August 5, 2007

Just after lunch we drove across the Bridge of the Americas.

The bridge spans the Pacific Ocean entrance to the Panama Canal and serves as the main feed-in route to Panama City.

While it wasn't our farthest point south on the trip - that would come a few days later while chasing a turtle - it psychologically marked the end of the road for us.

Six and half months after leaving home we had finally reached our destination!

The real end of the road - the Darien Gap - is about 230 kilometres east of Panama City.

It is a 160 kilometre stretch of hostile territory between Panama and Columbia where the Inter-American Highway has never been completed. According to Wikipedia, "Road building through this area is expensive, and the environmental toll is steep. Political consensus in favor for road construction has not emerged.".

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We spent four days in Panama City at the decent Hotel Costa Azul, located on Calle Bella Vista, just off Avenida Central.

It has hot water, secure underground parking, and a cheap but tasty mini cafeteria, and there is laundry mat half a block away.

We did the things that tourists do in Panama City: shopping, biking on the Amador Causeway , shopping, walking around the historic San Felipe district, and shopping.

Given the size constraints of our fully loaded VW van, shopping has not been high our list of things to do this trip but the bargains in Panama City - particularly on clothing items - were truly out of this world. And Albrook Mall, a massive and modern mall a 10-minute drive from downtown, is at the centre of it all.

We had read in a few books - including John and Harriet Halkyard's 99 Days to Panama - that the best way to see the entire Panama Canal was to volunteer to be linehandlers on private boats that were traversing the Canal.

But it turns out that securing this unpaid work isn´t as easy as one may think, at least not for two inexperienced Canadians, despite the schmoozing we did at yacht clubs and the posters we put up.

In our conversations with other travelers on the way down, Panama City had been built up to be the New York or London of Central America. And it is to a large degree. But it is also is a city full of contrasts, particularly that between the rich and poor, the modern and the decrepit.

For example, the El Chorillo and Punta Patilla neighbourhoods are probably only five kilometres apart, visible to each other across the Panama Bay. But they could be on different planets.

El Chorillo is a dangerous and decaying urban ghetto that took the brunt of the bombing when the US illegally invaded Panama in 1989 (some 15,000 people were left homeless), while Punta Patillo is full of glass and steel skyscrapers and could easily be mistaken for Vancouver's False Creek.

Key Facts & Figures:

-Hotel Costa Azul: $22/night
-Panama Canal Museum: $2/person