In Panama

Ah, back on the road again. I’ve just arrived in Panama to start a six week tour of the country - with a bit of Costa Rica thrown in, if I get round to it. 

The first days of this trip we have spent in the capital, Panama City. As the sharp-eyed reader will notice, I use the term we. What, you might say, has become of the hardened solo traveller Kati? Well, she’s still around somewhere and will come out along the line even on this trip. However, I’m starting off this journey with my mate Uupi, another seasoned globetrotter and all round good gal.

Our taxi driver to the hotel was incredulous and affronted when we hold him it is usually around -5C back home in Helsinki at this time of year. Further information about the fact that Northern Finland would have temperatures of -25 or -30C failed to impress him: I think that amount of cold just went beyond his comprehension. So as he drove us along he kept saying ”minus five - you can’t live there. Minus five, who on earth could live there!”

Well, the answer to that is, obviously, Finns. But I have to say the climate here has been as welcoming as the people! This is not the scorching heat of South-East Asia, but more like the hottest days of Finnish summer: 24-30 degrees.

And nature has not only colour, but an odour! The smell of earth, leaves, flowers, wonderfully ripe pineapples in street stalls... 

One of many the things I miss in Finnish winter are smells - since snow and frozen bits of nature don’t really have one.

So Uupi and I have spent the last two days exploring bits of the capital city. There is the relatively pictoresque old colonial town, Casco Viejo, on a peninsula just west of the new centre. 

The old town is on the Unesco World heritage list. At least it used to be. I heard rumours that it was now on the list of endangered heritage sites. There used to be a wonderful, nearly 360 degree sea view from there. But a couple of years ago the powers that be decided to build an elevated causeway in the sea, which circles the whole Casco Viejo peninsula. So now the old town offers a 360 degree view of a motorway. 

However Casco Viejo still seems a favourite place to arrange photo shoots. And photo shoots seem to be greatly in vogue. Be it graduation photos 

or sweet memories for the family album of lovely young couples, 

these photo sessions were very professionally organized. Business must be brisk for local photographers.

Apart from the photo shoots, hipster cafes and Helsinki-priced restaurants, there wasn’t really any life or soul in the streets of Casco Viejo. But when we wandered further afield, the moment the pretty colonial buildings ceased and the shopping streets began, to our relief we found the real Panama - and street life in all its technicoloured beauty.

On this, the second day in town, we took a gentle stroll (just over 18km) along a thin road leading to three islands just off the entrance of the Panama Canal. And indeed this route offered us good views of the first bridge crossing the Panama canal, 

the rather unprepossessing new highrise centre of Panama City, 

as well as of Frank Gehry’s weird Biomuseum - not quite as successful an example of his wow-architecture as the Bilbao Guggenheim.

 

Tomorrow we leave the capital and head for the hills around el Valle de Anton. The next few days will be dedicated to hiking in the jungle. I’ll try to stay on track.