Early morning 8.25.24, I arranged for my Airbnb host to drive me to the SJO airport to catch a flight to Panama City, roughly 2 ½ hours by plane (PTY airport). When I arrived I took an Uber to Casco Viejo or the Old Town district to get breakfast at a Creole restaurant I had researched, En La Fonda and to wait until I could gain access to my Airbnb in Panama to drop my bags. While I waited for a restaurant to open, I spent some time in a park next to the water where I was checking out this beautiful red flowering tree. It was nice to just sit in a public park taking in the morning as locals started their morning. Vendors were bringing setting up tables to sell various trinkets and residents were walking their dogs, meanwhile I felt like I blended into it all. It was very refreshing to just exist in the space without having to do much.

When the restaurant finally opened, I was the first customer ready to eat. I ordered steak with stewed vegetables which came with a type of corn bread and a limonada de panela to drink. The drink is actually Columbian in origin, but not really surprising considering Panama and Columbia share a border. My favorite part of the meal was the bread and the limonada. I appreciated the reasonable pricing, but I was attracted to the bright eclectic décor of the restaurant that was a bit loud and obnoxious but also fun.

After breakfast I was able to drop my bags off and relax some until leaving again to head to my ½ day Canal and Panama City tour. I found this tour on viator.com, the tour company was: CONOZCA PANAMÁ TOURS (+507 6676 6665). If I had more time in Panama City there were definitely things I would have checked out, but this tour was what I selected in order to get in as much as possible for the relatively short amount of time I would be in the country. There is a lot I could have done on my own in this tour, but I didn’t have a car in the country and it would have taken me much longer to find all these places, let alone have the relationships from being a part of the tourism industry to get to skip lines at the Canal. The Canal was where we spent the most time but what was nice about this tour was we got to see many other important sites and have a guide that gave us tons of information and historical context. I had thought that I would be placed with a larger group, as I didn’t pay for a private tour. It turns out there was only one other person on the tour with me and what are the odds, he was also from San Jose, California. It’s a small world!

These type of signs are all over Central America and make for great photos.

Having a guide take us through the Canal allowed us to go straight to the front of the line and skip the crowds waiting to get in. We were able to buy tickets directly from him and even got into the theater sooner to watch the documentary about the Canal before going out to watch the ships travel through the locks. This was in my opinion the way to experience this location.

Photo opportunity. The image behind me is of when the canal gets drained for inspections and repair.

There are 2 channels right next to each other that alternate, with a third for larger ships out of view from this location. The small vehicle in front of the water with the 119 on the back is a tug used to guide vessels through the Canal.

This is a vessel we watched go through the entire process of the locks, level by level. If you look closely you can see that the tugs are connected to the ship.

After leaving the Canal we drove to Casco Viejo and walked around seeing a bunch of sites there. Walking through the streets and looking at the old buildings we asked about how so many are in good condition and our guide explained the permit process for restoration standards whereby property owners have to keep the buildings in proper repair and maintain the esthetic appearance of the era for which the buildings were built. Because this is often more costly, he explained that the people who owned the buildings in better shape had the money to restore them and that there was a lot of national pride connected with maintaining the buildings and by proxy that pride was extended to those building owners.

We visited Paseo de Las Bóvedas, Placa conmemorativa Independencia, and Paseo Esteban Huertas all at the farthest tip of Old Town. It was nice to walk through an area where a bunch of vendors were selling their goods. Also the views of the city in the distance across the water made for some nice photo opportunities to capture the Panama City skyline.

Interesting door near Paseo de Las Bóvedas

We also spent time checking out the ruins of Iglesia Santo Domingo which is best known for its Arco Chato or Flat Arch spanning the interior that stood without supports for centuries. We got to this gem just as they were about to close for the day. If I had been on my own, the staff that oversee the site might not have let me in. I’ll never know since that wasn’t my experience, but I did get the sense that they were doing our guide a favor by letting us in to take a quick look. It’s those relationships that people develop as guides with locals and/or site operators that can provide unique access and opportunity that made it worth having a guided tour. There were definitely some activities on my trip that in hindsight I could have done on my own, but this one I am glad I did with a tour guide company and would recommend the same to others who are trying to see Panama City in the most efficient manner possible.

The Iglesia Santo Domingo has long been a crumbling brick ruins since being destroyed by fire in 1756. Despite the complete destruction of most of the site, what remains are three walls and a large interior arch that stands about 35 feet tall and spans roughly 49 feet across from one side to the other. Arco Chato has long been considered an architectural wonder highlighting the incomparable engineering of the colonial era. This structure has remained intact for multiple centuries and withstood two significant fires in 1737 and 1756. Despite the damage the fires caused in the area, the arch remained standing. Arco Chata eventually fell in 2003 and has since been resurrected.

There aren’t any supports, and the fact that it remained standing was one of the things that local advocates pointed to when talking up Panama City’s seismic stability when the choice for where to build a canal linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans was down to a choice between Panama and Nicaragua.

According to an article published in Panama America in 2005, “Several versions have been woven over the years about the plights the architect of the construction endured. Legend tells of a Dominican friar who built the arch and, after failing twice to erect it, prayed beneath it to prevent it from collapsing a third time.
Other explanations claim that a second friar had a visionary dream about the arch, and when the supports were removed, it remained standing beneath it.”

Our final location on the tour was Metropolitan Cathedral Basilica of Santa Maria the Ancient. Some additional information about the Cathedral can be found at the corresponding Wikipedia page. The construction of this cathedral began in 1688 and was finally consecrated 108 years later in 1796. Entrance to the Cathedral is free, but they welcome donations that fund the upkeep of the site.

Metropolitan Cathedral Basilica of Santa Maria the Ancient and Plaza de la Cathedral in the foreground

After the tour, I stopped by the Airbnb again to change into different clothing. I took this picture from my room looking out at the City. Then grabbed another Uber back to Old Town for a salsa dancing class with Salsa Safari. Once the lesson was over the instructor took me to a local night club to apply what I learned. I ended up just watching because it was a bit overwhelming trying to get a sense of what the appropriate etiquette was and the last thing I wanted was to offend someone and get into an altercation. It was still fun to be in the space and take it all it. I also had an early flight in the morning to go to Guatemala so I decided to end the night early and return to my Airbnb to get some rest before taking to the air again.