Time to Travel: Perusing Panama

After a wonderful few days of fun and sun in the San Blas Islands, our official arrival in Panama was a soggy affair. We disembarked in the tiny little town of Portobelo in the pouring rain, which made the tricky business of getting our heavy backpacks on and off the little rubber dingy used to ferry us from the yacht to the shore even more difficult. Our group must have made a hilarious sight – perched on top of our piled-up backpacks, trying our best to make sure they didn’t soaked from the rain above or the waves below as the hopelessly overfilled rubber boat struggled to make any headway on the choppy water. But we made it to land without any of the bags ending up in the bay, and after some ‘interesting’ negotiation between our captain and the very relaxed looking woman in the little room that served as the immigration office, we got our entrance stamps and thus officially entered Panama.

Travelling in such a small country certainly has its advantages – getting all the way from the Caribbean to the capital on the Pacific coast only took us about 4 hours; two on a lovely old, colourfully painted school bus (Bluebird) which took us on a beautiful drive along the beachfront, then another two on a more modern bus with an air-con set to ‘refrigerate’. We arrived in Panama City partially frozen and very tired (the sailing trip was great fun, but completely exhausting!) and took an overpriced taxi to a hostel in the second oldest part of town – Casco Viejo. After a big bowl of pasta and a much-needed shower, we fell into bed and slept away our sailing weariness. The next day, refreshed and relieved of our salt-crust (but still feeling as if the world was rolling on invisible waves), we set out to explore the old part of town (built on a peninsular surrounded by reefs to protect it from attacks after the original city was destroyed by pirates in the 1500s). It is an amazing place - a jumbled mixture of old, crumbling ruins of colonial buildings and beautifully refurbished villas. While locals still inhabit the run-down (but not the falling down) buildings, the refurbished ones have generally been turned into boutique hotels and chic restaurants. The result is a wonderfully eclectic atmosphere combining authentic creole vibes and quiet colonial elegance. And of course there are palm trees everywhere, which makes any city feel relaxed J

The skeletons of old colonial houses crumbling in Casco Viejo

One of the chic promenade restaurants

The remnants of an old church

The impressive sky-line of the new part of the city

Children's murals - 'if you can imagine it , you can do it' :)

One of the many lovely little squares in Casco Viejo

Another lovely square - the vultures love perching up high on the old buildings to get a better view :)

Beautiful old church - sporting a tree as decoration :)

Prefect place for a cool drink or two..

One of the renovated old buildings

Colourful Panama street

Who says you can't make a ruin look good?

More aesthetic ruins - glad we got to see it before everything is renovated and the charm is hidden under glossy paintwork

In addition to wandering around exploring the lanes and alleys of Casco Viejo, we of course also paid a visit to the country’s icon – THE Panama Canal. Despite the quite high entrance fee, we decided to go to the brand new (and very impressive!) visitors’ centre built right on the canal above the Miraflores Lock – and it was certainly worth it! Although some of the displays and presentations were simply blatant advertising for the canal, there was also a lot of interesting information about the history and construction of the canal, as well as the way it actually works. Some interesting points we learnt: 1) The United States expedited Panama’s independence from Colombia in exchange for being allowed to complete the canal 2) More than 20,000 people died building it (mostly due to yellow fever), 3) the only bits that actually look like a ‘canal’ are at the locks on each side – the middle is a huge man-made lake system 4) each cargo ship has to pay an average of 200,000 US dollars IN CASH to pass through the canal! After spending a few hours in the extensive museum, we were even able to watch a British oil tanker passing through the lock – a surprisingly fast process involving the displacement of up to 101,000m3 of water! We were not sure what to expect from the canal, but we left suitably amazed by the incredible feat of engineering (Mic especially :) ).

Old Panama City

Some of the thousands of workers from all over the world who helped construct one of the world's most amazing feats of engineering

An oil tanker being pulled through the Miraflores lock by the 'mules'

Opening the gates to the Pacific

The next day we headed north to the lovely little mountain town of Boquete – crossing the canal for the first time on the way, and thus officially leaving South America! What a wonderful six months it has been…..but we are just as excited about exploring Central America too! And Boquete was a good place to start – a very, very relaxed little village (it has actually been rated one of the top three places to retire by a US magazine and is thus a mecca for the over-sixty) surrounded by cloud forests and coffee plantations. We accidentally ended up in a wonderful hostel – Mamallena – which had the most well-equipped kitchen we have ever seen in a hostel, including a brand new oven, a coffee machine, heavy-duty frying pans and pots with lids that fit (!) and, best of all, a huge gas-powered barbeque grill! :D As soon as Mic saw it he was off to the supermarket to stock up on steak. J In addition to making the most of the great kitchen facilities by cooking ourselves delicious meals, we also celebrated our third wedding anniversary by treating ourselves to a couple of bottles of Chilean wine, which we enjoyed with some cheese, ham and olives….mmmm! :D

When we weren’t lazing around on the comfy patio chairs at the hostel listening to the myriad of birds flitting around between the trees in the garden, we did some hiking in the cloud forest around town. The forest is different again to any other forest we have seen on this trip – the cool, damp night air combined with the hot sunny days have created an interesting mixture between temperate and tropical rainforest which includes everything from moss-covered mountain pines to feathery bamboo groves. A great area to spend a couple of chilled out days before we head off to do some more serious sight-seeing in Costa Rica.