2022 January - Day 03 - Panama City - Pool Time and Casco Viejo.

Today was an interesting day.  We told ourselves that we would not get up and hurry our selves out the door.  That we would relax at the pool and then go in the afternoon to ‘Casco Viejo’…the old town in Panama City.  And guess what…that’s what we did.  We spent a couple of hours at the pool swimming and relaxing.  The sun felt good.  We watched many different bird species flying in and around the area.  Two vulture looking birds hung out on what of the room balconies.  That would be weird to look out and see an ugly bird like that on your balcony!  Anyway, around noon, we can up to our room, showered and then took an Uber to the old town.  

We went to the Panama Canal Museum that was on the main square where we wanted to do a self guided walking tour.  The museum was nice…very interesting.  It was more about the history of Panama and little about the actual engineering of the canal.  It showed how Panama evolved and the role the canal has played in Panama’s history.  The US officially turned over the canal in 1999…not that long ago.  I was surprised by that.  The Panamanians did not seem to like the society that the Americans brought to Panama since the canal’s beginning around 1903.  They created a ‘Canal Zone’ that the US owned and managed.  This zone was 10 miles wide and ran the whole length of the passage way from the Atlantic to the Pacific.  But, the canal was built by people from all over the world.  The greatest number of workers came from Barbados believe it or not.  They were treated poorly though…like slaves..  So sad what humanity can do to humanity.  Anyway, the time in the museum was very interesting.  We were there for about an hour or a little more.  

After the museum visit, we started our walking tour that took us to many plazas close by, many churches and various structures that were built a very long time ago.  It was kind of hot, a bit humid but worth the time and the energy.    At one point we were headed to a plaza and passed through a line of street vendors selling stuff.  I kinda wanted a Panamanian hot.  So we started bartering with a guy to buy not one but two hats, one for each of us.  But unfortunately, the hat I wanted did not have the word ‘Panama’ on it very straight.  So I decided to not buy one.  But Denise did buy one because it had a loop that she could use to keep it on her head.  Well, we paid full price…a whopping $10…. and off we went.  We then stopped to get a shaved ice, a pineapple one.  It was yummy.  We stopped by the edge of a wall that had about a 30 to 40 foot drop when a wind surge came up and blew Denise’s new hat over the edge and down to the waters edge below.  The people around us could see Denise’s dismay and started saying someone would go get it.  It turned out that the guy that sold the hat took off running.  He disappeared for about 5 minutes.  He ran the whole time around the point and to where Denise’s hat was!  He grabbed it and then went a different, shorter way, back to where we were.  At that point, I decided to buy the slightly flawed hat that I had passed on previously as it would be a good memory of this event and the KINDNESS that all the people there showed to us in retrieving it.  They were so concerned and so kind.  I gave the guy a few more dollars to say thank you.  He tried to reject them but I was not having it.

After our walk, we were hungry.  So we ended up in a Panamanian restaurant named ‘Fontana Sí Qué Hay’.  It was interesting.  We had to show our vaccination card, which we had on our phones, to get in.  It was a very nice place and our young waiter was very excited to tell us that THIS was true Panamanian food.  Anyway, Denise bought fried chicken and mashed potatoes.  That did not seem to be so Panamanian!  But in the end, the chicken coating was quite different but her mashed potatoes were nothing like we’ve had before.  I had a porridge of beef, rice and a variety of who knows what in a large bowl.  It was very good.  Very tasty but different.  Our starters were fried rice cakes with a smoked tomato sauce.  It was all very good and….we had our Panamanian meal we desired.

We have no plans for tomorrow.  So it is going to be interesting to see what we come up with.  Maybe we will just chill out again at the pool and then figure something out.  Check back tomorrow to see what Denise comes up with!

Photos:

A fruit cart on the streets of old town.  Fresh fruit anyone?

Happy campers in the pool!  Nice to get some warmth!

One of the podiums in one of the Catholic Churches.  We could only get into one of the many churches we passed.  One was open but having either a wedding or a baptism.  So we did not to in.

This is Denise standing under a Christmas present that lights up at night.  They still have lots of Christmas stuff still up in all the plazas.

This was a Christmas town presentation in the lobby of the Panama Canal Museum…if I remember correctly.

Interesting map that shows all the countries that use the Panama Canal for their movement of goods throughout the world.

Our street vendor who made us this yummy shaved ice drink.  You can see the large block of ice that he uses for his shaving of ice.

My bowl of porridge with so many good things in it.  It was a yummy dinner.

The streets in the old town are narrow but very colorful.

There were lots of old buildings, churches, that were left standing that you could walk through.  They talked about this one and the so called arch that was not quite an arch that they had created.

Yummy rice cakes as our appetizer.

If you look across the water to the white building on the point of the land, that is where Denise had her hat blow off her head and down to the waters edge.  The water was out so it landed on dry ground.  It was a nice experience of people being kind.

Our pool.  That might be me out there swimming some laps.  It’s not an orca…I know that much.

I think this might be the Panama Canal Museum building.  But not quite sure.  There were lots of very nice architectures down in this area to see.  They are trying to make this area really nice.

One of the nice rooms in the museum.  It was interesting that in the beginning we watched a film that was so USA biased towards the 1964 uprising here in Panama.  But as we walked through the museum, you could tell that they were not very fond of the USA a few years back.

Our hat vendor who did the run to retrieve Denise’s new hat.  What a nice guy he is\was!

Panama City actually has quite the skyline of tall buildings in the downtown area.  You can see that we are a ways away from there.  We passed the downtown area when we drove from the airport at night and it was really nice or so it seemed.  But we don’t plan to go downtown at all.