"Martinelli...más de lo mismo"

"Martinelli...más de lo mismo" (Martinelli...more of the same")
(Presidential election campaign begins with this kind of advert on television...and its early days...suspect this Martinelli character might not do so well.)

This place has definitely done something to me - I got up at 7.15am this morning (it's Saturday..) and went for a run. Must be altitude sickness..(jetlag?) Or latino coke.

The hotel I'm staying in is situated in an old American military compound (which, until the Americans withdrew in 1999, was inaccessible to Panamanians. The US had their own shops and supermarkets -stocked with US products, at lower, subsidised US prices. Nice...) Anyway, the resulting legacy is an incredibly posh neighbourhood akin to a leafy suburb like McClane in Washington, with enormous 3-storey houses, pickups, big scary dogs and a subway sangwich bar just down the road. There's a bizarre fragrance everywhere I've been also, really artificially sweet, like someone's spilled Grape Koolaid all over the city. Wonder if that was the Americans on their way out? Good news for JL though - I saw a cyclist this morning, a real one! Not one loaded with shopping, but in proper girly, clingy, lycra gear and everything!

Feeling proud after my run, I washed and changed, and took a taxi to Casco Viejo, one of the 'three' Panama cities. Panama viejo was built after some Welsh bastard Henry Morgan sacked and pillaged the 'original' Panama city (Panama vieja). Having visited Panama Vieja, and according to the good word of my trusted (though self-appointed) taxi/guide, it seems Panama Vieja was built in a terrbly clever strategic position allowing them to look out for enemy invaders from the Pacific. Slightly short-sighted of them though, since Morgan attacked form the Caribbean side, opening an achillle's heel in an otherwise watertight plan.. Morgan literally burnt the place to the ground (and was later knighted, though presumably not for that particular act..one would hope..) and all that's left now is a few ruins (though Taxi man insisted I visit them...he had to earn his living somehow...)

Parque de Bolivar - where Simon Bolivár schemed up his Gran Colombia idea.

Casco Viejo though is very pretty, although completely submerged by renovations. Lots of pretty, crumbling colonial buildings in a maze of streets (named only with Orwellian numbers... calle 1, calle 2, calle 3 ...)

I also risked life and limb snapshotting the Presidents house. As I twisted myself to try to get a long-zoom shot, a kindly guard proposed that I could sneak through the barricade to get a close up of the Presidents home in the middle of Casco Vieja - (which I did, thinking every step of the way, that he would be aiming his rifle at me and laughing - "stupid turista"....) Turns out he was just a kindly guard. Nice house though.

Martin Torrijos lives on the second floor. (Hope that's not classified information...) Just for info, he is the son of Omar Torrijos; a military man in a small republic whose civilian presidents had generally accommodated American wishes over the years, successfully negotiated new canal and defense treaties with the most powerful nation in the world.)

I then stopped in at the canal museum, and learnt a few things (not least that the staff there were bored to tears..). How Ferdinand de Fesseps (which I thought referred to the aches and pains in your bottom after squash..) completely miscalculated how to make the canal viable (the first attempt was to have a canal on levels, rather than with locks.) His subsequent bankruptcy and the corruption scandal surrounding his company and his son, pretty much killled him. Following that, the better job done by the North American canal project, (provided you don't think about the segregationist policies they adopted that placed white american workers on a dollar-based 'gold-payroll' while everyone else, antillais, european and others were entitled only to 'silver-roll' payment, in the form of the local currency. Thus being short-changed to say the least...if you'll excuse the pun...)

Still, at least some chap name Stevens and a doctor called Finlay put an end to the plague of yellow fever and malaria, (that had killed some 22,000 under Fessep's efforts) by introducing hygienic living conditions, and a separate aquaduct.

(Phew. And all that was in Spanish. Might be worth checking my version against Wikipedia... )

Plaza de la Indepedenciá

I then STUPIDLY missed one of the top rated restaurants in Panama (OUTSIDE the bloody Canal museum - STUPID!) and got a taxi to Panama vieja.

Now, charming though he was, Carlos (who'd clearly been sitting down for too long as his voice was as high pitched as the squawking pájaros in the trees..) made me speak to his (english-speaking) wife on the phone and then dragged me round the rubble of Panama vieja. (Note to self: Look up the Spanish for "look, you're very kind, but there's really no need..") I finally jilted him and threw myself into another shopping mall. (Note to self: Don't do that again. Was rather like voting for Martinelli...more of the same...)

Oh, though one thing did catch my eye. And it's not the horrible dress....Saw this monster in a shop window. (And I got some funny looks when I photographed her too, I can tell you...) I know Latinos are renowned for their curves, but really....!

Sigh, what a day. After sunning maself in the hotel garden (and yet managing not to get any sun on me ANYWHERE) I took yet another taxi (at another completely random price..seems they don't charge according to distance but rather their mood, and this guy had had a bad day..) and went to the Causeway de Amádor. Another American legacy, this was a stretch of land that linked four small islands to the mainland and a popular haunt for rollerbladers, cyclists, runners (one guy was so buff and beefy that he ended up running like a ballet dancer, like on tiptoes, as if he was worried about his muscles moving out of place..hilarious) and amourous adolescents. It was perty though,. with the Panama skyscaper skyline on one side, and the beautiful exotic looking islands on the other...(um..has anyone seen that fire though? Hello? Anyone? Will you please stop jogging/skating/snogging and pay attention - there's a bloody fire over there on Isla de Flamenco...) Sigh, too cool to care.

I raced across it like a bat out of hell on a crumby old mountain bike, watching the brown herons swoop and rise and swoop and rise (it's quite entrancing..) until my bike almost fell apart. I hobbled back to the shop with one hand clutching the brake, and the other trying to hold the mudguard from getting smashed in the wheel....quite an adventure. After this excursion, I had decided I would dine out, like a grown up in a restaurant. I got a fabulous view over the causeway, in a great little seafood place where I had seabass in creole sauce and warmed melon and carrots (all on the same plate....there is a striking lack of legumes over here, so I guess warming melon shouldn't be that shocking..it's close enough.) washed down with a bottle of Panamá cerveza. Smashing.