bowling
Casco Viejo
Pupusas!
Panama Viejo
juicing
The Causeway
Panama Canal
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3/1-6
What an incredible week so far in Panama City. We have been spoiled with our local tour guides Jezlias and Gina, the son and daughter of the family we are staying with. Our first night here, Jezlias took us to an incredible bowling alley downtown on the 10th floor that overlooked much of the city. Since then, we have been lucky that Gina is on her “summer” break from school because she has been able to give us all the tours this week using the crazy bus system here.
Panama city has some incredible history and historical sites throughout different parts of it. We went to Panama Viejo (Old) to see the ruins of the original colony and city of Panama where many of the structures still hold their forms including the church tower that still stands perfectly after 500 years. Mark and I also rode our bikes and walked through Casco Viejo, an area of downtown that in many parts looks more like 18th century Spain (although I haven’t been…but I can imagine). Much of Casco Viejo had become run down and a rough area of town, but it seems that they are beginning to renovate and revive this area into what will likely be tourist-driven when it is finished. Panama City as a whole seems to be preparing for a huge influx in tourism in the coming years as they have some extremely large scale infrastructure and downtown seaside construction projects under way. I would actually love to come back in 5 to 10 years to see what the city looks like then.
As for our ship…we were given the choice to catch the ship in Colon, on the Caribbean side of Panama, or to stay here in Panama City and be able to ride it through the Panama Canal. Mark has already been through the Canal, but I don’t want to miss an opportunity to experience this wonder of the world. We were told the ship should be here from Costa Rica this weekend, so we were going to head to Immigration on Friday. We received word that the ship still hadn’t left Costa Rica, so we are still not sure when we will be leaving. At this point, we can’t really leave the city too far because it will be a day to day waiting game, so we will just experience more of Panama City.
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