Panama

As one flies into Panama City, one is struck by the skyline. Far removed from other Latin American cities that i've seen, Panama's is littered with tall, densely packed skyscrapers more reminiscent of the larger coastal cities of Brazil. Floating offshore from this skyline is a huge armada of large ships, anchored and waiting sometimes up to a month for their turn to pass through the Panama Canal. From the air the scene gives off the impression of a world class metropolis. Indeed, it already ranks number 57 in the world based on the number of completed high rises and it seems like half the skyline is currently still under construction. On the ground the city is more mundane. The skyscrapers look shoddily constructed, and stand incredibly close to one another, sometimes so close that a resident of one building might be able to pass something by hand to a resident in a neighboring building.




A great number of these buildings are under construction.

I had the opportunity to go to Panama to do some work for a friend, taking pictures of an island that is the location of a soon to be built eco-resort. We stayed in an old historic area of the city that was half in ruins. Casco Viejo (also called San Felipe or Casco Antiguo) has been designated a Unesco World Heritage Site. At this point many buildings are mere shells with nothing beyond the outer facade, but a few residents remain in old decrepit structures. New reconstruction going on all over the neighborhood, with nice results on finished streets. The presidential palace is also in the neighborhood.






This old church tower was on the opposite of a public square from where i was staying, so i saw it a lot.


These clam shells were used on several old buildings and might have looked pretty neat in the sun when they still had their silver lining.


Much of Casco Viejo consists of colonial ruins, like these, which were literally the back half of our apartment building.




Some buildings are still lived in.

Walking around I was at first put off by the plentiful, machine gun toting police/soldiers that stand at every other corner, but after I saw the alternative, I began to appreciate their presence. Only a few blocks from the area where it’s safe to walk around is the most desperate urban slum I’ve ever personally seen. The people of El Chorrillo live in extreme poverty, and just driving through it was a surreal experience, especially at night when it was jam packed full of people. I sat next to a man on my return flight who told me the first time he had gone into that area, to take pictures, he had been choked into unconsciousness by muggers and was woken up by a guard, who admonished him for being in the area. I'd have to agree with the guard, it's not sensible to go there. During the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989, much of the Chorrillo neighborhood, which had been old wooden buildings from the 1900's burned to the ground and were eventually replaced with concrete buildings.

Pictures taken out the car window in El Chorrillo. Other images of El Chorillo can be found here.

Panama is going though a growth boom. As such, a lot of crazy stuff is happening. During one meeting I had to attend, a group of scumbag lawyers groveled for an hour in front of us, nervous and paranoid although dressed to the hilt in expensive Panamanian suits. One of the things they were worried about was that they suspected an old uneducated woman whom they had been stealing money from had been kidnapped by a rival lawyer. As the topics moved on another lawyer in the group mentioned how he had corrupt government contacts who could help us smuggle gold artifacts off of a valuable archaeological site. I couldn't believe what i was hearing. During this long conversation in a public square, an African man walked up and introduced himself as someone my associate knew. He boldly warned us not to trust the lawyers, who laughed nervously and looked side to side, literally. The African then went to another table where he produced a photographer who began to make a visual record of our meeting.

Eventually the lawyers left, and were immediately replaced by the African, accompanied by a Swiss man, who was supposedly acting as an interpreter for the African. Though he claimed not to be able to speak English well, the reactions of his face to our words spoke otherwise. Who and what this guy claimed to be is irrelevant. What he was in reality was a kind of Nigerian con artist who was pretty straightforward about threatening us with extortion. Eventually we walked away from the meeting through several streets and took a cab to the other side of the city, in order to meet more pleasant company and discuss what had happened.

This place had really good sorbet/ice cream. These were all flavors of tropical fruits.

My friend Ben had us on a tight schedule, so i was only in the city briefly for two evenings (never even going downtown), but one thing we did manage to do was to go to an old palace that had been bombed during the 1989 invasion. It sits on the coast and is battered by waves. We didn't know at the time that it was a major scene in the movie Quantum of Solace. In retrospect, that explains some of the strange things we noticed while looking around, especially the fact that it was remarkable clean on the upper floors. One staircase had weird foamy pads on each stair, something i thought was extremely weird and couldn't explain. It actually made walking up or down the stairs more difficult.




We were able to find a way in from underneath. We had to walk through a dark and0 stinky drug addict area to get up to the main floors.

Two months later i saw the movie (which wasn't very good) and was glued to the screen when i saw the scene using the palace. It's a scene outside at night with "party" lights all over the place and a kind of dance going on, if i remember correctly. They used the location really well, and all of a sudden everything made sense when i saw Bond or someone take a fall down those very stairs. Also, upstairs we were shocked at the extremely shoddy construction of some of the stone railing. At the time i was wondering if that's how palaces are built in a third world country. The movie explained that too, when i saw someones head get smashed into that railing, cracking it or something. In hindsight our confusion was funny.


The main patio, with the skate rail. Right behind both sides of me was the ocean with the distant skyline. A very cool location to skate.


The main floor was a major skating hangout. The kids had improvised some kind of skateboard vehicle with an old workbench.


This rail, and all the rails up here excepting the outside ones, were movie props. They looked great but were actually hollow wire mesh.

The building is very intriguing as you see it walking down the street but maybe looks a little intimidating because there are a bunch of "no good" (by definition) teenage skateboarders in side, totally unsupervised and very devoted to the task of being teenagers. Additionally, there is no way to get in from the front, except by going down to a small beach, standing on top of an upright board and hoisting yourself up into a dark opening in the wall. Although i saw plenty of "no-good" teenagers popping out of that hole, Ben claimed it was physically impossible to go the opposite direction, so we had to find another way. Walking around to the back side we found a large, much easier opening underneath by the waves. That lower area is no place to hang out, unless you like heroin, and for-real no-gooders. One guy that looked like drug addicted former pirate wanted to know what we were doing in his house. He spoke english and sounded American. Maybe a leftover from the invasion. Maybe he was the guy who bombed it originally, so he felt it was "his" house.

Upstairs though, were lots of children and teenagers having fun. That's right, first floor: darkness and drug addicts, second floor: children and entertainment. Somehow someone had put in a skate rail, and the older kids were making good use of it. If i could have spoken to them conditions were right to get a cool picture of one of them flying through the air in a dramatic pose over the the ocean and the skyline in the background. Could have been a very cool looking skater shot but they looked like they would have preferred that we not be there at all, which seemed like a natural reaction to me. The children though, were excited to have some weird looking people stop by. They started showing off their improvised skateboard vehicle they had engineered. A few of them followed us around as we explored the upper levels.


These two kids in particular were pretty excited about us being there and started following us around. We couldn't talk to each other but when i showed them what their picture looked like they were thrilled and began to strike poses.

I didn't actually get to do much in Panama City. It may seem like a vacation, but we had actual work to do, and our busy schedule allowed for only two evenings in the city. Unfortunately i never even had the time to go look downtown where all those high rises were. I did however, drink the best mojito i've ever had, with real sugarcane.




Really a nice view upstairs before it was bombed.