January - February 2014

Our entry into Panama was a memorable one, mostly for the fact that the border crossing from Costa Rica involved walking over a very old and rickety railway bridge into Panama, and then with time on our hands while waiting in the customs queue, we also realised that Panama was to be our 21st country visited on this trip - happy 21st country to us!

Our first port-of-call in Panama was the Bocas del Toro archipelago, and specifically Isla Colon, the provincial capital of this cluster of islands. Colon seemed like a bigger and more developed version of Puerto Viejo in Costa Rica, with the same colourful clapboard houses, and equally ramshackle - as if a tornado had just swept through. Half the town looked like it was about to fall down, and the other half looking like it had just been built, with lots of construction work going on and every other shop a hardware store. There was a similar mix of retired Americans and 'Spring Break' crowd, mixed in with the locals, plus a few other odds and sods (sea dogs and ex-US servicemen spending their double pensions in the local bars where its happy hour all-day long). When the sun came out the town's colourful buildings and scenery really came to life, and we spent a couple of days there pottering around. One afternoon we explored the coast by means of a comedy 2-person bike - not a tandem but more like a cycling pedalo / golf buggy hybrid, giving a ride to some very cute local kids along the way.

After Colon we moved on to another island, Isla Bastimentos, passing Isla Carenero on the short boat ride there. The latter island takes its name from the word 'careening' - nautical speak for leaning a ship on one side for maintenance. They say that Christopher Columbus docked his fleet here in October 1502, for 'careening', while recovering from stomach ache…or maybe he just wanted to chill out in a lovely setting too.

Bastimentos had a very different feel to Colon - the island has no roads or cars, just one small paved path running through the coastal village of Old Bank, a historic West Indian town and the main settlement on the island. The waterfront is dotted with clapboard hostels and eateries, mostly on stilts over the water, and the paved path separates these from the huge swathe of jungle which occupies most of the island. As we neared the dock, we spotted our guesthouse and were happy to see that it had some very inviting-looking hammocks on its deck over the sea, so the next few days were spent getting stuck into some serious hammock-lazing, and exploring the island.

Old Bank was much more basic than Colon, with a more pronounced Caribbean vibe, and a lot poorer too. It had its own rustic charm, and some beautiful views, but with huge amounts of rubbish everywhere and houses that looked even more on the verge of collapse than those on Colon. The locals all speak Guari-Guari, a Spanish-English Creole language which we couldn't always understand but which sounded wonderful anyway with its strong Caribbean lilt. When we weren't being lazy b*****s and lying in hammocks all day, we explored the northern side of the island and its stunning beaches, which we reached after a rather arduous and muddy trek through the jungle (or you can take a water-taxi, but we had decided we needed to do some sort of activity to combat all this loafing!). At times the path was so muddy (the dense jungle often doesn't let any sunlight through) that it was just easier to walk without flip flops, meaning our feet and legs received the sort of mud wrap treatment you might pay for in a spa. Our efforts were rewarded though by the very beautiful Wizard and Red Frog beaches (the latter home to strawberry-coloured, poison-dart frogs), and the former particularly stunning due to the lack of people, and the many fallen trees giving it a striking beauty.

We left Bocas del Toro on a rum-fuelled hangover, thanks to an impromptu invitation to everyone in our guesthouse the night before, to the birthday party of an American resident on the island…free booze will always be dangerous and I guess we still haven't learnt that drinking before having to travel all day the next day is just not fun! Still, the mountain town of Boquete was the ideal place to clear the cobwebs and compensate for the lazy last few days, as we spent a couple of days trekking the area's beautiful trails. The town of Boquete isn't that pretty itself but its lovely surroundings are the main draw, attracting tourists and American retirees alike due to its cool, fresh climate and pristine natural setting…certainly a change from the heat and ramshackle environment we had started to get used to. It was an idyllic place to feel smugly healthy - fresh mountain air and invigorating treks through the hills, passing coffee plantations and farms, gardens and virgin forest, even reaching some damp cloud forest again. One of the trails we walked was the Sendero Los Quetzales - the Quetzal Trail - which is known to be one of the most beautiful trails in Panama, and is famous for being the home of the Quetzal bird (a sacred bird to the Guatemalan Mayans) - but unfortunately we didn't see it. It was a beautiful hike though, passing streams and massive trees, and the only noise we could hear was ourselves, birds and the sound of running water - wonderfully peaceful.

From Boquete we headed to Panama City, where we were very kindly put up by family friends David and Margarita, at their home in Clayton - a residential district which used to be US territory when the US owned and operated the canal. We spent four days there, and it was wonderful seeing old friends as well as being in someone's home again. It had only been three weeks since we had left Guatemala but the home comforts (comfy beds, excellent food and wine) were so welcome. Maybe we were just getting soft at this stage of the trip?

Panama City is the most cosmopolitan capital, as well as the wealthiest city, in Central America (mostly thanks to the money the canal brings in) with a towering skyline which would look just as at home in Miami in the 1980s. We spent some time exploring the Casco Viejo (Old Compound), the rocky peninsula where the city was established after the original (much older) part, Panama Viejo, was ransacked and destroyed by Welsh pirate Henry Morgan, in the 1670s. In 1904, when building of the canal started, all of Panama City existed where Casco Viejo stands today, and the area is now undergoing huge amounts of work to restore the faded beauty of the Spanish colonial buildings and churches. As a result this part of town is half crumbling / half beautiful…consisting of some beautifully restored buildings as well as some which look like they are about to fall down if you sneezed on them. Its full of interesting buildings and sights with accompanying historical significance: the Plaza de Francia which pays homage to the French role in the construction of the canal and commemorates the memory of the 22,000 workers who died trying to build the canal; the Plaza de la Independencia where Panama declared its independence from Colombia in 1903; the Iglesia de San José, which now houses the famous Altar de Oro (golden altar) - legend dictates that the altar was painted black by a cunning priest to hide its beauty from Henry Morgan, ensuring its survival during the pirate's ransacking, and then moved to its present site.

And of course no visit to Panama City is complete without a visit to the canal, which we did by means of a very leisurely lunch at the restaurant overlooking the Miraflores locks with David and Margarita. Watching boats pass through the famous canal was probably the highlight of the city for Simon (that will be the construction geek in him) and I have to agree there was something curiously interesting about the whole process, watching cargo ships and a massive cruise liner being helped along through a gap which barely looked wide enough, by these tiny (in comparison) locomotive engines. Funnily enough the passengers and crew on the cargo ship and cruise liner seemed equally interested and happy to see us (maybe days at sea does that?) so it was a funny sight, us on the restaurant terrace taking pictures of people taking pictures back at us, everyone waving while doing so. The canal is a huge money-spinner for Panama…what with around 13,000 vessels passing through each year, at an average fee of around $30,000, and estimates that in 2010 the canal brought in $2billion in revenue, it is easy to see why expansion plans are well underway.

Continuing the theme of meeting up with family members in Central America, we also spent a great evening with my Argentine cousin Fiona who was spending a few months living and working in Panama City. We sunk a few drinks at a gorgeous rooftop bar in the Casco Viejo, and balanced that out with an evening walk along the city promenade, getting a worm's eye view of Panama's skyline.

I think Panama was our second favourite country in Central America, after Guatemala -having been to Guatemala so often but not having explored much else of Central America, it was really interesting to see how the other countries compared, and while I appreciate I am biased towards my country of birth, Simon also thought that Guatemala had the most to offer, with its vibrant indigenous population and the gentleness and friendliness of its people really making it stand out. Saying that, we didn't spend nearly as much time in the others, and admittedly we probably preferred Panama out of the others because we spent more time there. And while Panamanians themselves can be quite dour and not always the smiliest of people, their country certainly has a lot more to offer than we first thought, certainly more beyond the typical association to just the canal and the famous hats…after all everyone knows thatPanama hats are actually made in Ecuador, right?