it low-key and just have a down day. We found a hotel yesterday and moved over there this morning after dropping off our laundry on the way. We are happy because the room has A/C and a private bath with hot water (and not even a suicide heater) for just $4 more than the hostel.

While enjoying the A/C, we planned out the things we want to see in Panama City and the rest of Panama (Canal area) before leaving on a boat for Colombia. We need to do our sight-seeing in the mornings due to the rain in the afternoons/evenings. It is hot all the time here (only about 5 degrees difference between high & low temps) so it's not really a huge advantage temperature-wise.

We also spent some time planning our first little bit of South America - trying to identify the places we want to go - Colombia, Ecuador, and we'll probably skip Venezuela. Venezuela is out of our way and looks to be a pain to get through the border crossing. It's too bad because we were interested in going there partly due to the political situation.

5/20: Panama City (Tamara posting)

We got up early today and took a bus down to the old city center area, San Felipe. The buses here are individually owned and the routes aren't published. The bus will list a few places it is going, but they are just main streets or neighborhoods. So we just had to look for one that listed the right destinations and hope that it went near where we needed to be. We got lucky and the first one we picked took us very close so we could walk the rest of the way. These buses are very recognizable because they are old U.S. schoolbuses which are painted brightly and play loud salsa, marimbe, etc. The rides are cheap - only $0.25, and most have a hawker in addition to the driver (he yells out the destinations and tries to round up more passengers).

It was about 7am when we got there, and the place was fairly deserted. San Felipe and the neighboring areas are pretty rough - lots of trash, abandoned and run-down buildings, “professional” women (although I think one might have been a man). It also had some really nice restored buildings, old churches, and San Felipe proper has a lot of museums.

We walked around the area to see the old city buildings and found a few gems of restored buildings. The Golden Altar, built in 1671 and hidden from a major pirate attack by painting it or covering it with mud, is at the San José Church, so we stopped in to see it. Unfortunately they were holding a Mass at the time, so we didn't get any pictures.

We found a park on the water with a great view of the Panama Bay, the causeway connecting the mainland west of the canal to some islands in the bay, and some freighters lining up to enter the canal. It was also a good spot to see the modern downtown with all the big skyscrapers - they house a lot of banking businesses, as the banking laws in Panama allow for a bit of secrecy.

Finally, the Canal Museum opened and we got in free due to some special museum day. Also, after we had been there for a little while a group of kids, about 4-8 years old and all dressed up in costumes, came in. We assumed they were there on a field trip of some sort, but noticed that they split up and were each giving little speeches about the displays when the people would come around. It was really cute. We got offered one of these speeches by one girl, but had to explain that we didn't understand Spanish enough.

The last room we visited was manned by a little boy dressed up as a Toucan, who was very eager to practice his English on us. He showed us the “telephone with no numbers,” “music player” and “photos from the past” (early telephone, phonograph, and of course, old pictures). He either didn't understand my Spanish questions (age, what country is this person from, etc), or didn't know how to answer in English so didn't want to ruin it. I thought he was really cute, especially because his costume consisted of the toucan beak on top of his head. Deciphering the answer one girl gave to my trying to ask why they were dressed up, it had something to do with a tour of the flora & fauna, which explains why they were all costumes of flowers, butterflies, bees, trees, monkeys, etc. We weren't allowed to take pictures - we really wished we could have taken some of these kids.

The museum was interesting, with a lot of pictures and items from the pre-canal railway, the French attempt at building the canal and the American time in Panama. We were amazed by the detailed and beautifully-drawn maps of the area. There were also a lot of plans and research from long before the canal was started to see where would be a good place to build a canal. There were a lot of options - Panama, Nicaragua, Colombia, and even through part of Mexico. We hadn't realized there had been such interest for so long in that kind of project before the French started the canal.

Also, some of the original French plans show quite a bit of optimism. They planned to build a giant city in the middle of the isthmus, with the canal running through it. The canal would be at least 250 meters wide (the canal is currently around 110 feet at the narrowest).

We grabbed a taxi to take us to the anthropological museum because we wanted to go to the artisan market next door. We realized when we got there, however, that the museum had changed locations and we were taken to the “new” museum. Since it was free admission, we went in and took a look around. There wasn't much to see - some pottery, earrings, and stone work. Overall, it was not very interesting - partly because it was a very small museum, so we were glad we didn't have to pay to get in.

We took another taxi back to the 'old' museum and found the artisan market, albeit fairly boarded up for the day. We did wander around and found some interesting handicrafts. The specialty seems to be a lot of embroidery and stitchery crafts made by the local indigenous groups.

After the artisan market we headed for the air-conditioned comfort of the big, modern shopping mall. It was a busy place, but we got a lot of errands done - contact lens solution, shorts for Ted, shirt for me, etc. We did enjoy watching the kids on the carousel while we had ice cream, and there were a lot of cute kids in the mall in general.