More Mind-Boggling Contrasts .

We are in Casco Viejo, a section of Panama City, Panama. At one point, years ago we lived in Panama City, Florida in the USA. I didn't even know there was such a place in our home country but then Katherine got a short term job there and we were on our way. It was a fairly small town where, I don't remember one high rise apartment/condo building in that city, there weren't any I'm sure. But there sure are here.

We said to ourselves back then that it was a sign, someday we would go to the real or other Panama City well we've made it. Here, in contrast to the Panama City in Florida there seems to be hundreds of high rise buildings that house many Panamanians. The skyline of the city across the bay from us is astounding. It rivals New York City's skyline. It is the banking center of Latin America and those bank skyscrapers add their might to the scene. 

Where we are staying, Casco Viejo, is a tourist area. Many buildings, many floors of hotels, beautiful buildings and gorgeous views of the rest of the city across the bay. Buildings date back to the early 1900s.  There are people on the streets from just about anywhere in the world you can think of. People who live here speak many languages but of course Spanish predominates. Its been a good opportunity to practice our Spanish and I can feel my memory working on bringing my fluency back from 60 years ago.

The other day we had a hired driver give us a tour of the City. First we went to Old Panama City, which turned out to be the ruins of the earliest buildings in Panama City, Circa 1600. Besides the ruins there is a great museum depicting the history of the city. We had only about 40 minutes there but could have spent most of the day.

Then back into the traffic, the number of cars on the roads at all times is mind-boggling and there are only a few stoplights here and there. Mostly drivers are courteous and give others a break to flow into the traffic but judging from the dents in many cars that doesn't always work.It's not unusual to sit in traffic without any movement for ten minutes or more. Parking is what one could call a free for all but it all seems to work.

At any rate, we made it to our second destination, the Metropolitan Park which is essentially a jungle withing the City. Beautiful trees, vines and so green. Many birds with unusual songs serenade. They tell us there are monkeys here but we didn't see any, wrong time of day. Its all surrounded by concrete and traffic. Pretty remarkable how they have accomplished this. We did do a short hike and got some great pics that I wish I could put on this blog but that's apparently not working! Maybe at a later time.

From the Parque we drove into a hilly area that gave us a distant view of the Panama Canal. Many beautiful, unusual buildings in the area including administrative offices of the Canal and other government offices. We also had brief views of the downtown skyline again.

On our way back to our temporary residence (two more days here) we drove through an entire different environment, no fancy buildings nor tourist traps, but just people living in what we might call tenement buildings, dirt roads, people look happy and engaged in life. Driver says its a Barrio and its right next to our part of town, what a contrast, mind-boggling.

Getting back to our place proved to be a difficult chore. We were sitting in traffic with no or very little movement for probably 30 minutes. Finally we got out of the car and walked home leaving the driver sitting there with no passengers. We did pay him $100 for half a day of struggling through traffic. Good thing, we could sit and watch and not do the driving.

So today we are planning on going to a nearby museum, tomorrow to one of the locks at the Panama Canal with Katherine's son who showed up from Washington DC. Then Sunday we will be on our way to Atlanta then Phoenix and by Monday, back in Green Valley where we don't have a home to return to.

 Whats Next? Stay tuned for the next chapter when we figure it out.

Stan The Man