Day one went to ecological museum, art deco very cool, Scotland joined UK as derian attempt failed. Saw Panama canal, went for a fancy evening meal got free champagne and desert for sitting on the road.
Day two very long walking tour, poor people live there they have water and light. Went to the molar museum very interesting
Got to fate at airport and there was a whole dance as it seemed to be a brand new route to Europe, plane was delayed for an hour.
Please stay seated until we meet our fucking position.
Panama City was our last stop in Central America, we had two days here before we flew home. On our first day we decided to go to the famous ecological museum we had heard it was really interesting giving information about the ecology of the whole of Centeral America.
It was a really cool museum, the building itself was art deco and very interesting to look at built by a famous architect Frank Gehry. The content of the museum was also really fascinating it was one of the best museums we went to, it detailed the history of the formation of the land bridge between north and south America which we now call central America, with displays about the different types of rock formations. Which I can’t say me or Grace were super interested in but we did have a fun time jumping in front of a seismic activity/ Richter measurement device. Somehow tiny grace seemed to make bigger waves than me. More interestingly we found out about how each area looked before the connection and what the bridge allowing movement between the two areas meant for the different species that had evolved there.
For example they believe giant sloths from South America (who I can confirm really live up to their name after seeing a lifesize model!) Were driven to extinction by sabour tooth tigers from the north and that the south had its own sabour tooth tiger of sorts that had evolved independently, however it had a pouch for young like a kangaroo. We also learnt about lots of cool species of Central America still alive today including some frogs that live their whole lives above ground in trees, they don’t even return down to lay eggs, instead laying eggs in pools of water caught in leaves of trees. We also saw a jaw of an extinct Megladon shark, which could have swalloed me whole while standing up with no issue!
The museum also had a section on human history in Central America detailing the native people and their way of life, the conquest by European invaders, including the Scottish who put a substantial about of money into trying to conquer and control the Daren area of Panama, now know as the ‘Daren gap’, they were unsuccessful and te endeavour almost bankrupt Scotland leading to them agreeing to join the UK. It also had a section about the building of the famous Panama Canal. How the French had tried to build the canal originally, but had tried to make it all at sea level and had gone bankrupt, selling the rights and equipment to the US who completed the project using locks. It also detailed how Panama came to eventually own the canal itself.
So after spending most of the day in that very interesting museum we headed outside to see the one thing we couldn’t leave Panama without seeing. The Panama Canal itself! The official museum for the canal was still closed after Covid but the ecological museum was right next to part of the canal and we had a beautiful view of the bridge of the Americas crossing the canal. We sat in the shade for a while watching some ships sail along it before eventually heading back to our hostel.
As it would be our last evening meal before heading home tomorrow evening we decided to dress up and go somewhere fancy, or at least get as dressed up as you can be while living out of a backpack! We had booked a fancy restaurant for 7:30pm but decided to go to a bar overlooking the city for sunset beforehand. It was a very pretty bar and we drank cocktails and talked about our trip highs and lows while the sun set. After finishing our third round of drinks we decided to walk to the restaurant while we could still walk! We ended up arriving 15 minutes before our booking and the hostess apologised profusely. I’m not sure why she felt it was her fault we couldn’t keep time but she seemed very relieved when we didn’t shout at her and told her it was fine and we would wait outside.
There didn’t seem much point in heading anywhere else for the sake of 10/15 minutes so we walked around the side of the building and sat on a curb to wait, this sounds worse than it was as the curbs here are several feet high, so it’s basically like sitting on a bumb high wall. While we were sat there, some police on bikes came and in broken English made us promise not to go any further down the road as we ‘looked too expensive for the area’ and may attract trouble. Turns out we do scrub up well after all!
The restaurant hostess had come to check on some of the alfresco diners along the side of the restaurant on the road we were waiting on and seemed absolutely mortified by the fact that we had been ‘reduced to waiting by the curb and had been harnessed by the police’ in her words. She again smothered us in unnecessary apologies before bringing us to a table and providing us with free glasses of champagne. I can only imagine what sort of people she has to deal with daily as again she was visibly relieved that we weren’t shouting at her or going to complain to the restaurant. So relieved in fact that she gave us free champagne all evening and a free desert too! It was a delicious meal (even the parts we had to pay for) and very fancy which was a first on this trip! But even eating in the fanciest restaurant and leaving a 25% tip, how could we not for the wonderful hostess, the meal came to £25 each! We kinda wish we had gone fancier earlier now…
Our flight the following day wasn’t until 6pm in the evening so we still had some time to explore until then. We decided to do a free walking tour of the town. The tour was pretty awful but as there were only two other people so we couldn’t sneek off and leave. Instead we were dragged around the town and taken into churches where the ‘guide’ and I use that term very loosely ready information to us from information plaques mounted on walls that we could already read for ourselves and didn’t really provide any insight of his own. Except for one point in a church he pointed to the floor and said ‘come look, dead people’ to alert us to a sign about catacombs in a church and another time when we asked his thoughts on the gentrification of the city forcing poorer locals out, as there were signs protesting about it, and he pointed across to a far off block of flats and said ‘we put poor people there, we give them daylight and water what more do they need’. Which is a line I now use on Grace whenever she complains about anything.
Although the tour guide didn’t really give us any meaningful local insight, some of the places he took us were at least a little interesting we saw 6 or 7 churches all with huge nativity scenes that took up a whole room which was pretty cool, although less so after the 4th one you’ve seen… We also saw some weird modern tech in some of these churches including LED prayer candles and a electronic holy water dispenser which felt very strange to see.
After we had given our tip for the tour we decided to do our own exploring and came across a weekend craft market which was cool we saw some Guna people selling their handmade fabrics known as molars alongside some more contemporary crafts. Grace decided to buy a glass necklace pendant of a sloth and the seller showed us how he made them himself by hand. He then made us two smaller matching sloths on string bracelets that he gave us for free.
After a late lunch we decided to check out a museum about the indigenous Guna people and the molars they make. The museum was free but really interesting especially after our visit to a Guna community in the San Blas Islands. The museum explained their traditional molars used in clothing and what different patterns and symbols meant, spirals to trap evil spirits, zigzag patterns to harm and ward off bad omens etc. Beads on their arms and legs to protect them, a line drawn down the nose to eccentricate a long thin nose which is the height of beauty to the Guna. It was really interesting to see how such a traditional unchanged art had been passed down for hundreds of years, it was especially cool to see the traditional methods used to capture things in modern day life such as mother’s making their children traditional shirts but with Spider-Man on the front made in the traditional way. Very surreal and an interesting way to end our day and our time in central America.
After collecting our bags we headed to the airport, but there was one last suprise in store for us, (well two if you could a bottle of water costing $10 USD in the departure lounge!) We had picked a Lufthansa flight home that had a stop over in Germany rather than the standard stop in the US most flights do, as we wanted to avoid having to apply for a visa waiver and getting a PCR test.
What we didn’t realize was that our flight would be the first direct flight from Panama to Europe that airport had offered so at our gate we got to watch an opening ceremony that involved traditional dancing and a live band. So a good send off for us!
But don’t worry it wasn’t too sad flying home, we got to see our family and friends for the first time in three months! And besides,y we were only home 8 days before heading off to Asia! But that is another adventure for another post!
Can’t wait to tell you all about it soon! Love, Alice x
P.s. we had a German Piolet with a strong accent and when after landing he tried to say ‘stay in your seats until we reach the final position’ it came out as ‘stay in your seats until we reach the fucking position’ which amused us no end as we initially thought he was just having a bad day and was sick of people getting up to early ?