Colón and Panama City

Our afternoon tour took us through Colón and along a highway to Panama City where we did a short walking tour of the oldest part of that huge modern city. Funny thing is that most of our travels took us through the many slums where the lower class people of Panama live. It was a real eye opener seeing so many people together is such run down conditions. The people looked happy and you could tell everyone was ready for the Christmas holiday.

Our guide for the day was a young lady who grew up as a military baby and was educated in the military education system.  She spoke perfect English, but the information she provided us seemed to be lacking in content and depth. We learned some slang words and she spoke of some of the historic events of the two towns, but most of what we learned was just not that interesting.

Our first stop was at a shopping pier area where we had a view of the sky scraper skyline of Panama City.  We were given time to shop and use the restrooms and then we were traveling to the oldest part of the city where the President’s residence was located. The area was a very old fort and much of it was in disrepair but in the process of being reconstructed. We couldn’t get near the President’s residence, so we were shown the street where it was located. After that we walked past a huge church but it was entirely covered with netting and was being refurbished.

Finally we ended up at an old fort that was built to protect the city many years ago.  We were able to see a little of what it was like and even walk around on top of the walls, but most of the structure was not accessible.

We loaded back on the bus for the ride back to Colón. We entered the city and they gave us another tour of the slums and then back to the ship.

We enjoyed looking at the two cities we drove through. All in all the tour was not the best. However we did get to start at the Atlantic Ocean and drive to the Pacific Ocean, which is something we have never been able to do or will probably never get a chance to do again!