Wednesday 1 February – City tour and Prepping!

Widge, Edmund and I got up promptly to join the City tour the ARC had organised. Sadly there were too many boat issues to be resolved for Rowan to join us. We were greeted by Clemente, our guide who took us to the Embera village. He provided us with a local breakfast which I couldn’t face that early, a lot of deep fried treats but were tasty apparently. We hopped onto our bus, rather nice to be sitting in air con for a change and not dripping sweat.

Clemente gave us a very thorough history of Panama and it’s history with the canal which I will try and repeat …………..

In May 1904 the US purchased all the canal property from France who had tried and failed to build the canal in 1880. The US paid $40 million to France and $10 to Panama for control of the canal. Roosevelt appointed George Goethals who had a military background, as chief engineer. He saw the project through under budget at a cost of $375 million and completed early in 1913, the two oceans finally met. The canal is 50 miles long and during its construction 25,600 workers died, mainly due to malaria and yellow fever. The French had brought in workers mainly from Jamaica and the US brought in workers from Barbados which is when Clemente’s family moved over to live here. The canal lifts boats 26m through locks at either end to an artificially created Gatun lake. 52 million gallons of water are used for each transit through the canal. All the water comes from the Chagres river. Initially the canal was only open to merchant traffic but as the war progressed it became strategic for warships. Today only unarmed warships and submarines are allowed through, and from any country as long as they pay up!

In 1962 Kennedy started negotiations with Panama as a result of continued unrest in Panama, people were growing more resistant to American control of the canal and the increase of the US military presence in the canal zone, which had been fenced in. Clemente can remember sneaking into the zone area and being chased out by the US canal police. He described it as a real apartheid, with salaries three times inside the zone than outside. We drove through the canal zone which has the remnants of huge US military bases and the suburb of Clayton with lovely old homes for US military officials. The suburb of Albrook where we shopped yesterday was in the zone where the US airforce was based. Tensions continued until riots started in 1964 when 4 school kids were killed for trying to fly a Panamanian flag at their school in the Canal zone. Rioting spread and in the end 26 Panamanians were killed and became known as Martyr’s Day.

In September 1977, a treaty was signed between Jimmy Carter and Torrijos the current leader of Panama. This granted Panamanians free control of the canal so long as Panama signed a treaty guaranteeing the permanent neutrality of the canal. The treaty led to full Panamanian control effective at noon on December 31, 1999. In the meantime the US pulled their military out of the area.

During that time the devastating history of Noriega takes over. Noriega collaborated with the CIA from the 1950s onwards as he was a well known arms dealer in South America and had valuable information. Basically the Cold War meant that the US wanted Torrijos out when he began seeking financial support from Cuba and Russia. The Americans helped install Noriega in power, as their puppet in 1983 (not official history of course!). Noriega became a fearsome military dictator heavily involved in the drug trade of South America. Hundreds of Panamanian soldiers and civilians died during Noriega’s years in power. In 1989 the US invaded and captured Noriega by blasting him out with loud music from the embassy where he was holed up in Panama City. The Panamanian military forces were disbanded and Noriega was arrested and sent to prison in the US. He served half of his 30 year sentence in the US and then was extradited to France where he was sentenced for another 8 years for money laundering. He was finally returned to prison in Panama City in 2011 and died aged 83 in 2017.

Clemente showing us graffiti commemorating the people who died in the riots

The American crack down on violence in the canal zone

The school kids wanting to fly the Panamanian flag in the canal zone

Clemente then took us for a great walk up one of the hills in the middle of the city. It was a good steep climb through thick forest, we were rewarded with great views. There are many hills or blips of land in the city but all seem to be kept under armed guard. Widge and Edmund had tried to walk up the ones near us yesterday but were apprehended by guards.

View back to the marina

View of the city skyline, it could compete with New York!

Looking out over the old town, they built a ring road out into the sea to reduce traffic in the old streets

Looking across to the harbour in the canal

A different view of the skyline

Crossing the Centennial Bridge looking down into the canal

Widge and Edmund outside the enormous Ministry of Canal Works

We then headed into the old town and had a wander around the very attractively restored streets. Widge got the bargain of the day buying a molas from a Guna Yala lady for $5! It was faded by the sun, but is delightful and so intricate, it must have taken hours to do.

The old town

Some ruined churches

The Guna Yala ladies selling their goods

Beach in the old town

A french memorial with their usual cockerel on the top

Many people left the tour here, one other family and ourselves opted to be dropped off at the mega super market to continue our provisioning shop. What a mistake, we got stuck in terrible traffic for about 40 minutes which turned out to be a jumper on a flyover bridge. Widge and I did another enormous shop while Edmund returned to the marina, the only person left on the bus.

We stocked up with 36 bottles of wine, 12 bottles rum, 60 rolls of toilet paper and loads more! We piled into a taxi and hit 5pm rush hour, and got stuck for well over an hour in traffic, taking us nearly 2 hours to get home. We were pretty pooped by the time we got everything on to the boat and unpacked. We went to a Lebanese restaurant nearby called Beirut and had some good sharing plates with delicious puffed up flat breads.