On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
way2blue
After Isla Bastimentos, we made our way back to our rental car left behind in Almirante and drove to Panama City. We dropped the car off at the airport and took a taxi to Casco Viejo, the older colonial part of Panamá City. Founded in 1673 on a more defensible peninsula, after destruction of the original Panamá City, attacked & looted by the Welsh pirate, Henry Morgan. Casco Viejo (a World Heritage Site) is a mix of derelict buildings and beautifully restored ones.
With the energy & vibe of people fixing up these historical structures. We stayed in a small apartment—a key opened a nondescript door onto a tiled courtyard, then up two flights of stairs. A little coffee shop around the corner for breakfast pasteries. A local brewery down toward the fish market. Elegant restaurants, even a rooftop bar with a view toward a gastly Trump edifice. And. My favorite crafts shop…
These cats seem to understand the safety of hanging out behind the gate. (Photo from our 2014 return visit.)
Typical scene of a derelict building.
The building on the left side of the lane has been renovated, the right side’s hasn’t…
Close-up of the fish market from the floor.
My favorite crafts shop with the shop keeper in the doorway. I fell in love with pillows made from molas. In fact, the aqua one on the right is in my bedroom…
Most of these pillows were orginally worn by the indigenous Kuna women as part of their traditional clothing. Beautiful needlework. (Another photo from 2014.)
Our favorite sunset bar on the rooftop of a small hip hotel. Music, margaritas & vistas. Had to get there early though to score a table & stools.
raven
So cool
MagdaInBlack
That rooftop bar would have me coming back too, and I don’t drink. Thank you for the pics ?
eclare
What an interesting contrast between the area where you stayed and the “new” part of the city.
Mary G
Love the pillows, and those are some big fish. Beautiful photos of everything.
Downpuppy
The Trump tower was liberated from him 3 years ago. Apparently, the horrible bigfoot statue is still there, in the most unfriendly lobby in existence.
Albatrossity
Wonderful pics and commentary! Another place to add to the bucket list.
Laura Too
Terrific! Thanks!
Butch
We got lost in Casco Viejo the night we arrived in Panama. Some parts of it are not nice at night. Sorry to be a downer, but that’s my memory of the place.
Wapiti
I love molas. I could use a mola mask.
JanieM
As with UncleEbenezer’s Vietnam pictures, I love the colorfulness. And I learned a new word: molas. I’ve seen and loved the fabric, but didn’t know it had a name.
Thanks for another set of lovely and enticing pics.
way2blue
@eclare: Yes. We never felt an urge to visit the new city center. Did visit the Panama Canal and an aquarium run by the Smithsonian (I think).
way2blue
@Mary G: I ended up with five pillows. The others are multi-colored with intricate images of birds mostly. Made from traditional molas.
way2blue
@Albatrossity: Our friends said, “Panama? Why?’. To which we said, ‘Exactly!’. As a land bridge between South & Central America, Panama overflows with animals along with so many diverse landscapes. (I’ve not shown our time on the Pacific coast nor up near the volcanos.)
way2blue
@Butch: Yep. We were told not to venture past a certain street into the ‘rough area’ at night. (We avoided it during the day as well.) In fact, our first day in Panama, we’d picked up our rental car and wanted to head north on Highway One. But couldn’t figure out how. We could see the bridge above us, but no street signs on how to get there. We kept circling these sketchy neighborhoods with streets getting narrower & narrower. Not fun…
Butch
@way2blue: We finally found a policeman and asked him for directions. (I speak Spanish.) He gave us detailed directions that concluded with “when you realize you’re going the wrong way, turn quickly.” As it happened, he was sending us up an off-ramp onto the freeway, so we were headed directly into traffic – hence his instructions to turn quickly. Apparently he thought the directions to the on ramp were too complicated. I also noticed, as I think you did, that the philosophy behind highway signage is that if you don’t know where you’re going, you don’t deserve to be told. (The Panamaniac drivers are another story.)
It is a beautiful country but as a result of other issues we ended up cutting our trip short.
way2blue
@MagdaInBlack:
Our first time to the rooftop terrace, Amy Winehouse was playing on the sound system. And we were smitten…
way2blue
@Butch: Sounds familiar! Also, when we were staying at a B&B near Punta Mala to the south, we were told not to take taxis on Mardi Gras as the taxi drivers would be drunk…
J_A
I lived in Panama City several years. My mother lived there until her death, and is buried there. Her house was in one of the buildings overlooking the bay seen from the rooftop bar.
Panama City is, for Latin American standards, extremely safe. I agree, though, that the area of Chorrillo, which is what’s in between the Casco Viejo and the Old Canal Zone, is quite dangerous for Panama City standards. Chorrillo was bombarded and caught fire during the 1989 invasion.
Molas are an amazing handcraft. A mola consists of several layers of brightly colored fabric one on top of the other. Good molas have 7 to 10 layers, and the design (in a good mola) is made by cutting holes on the top layer so you can see the next layer below, and the next one also has holes cut so you can see the layer below, etc. The holes are then stitched by hand to keep them from moving and firming up the design.
Crappy molas for tourists invert the order, a silhouette is cut in fabric and (machine) stitched on top in layers of smaller silhouettes, similar to a quilt. Obviously creating the pattern from cutting and aligning holes in the fabric so you can see the underlying fabric several layers below is much more complicated, and more valuable.
The other things that tourists do not appreciate is that molas are designed in pairs, to be worn in the front and the back of the woman’s blouse. The pair must be similar, but not identical, and must use similar colors and motifs (birds with birds, fish with fish, etc.). Making a good pair is part of the craft. It breaks my heart when I see tourists demanding that the pairs be separated so they can buy only one. The molas in my house are framed with the complete pairs sharing the same frame. But them I am weird this way :-)