Dreary Day
It's noon and it's a dreary day. I haven’t stepped outside of the room yet and have no serious plans to do so. It struck me while wandering around yesterday that I was in Panama and why shouldn't I get a Panama hat? So I did. I don't usually look good in a hat, but as far as it goes, this one seems to fit better than most. I do have a lingering fear from when I was a kid that at any moment someone is going to come along and beat me up for wearing it.
I was going to go to the locks today and wait for a ship to come through for photos, then go down to a spot I found yesterday downstream from the Bridge of the Americas when there was better light. But I'm not sure the bridge would show well today against the gray sky. The cloud cover is coming from the south, and is not a result of the tail of the hurricane now threatening New Orleans and environs. I've been having trouble since I've been in Central America figuring out exactly where I am relative to the US.
Obviously, I know I'm south, but at the moment looking at one of the hurricane maps, due north seems to run right into New Jersey. From Costa Rica the flying time to New York is nearly identical to that of Los Angeles, which seems counterintuitive, because L.A. is more southern. Regardless of my directional confusion, I'm hoping the weather clears up by tomorrow, and I hope New Orleans fares better than currently expected.
The new plan taking shape in my head is to rent a car and hit the Miraflores locks in the morning, snap a few shots and then head out north to Ciudad Colon [the free trade zone on the Atlantic side [about 80 klicks (50ish miles, I think) away]. The plane to San Jose leaves around 7PM so it shouldn't be such a stretch unless the roads in any way resemble those in Costa Rica. Around town so far the difference is night and day. (I did just find the Ferrocarril (train) on the map that runs relative to the canal. Hmmm.)
The city is very clean with the exception of some well-placed slums on the outskirts, but even those don't have the tin-roof-shack aura present in San Jose. As a matter of fact I haven't yet seen any tin roofs. I would rate Panama City so far as somewhere between the sprawling metropolis of Mexico City and San Jose. There are many tall buildings here, there is a beautiful skyline and prices are of a magnitude less than both other cities. As they also use the dollar here there is no calculating necessary to figure out how much you're being ripped off by the taxi drivers.
