A man, a plan, a canal… Panama!

Panama City is an energetic metropolis, the “Miami of Latin America,” as our taxi driver told us. We stopped over for a few days on our way to Curacao to explore and see the canal, and were surprised to learn it’s a rain forest country! The thunderstorms at night were fantastic, and the daytime humidity was as thick as a warm, soggy sponge.

We walked around the Casco Viejo, took some interesting uber rides, rented bikes, had drinks on the rooftop, and spent an afternoon at the Panama Canal with hundreds of other tourists. The IMAX movie narrated by Morgan Freeman had popcorn and comfy seats, nice enough to almost lull us to sleep. Almost! I kept poking the boys in the ribs.

Out along the canal, we were lucky to see a group of boats pass through and to eavesdrop on a fascinating tour guide, who explained the management of money, taxes, staff, and ships that pass through the canal every day. It turns out that China, the U.S., and Panama have a long history together, and it’s not all as simple as it seems….

We also learned it was not one man, but many men, hired by France and later wiped out by malaria and yellow fever, that first attempted to build the canal in 1881. As a tropical country, Panama is covered by rain forests and jungles that become impenetrable once explorers leave the coastline to cross the mountains between the Atlantic and the Pacific. The Panama Canal was a logical idea that was functionally impossible until Teddy Roosevelt brought U.S. engineering to the mission in 1904. Learning from France’s failures, the U.S. prioritized sanitation to get rid of the mosquitos, and dammed the river to create a lake, with a system of locks at each end. As a result, the water rises up over the rain forest and ships are able to cross the continent by sailing over the jungle, avoiding the dangerous rain forest and its diseases, and eliminating the need to dig an actual canal. What a brilliant idea!

On our second day in Panama City, we took a guided bike tour to learn a little bit about its history. The heat and humidity were almost unbearable, but the breeze coming in off the ocean was pleasant on our bikes. We stopped at the cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi which had a lovely rooftop view of the tides and skyscrapers, and also inadvertently stumbled onto another James Bond movie site. A scene from Quantum of Solace was filmed here! We have a long list of James Bond movie sites under our belt, so it was nice to unexpectedly add one more. The tour ended at a local fish market with a beer and the best ceviche we’ve ever had. If only all ceviche tasted like this…

In the afternoon, we stopped for lunch in the leafy shade of Plaza Bolivar. Temperatures in Panama stay the same year-round, ranging from about 24-32C/75-90F. It is sticky and hot and kind of miserable, but the colonial architecture and hospitality make it all worth the heat!

View from our hotel room at night:

And waiting for our Uber:

Two other things that surprised us in Panama: D’arbo jam from Austria for breakfast (!), and raccoons. Raccoons! I guess they also get tired of the cold weather and like to hang out by the beach…?

A few days roaming the streets of Panama city was a perfect beginning to our beach vacation. Now, on to Curacao!