Most of this day was spent walking around Casco Viejo. It was an amazing place to walk around, for a variety of reasons. First of all, it has beautiful colonial architecture. After Panama Viejo, the original city (which we'll get to later) was sacked by privateers in 1671, the main part of the city was moved to what is now Casco Viejo. So, old buildings from the 1700s and 1800s line almost all of the streets, and there are three or four beautiful plazas. During the 1900s, for a variety of reasons, but perhaps property value and a need for expansion, most of the government agencies, big businesses, and foreign embassies moved out of Casco Viejo. It gradually fell into disrepair and was taken over by squatters. The French Embassy is now a landmark, as it was (according to the brochures) the only institution that never left the area. This has created the second reason why Casco Viejo was so interesting: gentrification and revitalization in process. I have never before seen an entire sector of a city in the process of revitalization. It's quite interesting. On one side of the street will be a trendy restaurant, a boutique clothing shop, and a high end hotel. On the other side of the street would be a gutted out building, with wires going every which way, rusted out corrugated tin sheets serving as the roof, and clothes drying off the crumbling balconies-these squatters hadn't given up yet. On the weekend, huge numbers of fancy cars would come crawling into this part of town, with Panama City's elite coming to enjoy the fancy restaurants and trendy bars. During the day a similar dichotomy was found, with tourists cruising the streets and stopping in the shops, and the squatters kids playing pick-up soccer on the street and their mothers screaming from one balcony to another. Needless to say, Elena, Katherine, and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves taking pictures of and gazing at the multitude of pretty facades.
Taking a taxi in a foreign country is always an adventure. To be fair, I've heard of random taxi zone rules in certain American cities also throwing passengers for a loop. When one really thinks about it, there's a lot of trust involved in taking a taxi to any location for the first time. Although highly unlikely, one has to assume the taxi is legitimate and not going to kidnap you and demand exorbitant payment to be taken back to safety. More reasonably, one has to trust that the driver knows where the desired location is and will take a generally direct route. Furthermore, one has to trust the meter is working correctly (yes, meter tampering is common in certain places, and the button is always pressed if a white tourist gets in the car) or if one has to negotiate the rate, one has to trust the taxi driver isn't scamming him (generally best to assume the driver is doing so, and go from there).
In Panama City, taxi rates are negotiated for every ride. For the locals, there is a base fare, and then depending on the zone of the destination a charge is added, as well as a charge for each additional passenger. Of course, even after having read what these charges were, Katherine, Elena, and I had absolutely no idea, no idea, what zone we were in, what zone we were going to, etc. So, we wanted to go to Panama Viejo, and stopped a taxi, asked him how much, he told us, it seemed high, so we tried to negotiate, he was unwilling, so he left. He seemed perturbed. So, the next taxi told us the exact same rate, so we hopped in. Turns out Panama Viejo was actually across about half the main part of the city.
(earning her project points)
It was well worth it. Panama Viejo was a blast. Founded in 1519, it was the site of the original city, the oldest Spanish colonial city on the Pacific, yes, a specific record, but one nonetheless. In 1671 it was sacked by the privateer Henry Morgan (yes, the same Captain Morgan that is now mixed with Mountain Dew (or Coke if you're lame) and inspiring all sorts of hijinks and bad decisions by young co-eds all across the U.S). The reasons are still a bit fishy, but the mayor of the town burned much of the outlying areas to either block Morgan's advance or eliminate the desire to pillage the ashy city. Furthermore, most of the gold and other valuables had already been pillaged by other pirates, so Morgan and his troops fought a battle, ruining what the fire hadn't. Then he left. Most of the town was moved to Casco Viejo, and the burned out ruins were used as building materials. Yet, ruins still exist, and, at least for me, walking among buildings and up stairs that were built in the 1500s is always a mystifying experience. What made the visit about 10 times better was a group of high school juniors who, for their English/Tourism class, had to videotape themselves giving information about the site to foreign visitors. They really lucked out with us, in my opinion, as we helped them with pronunciation and translation-not every day the tourists also have rockin' Spanish. They were a lot of fun, had pretty darn good English for their level (I found out later they went to a magnet school) and we were able to ask them about their hobbies, favorite foods, the best Panamanian food, and various other things. It was lots of fun. I was super glad they approached us and we said yes.
We had lunch this day at Cafe Coca-Cola, a popular and historic Panama City eatery, which had a great vibe, good, simple food and was very reasonably priced. A definite recommendation. I'd also highly recommend Los del Patio, where we had dinner. It had a really cool atmosphere, a limited menu (which I love!) and very, very good food. The portions were small, but it the prices were reasonable and the service was great considering they were understaffed. A very relaxing place to slowly enjoy a nice meal and beer Panama or two to top it off.
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