One of the wonders of living in Panama City is that we have the pacific in front of us and the Caribbean about an hour or two away by car. Not that I had ever actually made use of that fact before. Here is the story of my first trip to the Panamanian Caribbean coast.

My wife is studying at the University of Panama, where they are required to do a class in environmental studies regardless of their field of study. The best time to do this is now in the quiet Panamanian summer months. When the professor told them they had to go on a field trip, I decided I would crash the party.

We first visited various sites near Panama and then off to Colon via the Madden Dam. Finally we ended up in historic and very beautiful Portobelo.

Diablo Rojo

First lets introduce our transportation “Angel” the Diablo Rojo. Diablo Rojo’s are the most common forms of public transportation found in Panama. They are converted US school buses, normally with much airbrush art on the outside and heavy sound system on the inside. They are as uncomfortable as you might think, and really if youre driving in Pannama, I would recommend stearing well away from them. However they are a traditional part of the party that is the quintisential Panamanian road trip and it ended up good fun.

We first visited the bay of Panama, off Avenida Balboa. It’s an incredible site in the morning when the sun is shining. However subject matter was about the polution from the raw effluence. They are planning on cleaning it up, but the professor says rightly so, that they really need to look at the rivers upstream before they attempt to clean it up. Ok. enough environmental stuff.

Madden Dam

Madden Dam was built in 1936 by the Americans to help provide better water supply to the canal during the dry months, such as now. It also the source of our excellent drinking water in the city. It is essentially in the middle of a rain forest on the top of the continental divide. The dam is impresive and the lake is also very nice. At the same time of us there were 3 tour busses filled with American tourists, who were clearly more interested in taking pictures of the diablo rojo and the very lovely female students (who were happy to pose).

Colon

After Madden we went to Colon. Colon is the large city on the Caribbean entrance of the canal. It first grew up around the time of the California gold rush, when it was the Atlantic station of the old Panamanian railroad. Later it was a center of both French and US canal digging activities and has as such got an interesting Caribbean feel to it. Colon has always been a sin city, with at its height I’m sure 100+ bordello’s etc. Now a days it has the feel of Kingston, Jamaica, yet even more run down.

Colon is the main center of Panama’s English speaking Caribbean minority, the decendents of Jamaican’s and Bajan’s (Barbadian’s) who came to work first on the rail road and then the French and US canal projects. They traditionally worked for the American’s and after the US Canal Zone was abolished in 1977, Colon gradually fell apart and has become very dilapidated.

An old symbol of the railroad time is the old Hotel Washington, which at its time was one of the swankiest hotel’s in the western hemisphere. Many famous statesmen including I believe Winston Churchil have staid there. We stopped to have a look around. With all the badly maintained buildings surrounding it, Hotel Washington has managed to maintain much of its old splendor.

After this we stopped at Colon 2000 the new cruiseship port, which shows the direction that Colon is trying to take for the future. Very modern and similar to what we have on the Pacific at Fuerte Amador. They are planning on extending it with a beach area and hotels. Hopefully some of these projects will work at redeveloping Colon, but I hope they also attempt to restore some of the wonderful buildings on Front Street, which is likely to attract more tourists.

Note, while we didnt actually stop there. The real money in Colon is in the Colon Free Zone a huge complex for reexportation and transhipment. It is the second largest place in the world for this after Hong Kong. I personally feel Colon would do best if they turn the whole province into a freezone. That would help not only tourism, but also logistics which is really Panama’s most important industry.

Portobelo

Portobelo about 45 minutes east of Colon used to have one of the heaviest concentration of gold and silver in the world. Essentially for a period of 150 years this was the Colon Free Zone of the New World. This was the number one target of all the real pirates of the Caribbean.

An incredibly beautiful deep blue bay bordered by steep green hills, its not hard to imagine why this is a popular stop with yachters touring the Caribbean.

It is also very popular with divers, many who are looking for Sir Francis Drake’s coffin and the treasure supposedly sunk with it.

The most obvious tourist attraction though are the forts. There are two basically in town, but I recommend taking the water taxi’s over to Fuerte San Fernando on the other side of the bay. There are no less than 3 forts there. One on the waterside, a second a bit higher up and a 3rd one at the peak, which is hard to see from the waterfront. We actually thought the professor was kidding us, when he said we were only half way.

The view from both of the higher fortresses are amazing, just beware that the final one isnt in Lonely Planet and it is a very steep hike. Also if you are squirmish about 2 inch long spiders and snakes, maybe you dont really want to go much further than the second one.

When we got to the top most of the students were complaining, that the professor was really pushing what he should be doing. After the group photo, he said the main purpose was to show that you have to struggle to get where you want. Most of the students at this point were talking about throwing him over the cliff, I thought it was hilarious.

After this we returned sweaty and hungry to Portobelo town, where we ate excellent Caribbean food. (Mine with about half a gallon of home made hot sauce). The seafood is famous here, I had the chicken though.

The town is also the location of the famous Black Christ of Portobelo. Which supposedly was fished from the sea by local fishermen. Supposedly this is one of the most important holy sites now in Latin America. They have an annual festival, where people come from all over.

Also interesting is the old customs house, where all the gold and silver from Peru and the Pacific South America was stored before being sent on Galleons to Spain (or intercepted by Piratess).

This site has more about Portobelo, Sir Francis Drake and this exciting part of Panama’s history.

With the food came beer (including for the bus driver) and we had a merry trip back to Panama City, with lots of superb loud Salsa and Reggae. Good stuff.