Presidential Suite

Early start this morning, 5:00 alarm – we have to fly out of our island paradise and back to Panama City. Bread and jam for breakfast and a quick coffee before we’re called to the boat, the usual quick hop across the water to the airport. They play at airlines by taking our passport numbers and weighing our bags.

There’re a few of us leaving today so there are two flights; we get the second one. We take off over our resort giving us one final glance and head eastwards down the coast first for about 10 minutes to another tiny airstrip before making our way to Panama City. We fly over another couple of Kuna island communities, they look very similar from above – very cramped.

It’s cloudy across the centre of the country but it clears as we reach the south coast and the tall buildings of the city come into view. We fly out across the Pacific before turning into the airport, the ocean is full of ships waiting their turn to pass through the canal. The plane comes in low over the container terminals before landing.

We’re met by a driver who takes us to our next accomodation, an AirBnB apartment in the old town – Casco Viejo. On the way we pass through some very run down edgy areas, definitely not places for tourists to walk around.

Casco Viejo was the second Spanish Capital in the area. Ten years ago the whole of Casco Viejo was a no-go area controlled by three gangs, killings were commonplace and the buildings were all slowly collapsing. It’s now being slowly restored and cleaned up, a number of former gang members now take tourists on walking tours of the area to explain how it was. It’s now so safe the president’s apartment is here.

We splash out on breakfast – okay second breakfast, let’s say brunch – at the American Trade Hotel, we’re definitely out of place amongst the smartly dressed guests. This is about as far as you can get from our island this morning.

Whilst waiting for our host, Ariel, outside the apartment – a couple of walking tours pass by and we discover that the apartment is in the former Colombia Hotel, this was a favourite of U.S. presidents visiting to see the canal because it has a pool on the roof. We also find out the origins of the Panama hat – when President Roosevelt was giving a speech here and was wilting in the heat, he was given the nearest available hat which happened to be from Ecuador. The news pictures were soon all over the papers and it was christened the Panama hat.

Across the square is a restored church with the strangest nativity display we’ve seen; it has no baby, it is huge, it has a working waterfall and it has pyramids on the backdrop. A guide tells a group that it will be taken down this month – looks unlikely.

When we got into the apartment, we took a break to cool down, settle in and reconnect to the outside world, Florence gets some sad news so I’m put on blog duties.

Go for a walk around the area. There are stark contrasts between the crumbling buildings awaiting restoration and the smart boutique hotels and restaurants. Ariel told us that every building is listed by UNESCO and all structures must be substantially preserved in any restorations.

Visit a supermarket to get some supplies for the next few days and watch the sunset from the rooftop terrace.