January 26, 2024: Exploring the Modern City of Panama City, Panama

January 26, 2024 cjbishop@yahoo.com

The Republic of Panama links Central America with South America. We all know it because of the Panama Canal, that marvelous feat of engineering completed in the early 20th century by the Americans after the French failed in their attempt to connect the Atlantic to the Pacific. Panama has a population of 4 million with about half living in Panama City. The Spanish arrived in the 16th century. In 1821 it broke away from Spain and joined the Republic of Gran Columbia (as it was called then) which also consisted of Neuva Granada, Venezuela and Ecuador. In 1831 Gran Columbia dissolved and Neuva Granada and Panama became part of the Republic of Columbia. In 1903 with the help of the US, Panama gained its independence from Columbia.

We arranged for a city tour with a local tour company that included a visit to the visitors center at the Panama Canal. We had traversed the canal on a cruise ship in 2010 but never had visited the visitor center that offers a highly rated imax movie about the history of the canal which I wanted to see. It turns out the Panama Canal is only about a 15 minute drive from Panama City itself and it is a major tourist attraction for visitors to the area. The rest of the 4 hour tour included a drive to various parts of the city, including their old town which I had planned to visit after our cruise.

Yes, Panama also has one of these big signs for tourists to take pictures.

More modern buildings in the business district of Panama City.

Statue of General Tomas Herrera, hero of Panama independence from Spain.

View of downtown Panama City from the Amador peninsula.

Looking back at the skyline of Panama City. Pretty modern, don’t you agree?

Old town has many small shops and restaurants.

The Kuna ( Guna) Indians who live off the coast of Panama are noted for their tapestry called “molas “. Here are some handbags decorated with the colorful molas.

A “mola” we purchased when we first visited Panama in 1992. The mola consists of multi layers of fabric to create the resultant colorful textile.

The visitor center and imax movie theater at the Panama Canal.

Part of the visitor center at the Panama Canal.

Waiting for the imax movie about the construction of the Panama Canal. It is narrated by Morgan Freeman.

This is a picture of what the canal looks like with boats in it. When we were there no boats had yet entered the canal. Since we had been through the canal previously we did not wait to see any boats use the canal.

The temperature rose to 91 degrees with some humidity by the time we returned to the hotel in mid afternoon. We retreated to the air conditioned mall to seek a snack and check it out as it is claimed to be the 2nd largest mall in this part of the world, with over 700 stores (The mall of america has 520 stores but has more square feet of space). It was sad to see that there were many shuttered shops, obvious victims of the pandemic.

Mid afternoon smoothie snack at the Albrook Mall which was attached to our Marriott hotel. The mall is the 2nd largest mall in South America with over 700 stores. Unfortunately many have closed after the pandemic.

We asked the hotel for a suggestion of a nice seafood restaurant to have dinner and they suggested Bucanero’s, which I later learned was not all that close to the hotel. Worse yet, when we left the hotel it was still the evening rush hour and Panama suffers from the same problem we have during rush hour-horrendous traffic backups! The normal 20 minute drive took almost an hour. The good news is that Uber is in Panama and their rates are darn cheap, much cheaper than here in Seattle! Anyway, it was a pleasant dinner in a pleasant locale with live music!