Panama (Dis)Orientation

Most people think of the country of Panama as having a north/south orientation, dangling like a ruptured appendix from the belly of the rest of Central America. Actually, Panama stretches west to east. Which partially explains why it was possible to observe a sunrise over the Pacific Ocean, not the Atlantic, from the balcony of our top-floor room of a restored structure in El Casco Antiguo, the old quarter of Panama City.

Panama is a foreign country where the US dollar is its national currency, and its time zone corresponds to that of the mid-section of the USA. So neither body clock nor pocket book need adjustment for travelers arriving from the USA. And it is the USA that is mostly responsible for the location and construction of Panama’s major tourist attraction.

The Panama Canal is where it is and what it is because of the USA’s force and influence. The land was secured through less than honorable and peaceful means, and canal construction costs far exceeded any previous capital investment by the US government in a foreign country.

From my reading of David McCullough’s ThePath Between the Seas, which recounts all the decades and dollars and deaths expended to complete the canal, I was expecting to see a grander gash in the landscape. In fact, berms and folliage disguise the depth and breadth of this century-old engineering feat, and we were able to stand within 20 yards of the motorized “mules” helping to guide the ships through the two-stage, two-lane Miraflores Locks……while off in the distance we could observe progress being made on a second canal — wider, deeper and more dominating than the first — capable of accommodating the modern super-tankers and super-sized cargo ships that are constantly circumnavigating the earth to quench the thirst of nations for fuel, food and material goods from far-away places.

If Istanbul was the crossroads of the ancient world, then this place — Panama City, with its expanding shipping and banking influence — is the crossroads of the modern world. Only time will tell if it will become the cultural melting pot that Istanbul has been and struggles to remain.

JER