Colón
is not the greatest place we have ever been. In fact, it's a pit. The
anchorage is not as foul as that in Chaguaramas, Trinidad (my
absolute least favorite) but it's equally as rolly, and the
surrounding slum -- er, neighborhood -- ranges from depressing to
downright scary. The only reasons to stay here are to buy supplies,
and to use the easily-available transportation to get somewhere
else.
After our trip through the Panama Canal on Namirda, Britt and I got a taxi to a hotel and spent the night there in Panama City. (Air conditioning! The Perfect Storm on HBO! A bed that doesn't roll from side to side!) The next morning, after a late breakfast, we took a taxi first to a bookstore, where we bought the definitive history of the creation of the Panama Canal, The Path Between The Seas by David McCullough, and then on to the Pedro Miguel Boat Club.
Pedro Miguel is a funky run-down little yacht club and boatyard right next to the Pedro Miguel locks, most of the way to the Pacific side of the canal. Boats can stop there mid-transit if they arrange a slip in advance, and many stay there for months. Our friends on Hallelujah have been there for nearly two months, putting their boat back together after their dismasting in January. It was great seeing Kim and Mike again; they showed us their photos taken the day after, and it's amazing how much work they have accomplished since then. They still have no masts -- a new pair, plus rigging, is being shipped from England and should arrive in a few weeks -- but Mike has welded together new stainless-steel rails, and is working on constructing a new hard dodger. After examining the patterns of damage to their boat, they no longer believe that they were rolled completely over. They think that instead they were lifted by a wave and thrown upside down, then rolled back up on the same side. Their maximum GPS speed reading was over 25 knots! They also spoke frankly about the depression and discouragement that set in, despite their attempts to present a brave and cheery face to the world. But with the support of their friends, and most especially of each other, they are now back on track, working hard, and excited about continuing their cruise. They hope to be underway in time to make the South Pacific cruising season this summer.
After visiting with a few other friends at Pedro Miguel, we hopped a bus for Colón and returned to the boat. We had really wanted to visit the Interoceanic Canal Museum, but it is closed on Mondays, so later that week we returned to Panama City. This time, we took the train.
The Panama Railroad became the first transcontinental railway when it was completed in 1855 -- of course, a "transcontinental" line is a lot easier to make when you've only got 50 miles to cross. The California Gold Rush brought the new railway lots of business; eventually it was sold to first the French, and then the Americans, in conjunction with the efforts to build the Panama Canal, and it eventually passed to Panama in 1979 under the terms of the Panama Canal treaty. Now it's a private venture, completely rebuilt, with elegantly refurbished passenger coaches which transport well-heeled commuters and the occasional tourist. The passenger trade is just a sideline, though. The real business of the railway is freight, moving containers between the Atlantic and the Pacific in less time and at lower cost than a canal passage. At least, that's the plan; at the moment, the railway has the capacity to handle only a fraction of what moves through the canal.
The train runs more or less alongside the canal, and it's billed as a scenic route. It would be a bit more scenic if the jungle alongside the tracks was cut back, so passengers could actually see the canal. But the portion of the route running across narrow artificial causeways in Lake Gatun is indeed spectacular, and the ambiance of the train is pleasant, much nicer than the bus which takes half an hour longer and costs a tenth as much. (Actually, at $20 a one-way train ride is a bargain. When the railway first opened in 1855, the fare was $25; that was probably mile for mile the priciest way to travel in the world!)
Darien, who works at the train station in Panama City, recommended a hotel, called a cab for us, and then hitched a ride (remarkable how he just "happens" to live near the hotel he recommended!). His English was excellent, and we chatted with him about his job and the general situation in Panama. Like all of the other working-class Panamanians we've spoken with, his personal economic situation has gotten worse since the Americans left. "I used to work for the Americans, $7.50 an hour. Now I get $2 an hour. Had to take my kids out of private school. My friend here," he said, indicating the taxi driver, "he also gets less money. Taxis used to be more expensive when the Americans were here." Taxis are certainly cheap in Panama, with in-town rides costing $1 or $2. "I tell you what, next election, if a guy says he gonna get the Americans back, he gets my vote. I tell you what, he gonna win."
Yup, in contrast to all the "Yankee go home" protests that originally drove the treaty renegotiation during Jimmy Carter's presidency, the prevailing sentiment seems to be "Yankee come back!" The artificially inflated standard of living that the American pay scale enabled is gone, as is the upper-stratum American enclave of military and canal workers which bought goods and services from Panamanian businesses. There has been a huge loss of jobs, and unemployment rates are high. The gap between the haves and have-nots is huge.
There is a very clear class system in Panama, and skin color is a big part of it. Most of the taxi and bus drivers, and all of the loitering bums in the mean streets of Colón, are African-heritage black, descended from the mostly Jamaican laborers brought in to work on the railway and canal. The business owners and the professionals, the people we saw commuting by train to and from the Free Zone (a city-within-a-city where wholesalers and distributors buy and sell imported goods from all over the world, tax-free), all have much lighter skin. Most speak English fluently. They probably don't miss the Americans. There is also a large oriental population; we ate dinner in a Korean restaurant and were the only non-Asians in the room the whole time. (It seems strange to me to hear Panama-born Asians speaking Spanish, but of course the United States isn't the only country with immigrants!) Unlike some other countries we have been in, it seems that the various racial groups do not mix as much. There are more extremes and fewer blends, which may be why (according to Britt) the women are less attractive than in countries where it seems that the women partake of the best of all the races. But of course it may just be the particular population we've been exposed to. (And we both also think that Panamanian men are generally quite goodlooking, so our theories may need some work.)
We
met an interesting unemployed black man in Casco Viejo, the old,
walled part of Panama City. (Not to be confused with Old Panama City,
the original site which was abandoned in 1671 after a thorough
sacking by the pirate Henry Morgan.) Jacques called out to us as we
walked, warning us that we were heading into a dangerous part of
town, and urged us down a different street. "Down that street are
drug addicts and criminals. Madam, Monsieur, you do not want to go
that way." We were a little wary at first, thinking this
was at best another hustler and at worst a ploy to get us into an
ambush, but soon we were clearly in a somewhat nicer neighborhood. He
politely offered to leave us alone, but we fell into talking with him
and he made an interesting tour guide. He pointed out various
historic buildings, most falling into ruin, and showed us the White
House -- the residence of the Panamanian president, Mireya Moscosa.
(We had seen a picture of her in the Canal Museum, shaking hands with
former US President Jimmy Carter during the official Panama Canal
handover on December 31, 1999.) Señora Presidenta keeps
unusual pets; several huge blue stork-like birds strolled around the
enclosed plaza behind the front gates, and when the guards saw us
gawking, they invited us over for a closer look.
The guards all seemed to know Jacques, and another tourist couple waved at him as we walked by -- Jacques told us he'd helped them out when their passports were stolen. He wasn't really a tourist guide, though: he was a Haitian refugee, one of a boatload picked up by the US Navy and held in Guantanamo for four years. A deal was struck, and the refugees, seventy-five of them, were given entry to Panama two months ago. But part of the deal, Jacques said, was that they would not get their papers for six months, which meant that they could not legally work for six months. Which meant they were living in a church basement, dependent on donations and what they could scrounge. He had a job lined up, though, as cook in a fancy restaurant, "Las Bovedas" (The Dungeons), in the fortifications of the old city wall. He used to be a cook, he explained, and before that he was in the army.
Jacques
was a handsome man, tall and well-spoken, fluent in English ("I
learned to speak your language, Madam, in Guantanamo"), Spanish, and
German, besides his native French and African creole. He seemed
intensely interested in the fledgling tourist industry in Panama
City, almost passionate about the plans and ideas that various
investors and companies have for the old city. Like Old San Juan in
Puerto Rico, it's a mix of the restored and the decrepit, but the
Casco Viejo has not yet come as far along the path of gentrification
and touristification. Jacques told us that in the evening the police
come out in force, so that the tourists can have dinner in an outside
cafe and stroll around the cobblestone streets unmolested. He was
pro-American (at least, to us!) and opined that the police ought to
have English-speaking officers available to help non-Spanish speaking
tourists (who, even if they are not native English speakers, are
likely to speak English). In our opinion, he'd be an asset to any
tourist organization! At the conclusion of our walk, he waved over a
taxi for us, and we gave him a few dollars and thanked him for the
interesting time.
The taxi took us to the bus station, where we boarded the express bus to take us back to icky old Colón. Just think, in less than two weeks we have crossed the continent four times!