Panama City certainly was a shock to our system after being in the tranquility of the San Blas for five months. The majority of our time in Panama City was spent getting the necessary supplies for upcoming boat projects in Ecuador. We will be hauling the boat in Ecuador and have several big projects on our list for getting prepared for Chile and it is hard to get supplies in Ecuador and extremely costly to import them. We were not able to find everything we needed so we wound up having some supplies shipped in from the states. It was not all work in Panama City though; we did have time to check out the sights.
Panama City was founded in 1519 by the Spanish. It was the starting point for expeditions that conquered the Inca Empire in Peru. It was also a transit point for the gold and silver headed back to Spain. Today, Panama City, the capital of Panama, is the most cosmopolitan city in Central America. It is a hub for banking and trade.
We were very surprised at the “western style” malls and stores. There are three huge malls in the city. The one that we went to was near the bus terminal. It was called the Albrook Mall. This mall was two stories and had to be approaching a mile long. There were 6 food courts. I even got my Dunkin Donut coffee fix there. It had all the stores you would find at any nice mall in the US. As a side note, I found it funny that I found a Columbia brand clothing store in Panama but when I asked for a Columbia store in Columbia they looked at me like I was loco. I told Reina that I want to get the rights to sell Columbia clothing in Columbia.
My impression is that the Panama’s economy has progressed very quickly. It is like they jumped about 50 years and became a very cosmopolitan city in a very short period of time. I assume it happened when the US finished the transition of turning over the operation of the Canal to Panama 1999 that started in 1977 with then President Carter.
We were fascinated by the spiral shaped building in the center known as the F & F Tower. Envision each floor of the high rise being twisted a little and you get the idea! It reminded us of the game Jenga.
The area in the picture below is known as Casco Viejo. It is the “old town” and the original location of the city dating back to 1671. It is in the process of being renovated and hopefully one day will be as beautifully restored as Cartagena. You can see the new road being built around Casco Viejo. Panama City has some of the worst traffic I have ever seen. This road is one of the many ongoing construction projects aimed at alleviating the traffic.
Above is a picture of the area where we were anchored. It is an area called Amador and referred to as The Causeway. It is located at the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal. The Causeway is 1.25 miles long connecting four small islands to the mainland. These four islands once comprised the U.S. military base Fort Grant. Fort Grant was established in 1913 to guard the southern entrance to the canal. Between 1913 and WWII, the United States of America made Fort Grant into the most powerful defense complex in the world. There was a massively protected bombproof structure built for use in case of emergency to house “vital data”. To this day the US military will not disclose what the “vital data” was. Possibly Panama’s Area 51??
Today The Causeway is a popular tourist area boasting one of the newest buildings in Panama City, The Bridge of Life Biodiversity Museum designed by the famous American architect Frank Gehry. True to Gehry’s designs you can’t miss the building. Can you guess which one I’m talking about???
A closer look in case you missed it…
One sight we saw while we were on anchored off The Causeway were the Cayuco Races. A Cayuco is a traditional Panamanian boat. The races are a tradition of the Canal Zone started by the American Explorer Scouts in 1954. Traditionally the races were from “Ocean to Ocean” through the canal.
Also seen on anchor were spectacular sunrises.
For us, the best part of Panama City was seeing our good friends on s/v Sunrise again. We first met Bill, Lara, and Isobel in Grenada in August of 2012. Sunrise left Grenada in early December of 2012 while we stayed behind waiting for our deck project to be completed. They have been ahead of us the whole time since they left Grenada and we have benefited greatly from their advice and help. It was great to finally see them again and catch up.