Panama - September 20-25, 2023

[Martin Hash]

My wife, Gwynne, and I have been through the Panama Canal but, other than the airport, hadn’t touched grass before. We knew a lot about Panama from fifth grade because of Panama’s intermingled history, and the U.S. invasion to overturn dictator Manuel Noriega in 1989 happened when our kids were young. Crossing the border into Panama from Costa Rica took less time than we anticipated but we still traveled for 12 hours to get to our hostel. The urgency was due to our getting close to the end of the journey and all that entails as far as exit bookings. Panama in many respects is very modern: the roads are good, there’s lots of new construction & all the famous franchises; it could be the U.S. However, all the jungle gives it away.



Nico’s Beach

Considering the extensive shoreline of Central America from the fact there are oceans on both sides, we never once on this trip got a chance to walk a beautiful sand beach, something Gwynne & I dearly love. We’ve often been tempted to retire somewhere quiet on a beach we could walk every morning. We finally got a nice hostel on the beach in Panama, and to make it even better, it was called “Nico’s Beach,” our granddaughter’s name. I wondered how many of the high-rise condos nestled in the sand were occupied by expat Americans but as we walked along the carefully manicured grounds, everybody seemed to be local. There was also an interesting mixture of old & new that we could see as we left footprints in the sand.



Crossing Panama Canal

While driving on the Bridge of the Americas over the Panama Canal, I heard someone say, “I’d rather go over the Panama Canal than go through it.” I thought to myself that Gwynne & I had now done both. I have to say that spending all day going through in a cruise ship was much more of an event.



Panama City

Gwynne & I took the On & Off bus for a 3 hour tour around Panama City. It’s an amazing combination of ultra-modern architecture and old colonial slums left over from construction of the canal; the first of which opened for shipping traffic in 1914. An American visiting Panama City would be impressed, and perhaps decide to move there? It's clean, modern & similarly priced.