A pout in Panama

---

I couldn’t do what I wanted to do in Panama, so I sulked and came home early.

To be fair, this is only the second time in the last five years’ travelling that I haven’t managed to get to where I wanted to go because of logistical and security (rather than simple lack of time) reasons. The first was in Rwanda when, despite getting to the towns at the northern and southern ends of Lake Kivu, I failed to reach the town in the middle of the Lake’s eastern shore, despite trying from three different directions. The buses and the road conditions simply wouldn’t play ball.

In Panama, my main aim had been to visit the site of Scotland’s short-lived and tragic attempt at an empire in the 1690s. While much of my school-taught Scottish history has faded in the recesses of my memory, the romance of the optimistic but foolhardy Darién Scheme has remained with me: the soft-lit image of boatloads of naïve Scots setting sail for the Tropics, armed with wigs and Bibles to trade with the natives, yet doomed to crash on the rocks of disease, starvation and ignorance. Not our finest hour, but somehow tremendous in its simple yet totally unrealistic ambitions: controlling commerce between the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans, and turning Scotland into the centre of world trade – as well as being one in the eye for the Sassenachs, of course.

First I had to find exactly where Darién was. Panama, for those who haven’t gazed assiduously at maps of Central America recently, is a curious-shaped country, a little like an “S” that has fallen onto its nose. The Darién province is in the far east/south-east of Panama and borders Colombia. It’s a large swathe of country with little by way of roads and access. I was soon to learn that the PanAmerican Highway, which weaves its way south from Alaska to Patagonia, is not, after all, complete. In this part of Panama there is the aptly named “Darién Gap”. The landscape here is challenging – with swampland on the Panamanian side and mountainous rainforest on the Colombian side – and, since the late 1980s, has been considered too dangerous, with its shifting population of drug-runners and renegade rebels, for construction teams to operate. The Book counselled only visiting the area as part of an organised group, and only then if the group had police escort. Perhaps I wouldn’t tell Mum that bit.

But where had my tragic forebears actually landed? On the Caribbean coast to the north of today’s Darién province, now part of the autonomous Comarca de Kuna Yala, I was surprised to see the Scottish names live on. Here I found the island of Caledonia; close by, on the mainland, New Edinburgh. Wow – what chance of getting there…?

Practically speaking, the answer was zero. The Comarca is a thin strip of land along the eastern stretch of Panama’s Caribbean coast, together with a myriad of islands and islets just offshore, inhabited by the indigenous Kuna people. Tourism is permitted, but only in a limited fashion. Most people fly to specific island resorts to enjoy luxury holidays of diving and drinking in the atmosphere and cocktails of a Caribbean paradise. A few more enterprising souls find themselves a yacht and sail around the western islands. But Caledonia and New Edinburgh were over in the east, beyond the place that the Book recommends one not venture beyond. The Kuna refuse to allow the US coastal patrols to operate in their waters; as a result, seemingly uninhabited islands are often used as stopovers for drug-runners. It wasn’t sounding ideal. And that was even supposing my less-limited-than-before-but-still-very-rudimentary-Spanish would have allowed me to negotiate a reasonably seaworthy vessel and trustworthy captain to take me anywhere close to this area from the distant provincial capital of El Porvenir in the west.

So that was the actual location of the brief Scottish empire off the agenda. What about Darién itself?

I had deliberately timed my arrival in Panama City to coincide with the end of Carnaval (to give it its Spanish spelling). Not as huge here as in Rio de Janeiro or New Orleans, nor, indeed, as in other parts of Panama, the city still takes Carnaval very seriously. Everything closes from the Friday before Shrove Tuesday until at least the afternoon of Ash Wednesday, if not the rest of that week. The extend and ubiquity of this closed-ness I hadn’t anticipated. The streets were deserted and shop-fronts boarded up. Even the source of the “best pizza in Central America” (according to a fellow traveller) was dark and deserted. Doing anything that involved people being at their desks during working hours would have to wait.

In the meantime, I decided to head over towards Avenue Balboa – usually a busy six-lane highway running dramatically between the lapping Pacific of the Bahía de Panamá and the skyscrapers of the modern city – which the best information I could dredge off the internet had suggested might be the focus of this year’s festivities. Last year, the festival had been a damp squib, suffering from under-funding and a lack of organisation; no-one seemed wholly convinced that the same thing wouldn’t happen again this year. I set off not knowing what to expect. New to the city, I adopted the “Zen” method of navigation (© Douglas Adams): if you don’t know where you’re going, follow the car – or in my case, the person – in front. Particularly if they look like they know where they’re going. Sounds a little creepy, but I can vouch for its effectiveness. Finding a small crowd of people dressed as if for a daytime party, some with kids in tow, at a nearby bus-stop, I waited hopefully… followed a young woman onto a bus, watching her to find out the “form” for paying the bus-fare here… got off again when a group of young people did so… and followed a couple of young women, with over-excited little girls dancing ahead of them, down a side street in what I thought – from my memory of the layout of the city – was roughly the right direction for the seashore. Sure enough, we neared a roped-off area with security guards patrolling and an increasingly audible thump of party music. One of the guards said something to my unintentional guides about the direction for “la entrada”… and I rounded a corner and found myself in the security queue for getting into the fenced-off section of Avenue Balboa. Result!

The atmosphere was festive but expectant. And I didn’t know for what. There was no schedule of events, no indication of what might be coming next… except for a couple of lonely but colourful floats arriving damply through the sudden and heavy rain shower. I meandered through the milling crowds of party-goers and children of all ages, wondered at the oddly coherent collection of scary-looking human-ish creatures in red-and-black costumes who seemed to be providing ad hoc entertainment for the punters, and inhaled the smoke and smells of the fast-food stalls. Overlapping waves of music pounded from ever-growing banks of speakers, and a succession of live bands vied for auditory space from one of the stages. Not much was happening in the near future here, I concluded after an hour or two; I decided to leave while my ears were still speaking to me.

The next day – officially the last of Carnaval – I hazarded a guess that this might be when The Parade is held, and that it might start in the early evening, so I wandered down to Avenue Balboa only as the light was beginning to fade. Now the queues to get in were longer, the crowds were bigger, the music louder and more prolific, and the atmosphere palpable. The pedestrian bridges over the road were roped off, patrolled by policemen and security guards, with only an occasional professional cameraman allowed to take advantage of the view-point. At the far end of the Avenue, colour and panache were the order of the day as floats and attendants and dancers and drivers prepared for the evening. People were starting to stake out their place at the side of the road, the better-organised equipped with folding chairs. Others continued to promenade up and down the road, a little self-consciously now that they were in the eye of the waiting crowds. Clearing the road for the floats was going to be interesting, I thought… Gradually night fell, and the buzz of expectation rose and dipped in waves. I craned over my neighbours, looking towards the far end of the road, trying to work out whether any of the distant floats were getting larger and closer… Then suddenly the first of the floats was upon us, gaudy and glittering and outrageous. Posing muscles in glittering gold thongs; this year’s Miss Panama blushing in the spotlight; brass bands blasting their stuff from the back of their trailer; whirling blue and white of the dancing “princesses”. But there weren’t many floats here. Between each pair, we waited awhile: they didn’t want the fun to end too soon, we were being rationed. After an hour or so, I decided I’d probably got the flavour of events, and mooched off before the evening became too drunken and uncomfortable for a gringa a little way from her hotel.

The next morning, I wondered if the city was waking to a hangover (if it had even gone to bed yet). Many shops still seemed to be closed, but the answer, in part, was close by, in the first church I tripped over. Not being au fait with Catholic services, I’m not too sure what was going on, but clearly Ash Wednesday morning was the time to make an appearance in the kirk. Both this and a second church I tripped over during my peregrinations around town that morning were full to the gunnels. I stuck my head round the door, inhaled the atmosphere, made an atheist’s apologies, and left quietly.

Back to practicalities. Would the offices of Ancon Expeditions, one of the longest-established eco-tour companies in Panama and my biggest hope for accessing the Darién province, still be closed? From the other side of the street, the chances didn’t look good: the office seemed dark. In frustration, I tried the door anyway… and was buzzed in.

Reading Ancon’s ring binder of trips, I was intoxicated at the options… but reined myself in, put together my shortlist, and approached the counter.

“¿Habla Ingles?” I opened. No point straining my Spanish unnecessarily, I hoped. Sure enough: “Si,” my target responded with a smile.

But the devil’s in the detail… or, rather, in recent weather conditions and the current economic climate. My first choice trip, the “Ultimate Darién Experience” (I don’t do things by halves, as I’m sure you’ve worked out by now), was, sadly, not being offered at this time thanks to a small technical hitch: Cana Field Station, the base for this trip into the heart of Darién, had been washed out by December’s floods. The trip wouldn’t be back on until September at the earliest. Only one of the remaining two trips to the region was still being offered because of lack of interest, so I settled for the grandly named “Realm of the Harpy Eagle”, the harpy being Panama’s national bird. This particular trip was due to depart the following Tuesday. The timing was great, from my point of view, but numbers weren’t yet up to quota. But Katiana took down my name and promised to get in touch, whatever the news, on Friday. I crossed all my fingers and toes…

One trip was a certainty, and that was the regular “full transit” of the Panama Canal, from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean. I booked for the following Saturday… and got on with exploring Panama City itself.

I’d canvassed various folks I’d met around Nicaragua for the low-down on the “must-see”/“must-avoid”/“hints’n’tips” for Panama. For the most part, the only negative thing I’d heard had been that Panama is more expensive than Nicaragua (though less expensive than Costa Rica, a country I already had little intention of visiting, given its reputed Westernisation, over-development and dominance by Americans and Europeans). But, in El Castillo in southern Nicaragua, I’d heard a second negative about Panama – at least in my mind. “Everything works!” I was told in tones of wonderment and pleasure by a couple of sexagenarian brothers staying in a delightful wee guesthouse where water was only available for an hour a day. My immediate reaction was quite simply, “Well, where’s the fun in that?” though I murmured appropriately at the time. And the night before I was due to leave Managua for Panama City, I saw a photograph of the latter’s skyscrapers: more New York than New York. My heart sank: what had I let myself in for?

But, contrary to my expectations, I came to appreciate the funny combination of three cities-in-one, serious-history-in-the-New-World, geographical-accident that is Panama City. After the caution urged on me in Managua by Nica friends – don’t take the taxis, don’t be out after dark, don’t take buses after dark, watch out where you go even in daylight – it was a relief to be able to take either a bus or a taxi with confidence; to be cautious about being out after dark, but not terrified; to be careful about where I ventured in daylight, but not obsessive. My haven was Casa de Carmen, a delightful home-from-home guesthouse in the commercial district of town. More expensive by far than anywhere I’d stayed in Nicaragua, it was nevertheless homey and helpful, with an abundant supply of coffee all day and toast for breakfast, as well providing the cheapest beer in Panama. In the first few days, I was out more than in, and used my internal room simply as an office and to sleep. Later on, I discovered the back garden and – most importantly – the hammocks, curling up on my favoured wide, cotton Nica-made hammock to sort out my photos, catch up with email, and, decadently on my last day, simply to read a book, a semi-trashy thriller that I’d found on the local bookshop’s English shelves.

Outside the door, the city beckoned – or, rather, the citIES beckoned, for Panama City today is simply the latest in a trilogy. Not quite Delhi’s seven manifestations, but then Delhi has the advantage of greater age. Panamá Viejo, the first Panama City, was only begun in 1519, but didn’t last long. It was brought to a sudden end in 1671 when it was sacked by Captain Henry Morgan – he who was to give his name to the rum – though whether he and his men really were “pirates” as history romanticises them, or mercenaries acting under an act-on-our-orders-but-we’ll-disown-you-if-you’re-captured brief from the English, is still up for debate. What is clear is that he was taken back to England to have his knuckles rapped for breaching an Anglo-Spanish treaty of which he claimed no knowledge (not a defence that would stand up in court nowadays), and knighted a couple of years’ later, before being despatched off to govern Jamaica until the end of his somewhat brief and debauched life.

Today, the ruins of Panamá Viejo live on. Just. Despite the construction of the busy though single-carriageway Vía Cincuentenario right through the site – and, in the case of Iglesia y Convento de Merced, right through the centre of the buildings themselves – much effort has gone into conserving and restoring (at times, I think, a little ham-fistedly) what’s left of the ruins since the area was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1997. But, with a little imagination, you can rebuild into today’s glorious view from the top of the Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción the other buildings of the old city, re-grow the mangrove swamps at the tower’s foot, and remove the traffic-laden viaduct of the Corredor Sur which strides across the bay from the skyscrapers of downtown to the skyscrapers of the eastern suburbs. It’s not too hard to imagine the bustling life of the first European city on the Pacific coast as its strategic and commercial importance expanded year by year.

After Morgan’s sacking, the colony’s capital was moved several kilometres southwest round the coast to a better naturally fortified and fortifiable site. Centred on a small peninsula that juts out in the Bahía de Panamá, it was designed as a walled city – hence its present-day name, Casco Viejo, Old Compound. Now it too has World Heritage Site status and is rapidly being scrubbed up and rebuilt as a cute, bijou and safe tourist haven, its narrow cobbled streets being reclaimed from neighbouring slums, modern hotels constructed behind its balconied frontages, and its glorious panoply of churches renovated. From Plaza de Francia at the tip of the peninsula, you have a dramatic view of present-day Panama City: from the Puente de las Américas which heralds the entrance to the Panama Canal to the right, to the skyscrapers of downtown way over to the left. As you walk round the peninsula, a dash of more modern history: the shell-pocked and empty façade of General Noriega’s old playground, Club de Clases y Tropas, now optimistically boasting a sign suggesting that it will re-open as a hotel at the end of 2011. (I think not.) Meanwhile, within the old city walls, wrought-iron balconies lean in towards each other to share a confidence, stunning church towers punctuate the glorious deep blue of the Tropical sky, and tourists meander or stop for a coffee or chilled beer, confident that here, at least, they won’t be mugged. The only disadvantage I find is exactly that: the self-confident superiority of the moneyed tourist, happily sampling what it believes to be foreign culture, but this “culture” is so scrubbed-up, sanitised and safe, it becomes anonymous. This could be Italy; this could be Portugal; it could even be Gemmayze or Solidere in downtown Beirut. I put on my best walking feet and headed off round the edge of the remaining slum area to sample the much-vaunted prawn ceviche at the Mercado de Mariscos before it closes for the evening. I am the only Westerner there as the fishmongers clear their slabs in preparation for the next day’s catch.

Two days later I get the email from Ancon Expeditions: “Just a brief note to let you know that unfortunately we have to cancel the trip to Darien on Tuesday because the other persons that we have already sign cancel today.”

My reaction is delayed. Most immediately, I have the Canal trip to prepare for the next day; but later in the weekend I find myself disconsolate. I flick backwards and forwards through The Book, trying to tempt myself with different places to the west of the Canal: more Spanish colonial history and culture, a volcano and other nature reserves, wilderness and indigenous peoples, beaches and surf. But, uncharacteristically, unable to reach the places I had really wanted to see in this country, I cannot work up any enthusiasm for anywhere else. I pout.

And then burst out laughing as I catch sight of myself. What had I really got to complain about? I had no commitments, no obligations here; only my own amour propre. With a mounting pile of paperwork and a defunct boiler to sort out in London, as well as another trip to prepare for, I bring my flights forward and head home. Via a last blast with my Nicaraguan friends, of course.

---

Photos

Panama City in a nutshell...
...old and new, sunshine and rain, nature and architecture... from Panamá Viejo

"bit chewy..."
white-nosed coati in Parque Natural Metropolitana

echoes of Angkor...
Iglesia y Convento de la Concepción, Panamá Viejo

Comments

[Juanes]

buen viaje
Hi LIZ, good to see you have travelled and enjoyed central america a little . I like your pictures overlooking panama city, did not manage to find that place ! Hope you enjoyed nicargua also, onoe of my favourite places in central america.