Feb 18th
Red eye to Panama - ava not happy about having to sleep on the plane, its not good for anyone
Feb 19th
Landed early morning and went straight to the hotel (Selina Casco Viejo) to drop off our bags and went looking for breakfast and much needed coffee. After a few deadends of places not open or existing(?) we rolled into Café Unido Casco Viejo where we found Geisha coffee and vegan waffles - not a bad start for someone of my allergy profile in latin america.
Following a delicious start to the day, we went straight to the canal, because that was what I had my heart set on seeing. We grabbed an uber and headed over to the Canal de Panamá, Centro de Visitantes de Miraflores. As a kid, we watched a lot of science and engineering programs on tv thanks to my dad, so I have seen more than a few specials covering the panama canal. Plus, history class spent a lot of time discussing the US’s involvement in building it (though, fo some mysterious reason, the labor practices involved were never discussed…). All that said, I was oddly excited to go see a canal lock - which I’ve seen plenty of times on the mississippi, even if those are smaller.
We arrived early at the visitor center, got tickets and you are given the choice of going to the imax movie about the canal or just going to see the canal right away. Since the movie was about to start, we decided to go there first. Its a 3d movie narrated by Morgan Freeman. Honestly, its informative and pretty well done overall. However, after we left the movie and went to the viewing platform of the lock, we realized we had just missed a ship going through the lock and the nex one wouldn’t be for 4 hours… I guess here’s another time where a lack of planning or research got the better of us. Oh well, I wasn’t going to wait here for 4 hours, and today was our only day in panama city, so we took some pictures, went to the gift shop and were back on our way to the old city.
We had the driver drop us off in Plaza de la Indepencia to start our wandering. And of course, I always want to check out the churches and the most notable one is Metropolitan Cathedral. The facade is a beautiful mix of contrasting styles, using old stone for the nave with 2 clean white towers alongside offer a unique style I’ve never seen before.
We wandered from here to Plaza Simón Bolívar and visited another church, Saint Francis of Assisi, which has a whole crazy history behind it. Originally built for the Franciscans in the 1700s, it was abandoned by them at some point and used as a hospital, government, and as a non-franciscan church. The 1904 constitution was signed here as well. Eventually, it fell into disrepair and had a mosquito infestation and a homeless encampment inside before the government restored it at the end of the 90s. What we saw was a lovely church with an arts fair inside and some fun walking around.
After leaving the church, we wandered along the city’s edge by the water until we arrived at Paseo Las Bovedas, which had a fun flower covered market and was a pleasant break in the sun. Normally I find these boring, but it was calm enough and full of actual handmade things (as well as the normal chachkis you’d expect to find) to make it a nice way to pass some time before lunch.
After a bite, we continued on to Iglesia la Merced. We didn’t really intend to go here as much as we stumbled past as we were beginning to look for beach supplies for the next day, but it turned out to be an interesting side quest. Built initially in 1680 and situated in the older part of the city it was moved piece by piece from the original site to the current location. Its remarkable for its Baroque stonework exterior, and though everything I read said it wasn’t matched by the interior - I found the wooden framework roof fantastic to see as well.
At this point we headed back to the hotel for a quick break before heading out to find supplies for the next day. We ended up going to El Machetazo, which was basically a type of walmart superstore with more chaos. I’m sure they are in a lot of places, but I have mostly encountered them in Mexico and Central America. These places are huge and have everything you could want with a somewhat hard to decipher organization to it. We bought groceries, pool inflatables, and medication to get ready for being on an island. We also entered the place from the sketchiest entrance possible (the main entrance would have made the whole experience less unnerving than entering in directly into the butcher and hat section), so it was an overall winning experience.
After a rooftop taco dinner at the hotel (surprisingly good, and surprisingly expensive), we were off to bed for an early morning start.