We hopped on the bus and did the city, starting with Panama Viejo (Old Panama), then the Biological Museum and finally the Casco Viejo (Old Quarter). It’s not every city that has two Old Towns, but we can thank Henry Morgan for that.

Without getting too deep in the historical weeds, Panama City, established by the Spaniards in 1519, was the first European city on the Pacific coast of North America (everyone has to be first at something). It was Spain’s jumping off point for conquering the Incas in Peru and for shipping gold and silver back home via Portobello and Nombre de Dios over on the Caribbean side.

Enter Henry Morgan, the buccaneer pirate (and the guy on the rum bottle). Bad guy, according to our guide today. But wait, that’s not the whole story. Henry Morgan did his pirating during the Anglo-Spanish Wars, a series of conflicts spanning 1585 to 1660 (remember the Spanish Armada?) and beyond. Morgan was issued a license by the British government to raid, take plunder and kill Spanish wherever he could find them.

Based in Jamaica, he raided Cuba, Venezuela and the Spanish Main, including Panama. After doing his thing in Portobelo and Nombre de Dios (he was after the gold there), he led 1,400 soldiers across the isthmus to Panama City to plunder even more gold. There, much to his dismay, the loot had been taken to Peru and so he had to content himself with merely knocking down and burning the city to the ground.

Ooops, he did his raid in 1671. The English and Spanish had signed a peace treaty in 1670. To appease the Spanish, the Brits arrested Henry, brought him back to London where he was celebrated as a hero and was knighted. He eventually became the lieutenant governor of Jamaica. Having been accused of murder and torture in the Panama City raid, his reputation was tarnished but nonetheless he ended up promoting rum, a drink, along with others, of which he was overly fond.

A couple of years later the Spaniards built a new city, the Casco Viejo that we visited this afternoon. It’s a proper old town, with several Catholic/Spanish cathedrals and churches, Spanish style architecture and more guys selling Panama hats than you can rattle a castanet at. The Pope came to town and blessed the alter in the newest cathedral in 2019.

In between the Viejo visits we went to the Biomuseo, a fantastic building designed by Frank Gehry that houses exhibits of Panama’s diverse environment, past and present. We had a great guide who, in a very efficient but fun manner, led us to the important exhibits.

Lunch was at a Raddison hotel, not bad for a bus buffet. Then back to the hotel by 4 PM to shower (it was hot and humid today), nap (for those not blogging) and packing for tomorrow’s departure.

In the pictures today I tried to capture out the bus window the fantastic glass and steel skyscrapers sprawling across the Panama City skyscrape. “Where did all the money come from to build the city we see today?” I asked our guide. “From foreigners, especially Russians who see Panama City as a great place to invest.” Indeed, Panama City is something of a tax haven in the mode of Hong Kong, Singapore and the Cayman Islands. The government is trying to extract more from corporations located here and to reduce the country’s debt burden, but it’s not a done deal yet, as I understand the situation. But here the disparity between the skyscrapers and average citizen’s standard of living is stark.

The farewell dinner tonight included traditional music and dance and a four-course dinner.

We’re being taken to the airport at 9 AM, flying at 12 noon and arriving in Bogotá at 1:40 PM. Bogotá is forecast to have a high of 70 degrees so our slim-to-none warm weather clothing will get a workout.

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Today we left the Le Bellot and set off by bus across the isthmus with a lunch and touring stop in Gamboa.

True confession: the local guide on our coach put me to sleep – not after a heavy lunch but at 10 AM. Frankly, he prattled on about the history of Panama in excruciating detail. You know me; I like history. But half of it we’d already heard elsewhere and the other half was beyond my level of interest. I’m a big picture kind of guy, I guess. Furthermore, the scenery wasn’t particularly interesting – rain forest with no open views and few towns or houses.

Here’s my big picture, which may or may not correspond to reality:

·      Before the Spanish, there were the indigenous people like the Emberás and Kunas that we’ve visited this week.

·      The Spanish settled first on the isthmus at a town called Nombre de Dios in 1510 or thereabouts, making it the first settlement on continental America (the Dominican Republic doesn’t count as continental). They pretty much wiped out and assimilated the indigenous people, only a few of whom remain.

·      The big breakthrough was the first continental railroad, constructed in the 1850s to haul 49ers to the California gold fields. Rail transportation is still a big thing here. Cargo ships unload containers on one coast, they are shipped by rail across to the other and loaded on other ships to complete their journey. Beats paying big bucks to transit the canal and makes more efficient use of ships and crew.

·      The canal, completed in 1914 was the revolutionary feat that put Panama on the map.

·      I get mixed feelings from the few Panamanians we’ve run into. On the one hand, Panama was in a state of turmoil. Some claimed the treaty signed in 1903, at the time of independence from Columbia, was not valid. They wanted ownership. Nixon, Ford and ultimately Carter worked the issue, resulting in the handover completed in 1979.  On the other hand, Panamanians lost significant income with the pullout of Americans, especially the U.S. military.

·      Panama completed construction of the new wider canal to handle “Panamax” ships, thereby increasing the volume, and hence revenues, produced by the canal. However, we’re told that Panamanian citizens are upset that little of the revenues trickle down to the average citizen. Corruption?

The first stop was the Agua Clara locks – the new ones – that in addition to being wider also conserve water, a scarce resource in the dry season, by using 60% of one lock’s water to fill the next one in sequence. The lock doors are different. Doors come directly across the lock rather than swinging in and out. And rather than using motorized tractors to maintain the ship’s position in the lock as is done in the old locks, tug boats are used in the new locks.

Our stop in Gamboa was fun for two reasons, one of which was not the lunch, a decidedly bus tour affair, the kind you fear when you’re touring with a low-cost company. But, Gamboa is the town where Bill and Elaine lived and we had a chance to see what we believe was their home. And, we took a boat ride on the canal to see monkeys, White Faced Capuchin and Tamarin monkeys. The Tamarin is the smallest monkey in Panama, has a tail as long as its body and is unique in that the female is the dominant partner. We heard in the distance, but did not see, Howler monkeys. There was a nice armadillo sunning itself in the branches of a tree.

Panama City is a city of steel and glass skyscrapers nestled in with pretty low end tenement buildings. We will, I hope, learn more in our touring tomorrow, the last day of this trip before we leave for Colombia the day after tomorrow. The hotel is nice enough, a J W Marriott. Our friends payed $55 for two gin and tonics. We went across the street and had tacos at a food truck for $50 per couple, including two rounds of drinks.

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Today was mostly a beach day at the Hollander Cayes, part of the San Blas archipelago, Panama. A sandy beach, snorkeling and natives selling handmade embroidered fabrics was the order of the day. Judy and I were on the first zodiac off the ship and returned shortly before noon. We relaxed, had lunch and a nap, started packing and had dinner with our friends Martha, Dale, Pam and Steven.

San Blas represents 378 coral islands that form a barrier reef off the Caribbean coast of Panama. Roughly 35 islands are inhabited; residents of one island had to be relocated to the mainland due to rising ocean levels. The Holandes Cay we visited today is home to four families. The kids attend boarding school on the mainland. This is vacation time so the kids were very much in evidence.

The San Blas archipelago is owned by the Kuna people. They also have a mainland community. They had been fierce enemies of the Emberá people we visited on the Darien peninsula and even today the elders view Emberás with suspicion. Not so much the younger generations. The Kuna favored English and French back then on the theory that the enemy of my enemy (i.e., the Spanish) is my friend.

The folks at Holandes were certainly friendly enough with us, especially since we were a major source of fabric sales. We contributed in our usual way. One difference between these people and the Emberá is that they expect to be paid if you take their photograph. We were warned ahead of time that the going rate is $1 per person photographed. So naturally when I found 10 kids in one spot I whipped out a ten spot and took the shot.

The snorkeling, for a small area close to shore, was pleasant with nice coral and a fair number of fish. See the photos.

This is our last night on the Le Bellot. Tomorrow we disembark at Colón and cross the isthmus to Panama City. We’ll stop in Gamboa for a wildlife cruise on the canal. Hopefully we can drive through Gamboa and find Elaine and Bill’s old home.

WiFi is nonexistent here so I’m not sure when I’ll be able to upload this blog. I The crossing last night was fairly bumpy and the captain seems to think tonight will be no different. He didn’t raise anchor until 9 PM so passengers could finish dinner before the worst of the wave action commences.

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So this is it. The bucket list check mark. Today we transited the Panama Canal from south to north. 

That still bothers me. The brochure says we’re doing the west to east crossing. But Panama is in the crook of Central America. The canal runs north-northwest starting from the Pacific side, south-southeast from the Caribbean side. Blows my mind. 

We started by passing through the Miraflores locks, two of them, and then the single Pedro Miguel lock for a total rise of 85 feet above sea level. From there it is level sailing across the manmade Galun lake. The Galun locks, three in total, reverse the process, bringing the ship back to sea level. Of course ships traveling the other way are lifted at Galun and let back down at Pedro Miguel and Miraflores.

We were one of the last northbound ships this morning, entering the canal at 8 AM. We followed a ship transporting upwards of 6,000 automobiles, presumably from the far east. That ship appears often in today’s pictures. Ship movements are coordinated to maximize use of the locks. Ships entering one end travel more or less together and go down using the locks that ships coming in the opposite direction used earlier in the day.

We passed by Gamboa where our friends Bill and Elaine lived for 20 years. Bill worked on dredging machines, a never ending job to keep the channels deep enough for cruise ships and cargo ships. The canal has been expanded with new, wider locks to handle supersized Panamax cargo ships since Bill and Elaine were here so I’d guess the demands on dredging are even greater. 

Bill was raised here since the eighth grade. His dad did dredging and his brother was a lock manager. Elaine lived in the U.S. controlled Canal Zone for one year before the handover to Panama in 1979. She reports that life in third world Panama was not as idyllic as life in the Zone.

The canal, for me, is amazing for two reasons. First, the engineering marvel that it is, brought to life in David McCullough’s book, The Path Between the Seas. The genius decision was to tame the mighty Chagras River by creating a manmade lake and using the captured water to operate locks at either end. The French tried and failed to dig a sea level channel back in the 1880s. We saw the modest cut near the Galun locks.

Another technical breakthrough resulted from work done during the Spanish-American war in Cuba. That led to the elimination of mosquito-borne yellow fever. Where the French lost 30,000 to disease, the Americans lost 5,000. 

The other thing that impresses me is the volume of traffic that passes through the canal. Forty vessels make the transit on a typical day. I’m guessing the new wider locks can accommodate even more. 

Our ship is paying about $80,000, a little more than $400 per passenger. Fees of up to $1 million are charged to the big guys. Someone once swam the Panama Canal for 36 cents. 

Tomorrow is our last day aboard the Le Bellot. We will visit the San Blas Islands, meeting members of an indigenous  community there and do some snorkeling too.

Sorry for the large number of photos today. Judy and I want to remember the day – we’ll only come this way once, probably. So indulge us and skip through them quickly. 

 

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By not much later 9 AM we’d been helped into the zodiac by a middle-aged man dressed in nothing but a loin cloth and we were dancing with two teenagers, a boy and a girl, both bare from the waist up.

Yes, most women and men of all ages don’t feel the need to cover themselves hardly at all as you can see from the pictures. Rather than being disturbing, it quickly became for us quite natural. They are an extremely friendly bunch and made us feel right at home.

Welcome to Playa Muerto – the beach of the dead, so named because during a battle for control of Panama City, the prevailing Pacific currents brought the bodies to this idilic beach. Or maybe it was the bodies of sailors lost at sea or pirates made to walk the plank. Opinions differ on the point.

Playa Muerto is also the name of a local community of the Emberá, our hosts for this morning’s visit. It’s located in Darien National Park, which contains the beginning of the Andes mountain range. Yesterday we viewed the mountains that mark the southernmost end of the Rocky Mountain Range. Technically, while still in Panama we’re actually now in South America here.

The Darien region is infamous as one of the main paths for illegal migrants escaping Venezuela and for other peoples trying to escape oppressive conditions around the world. Playa Muerto isn’t a major corridor, but we did see two Panamanian border guards in the town and on the beach today. One of our guides said that the survival rate for people making this trek is very low.

When we made our “wet” zodiac landing, we were greeted by men and boys who managed the boats and helped the gringos onto the sand. There was a Emberá band playing – a flute and percussion instruments – and kids came up to take our hands and walk with us to where we could dance with them, a simple two-step number in time with the band. Then the kids led us by the hand down the beach and up the side of the hill to a lodge-like structure for the main event.

The Emberá of Playa Muerto have the advantage of being closer to the beach than other tribes, so they attract the tourist trade, which has become an important part of the local economy. Today, the Emberá had invited people from a neighboring community to come and participate. We were treated to dances, two numbers by girls from Playa Muerto, one by local ladies and one number by ladies from the visiting community.

Following the show we visited a number of booths set up to sell the wares of local craftspeople. We bought five items totaling $60. Nice stuff and a good way to contribute to the community, we figured.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I think I noticed behaviors of the youngsters that are universal across cultures. Young boys and girls – say 6 to 10 – acted just like kids back home. I think I noticed that girls, especially, in their teens congregated together and talked about who-knows-what – boys? Boys seemed to be on the sidelines for the most part.I even saw a couple I took to be young lovers.

The people here speak the native language as their primary but Spanish is taught in the schools. I had fun using by broken Spanish to talk with the kids, asking them their names and ages and other Spanish 101 stuff. I find it easier to use Spanish on kids; I feel that they’re a lot less judgmental than adults.

One young gal held our hands as we returned to the zodiacs. Every few feet she’d stop and draw designs in the sand. I joined in with a crude smiley face. She responded with a much more sophisticated image of a person. As a test, I drew 1 +1 and a line to see if she’d draw a 2. Nope. She used my lines as the starting point for a very nice design of her own. A real artist.

This afternoon one of our naturalists, Herman Araúz, gave a talk about the Darien region. It happens that his parents were pioneers in exploring the Darien. His father was the first to map the region. His assignment was to find a path for the continuation of the Pan American Highway – to close the Darien Gap.

It’s possible to drive from Barrow, Alaska to Ushuaia, Argentina on a single road. All the way, that is, except for the Darien peninsula. It’s been extended a bit based on his father’s work. Before he died he told his son, “Don’t let them stop the highway. It’s my life’s work.” His son, the naturalist, hopes that his father’s wish won’t come true for many, many years. He fears that deforestation and loss of biodiversity will result.

His mother, Reina, was a famous anthropologist who explored the Darien with her husband in the first trans-Darien expedition in 1960. Here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia:

Reina Cristina Torres de Araúz(née Torres Pérez; 30 October 1932 – 26 February 1982) was a prominent Panamanian anthropologist, ethnographer and professor. She is considered to be a “tireless defender” of Panamanian heritage ethnography.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reina_Torres_de_Araúz

They had first contact with native peoples and, as an anthropologist, she studied them extensively. Today when Herman show photos and movies to the Emberá people, they are amazed how much their lives have changed since the middle of the last century. Before, families lived apart from others. It wasn’t until the mid 1900s that they began to congregate in communities like the one we visited today.

At 4 PM the ship’s crew served cake celebrating Tauck’s 100-year anniversary. They then gave us an overview of tomorrow’s activities: we enter the Panama Canal around 8  AM. It will take 8 to 10 hours for the complete transit. We’ll be especially on the lookout when we pass Gambia where Bill and Elaine Duffus lived for 20 or more years.

By the way, the bird of the day is the Brown Booby, cousin, I’d guess, to the Blue-footed Booby we saw at the Galápagos Islands years ago. A flock of them have been following the ship for the past several days, diving into the water to pick up the fish stirred up by our passage.

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