This morning we met Victor, another guide, who lives in the El Chorrillo neighborhood which is adjacent to Casco Viejo.
Here is what Fodor’s Travel told me before we left home: “In Panama City it's best to steer clear of the neighborhoods of El Chorrillo, parts of Calidonia away from the parallel thoroughfares of Peru and Cuba avenues, and El Marañón, where muggings are commonplace.” I checked Lonely Planet: “Other high-crime areas to avoid include Curundú, Chorrillo, Santa Ana, San Miguelito and Río Abajo.” And, just for good measure, TripAdvisor: “Casco Viejo is surrounded by three districts that have bad reputations and are not particularly safe to walk through. One is El Chorrillo.
So, here traipsed - 20+ elderly Americans, following Victor into El Chorrillo.
The pathway, whether in the street or on the broken and dangerous sidewalks, was challenging, to put it mildly. However, those in front called out, “hole”, “careful, pipe sticking up”, “turd alert”, etc. as we marched along single file.
Soon, we were at a corner police station and were ushered to the back where we watched a video about Operation Just Cause, the 1989 invasion of Panama by the United States. The “Cause”, of course, was to get Noriega and stop the drug trafficking. We got Noriega…not too sure about stopping drugs. We did, however, see how 20,000 or so poor people lost their homes and livelihood and made a perfect environment for at least 5 rival drug gangs.
After El Chorrillo we got on the bus with José 1 and Roberto and headed south and west to the Azuero Peninsula and the Provinces of Herrera and Los Santos.
We were met at the Cubita Hotel (Cubita was a Panamanian tribal chief) with cold sweet tea and cold, scented washcloths before checking in and raising the wine flag in front of a charming chapel on the hotel property.
As evening arrived, we motored and walked to the center of Chitre for a family-style meal.
Independence Square, where we started our walk this morning, seems an ironic label considering what we experienced today.
One block from the hotel, things started to take on a decidedly different appearance. Graffiti exists in most inner city poor neighborhoods, but the painful reminder of being invaded by a foreign power who went door-to-door killing anyone who would not leave and then burning their homes remains. It’s made worse by two governments who promised help and rebuilding, but in the last 30 years has done little but cut deals with developers making pricey condos.
No captions needed…
To their credit, Victor and Roberto made no comments about Panama’s Black Christmas, but stopped several times to smile and shake hands with the residents. One woman finally walked up to Roberto and asked him why he was bringing all of these rich folks in to her block. He answered that he thought we’d like to meet her! She was momentarily shocked by this straight-up answer, but quickly recovered when Roberto asked her for ten 25¢ illegal lottery tickets (the daily winners in this block get $10).
The poverty was obvious, the smell of open sewers quite pungent, but as Roberto and Victor translated our questions, there was no sense of hostility, and all the smiles (on both sides) were warm and genuine. Roberto clearly brought two worlds together, however briefly.
It was a long bus ride along the Bay of Panama - lots of questions about gun laws, income taxes, the upcoming elections and more. Here is what greeted us when we arrived at the Hotel Cubita. What a day of contrasts!
In the courtyard was this primitive sculpture of Chief Cubita.
The hotel had a gorgeous mixture of inside and outside. In the rear through the sprung arch was a small chapel that was just simply beautiful.
This community band shell in the center of Chitre is the last thing we saw after finishing a meal of garlic shrimp with French fries, chicken soup and and amber Balboa beer. It was St. Patrick’s Day somewhere…
Links
Below are three short videos showing a lot of the same footage of the invasion named Just Cause. Do they show the truth? As someone famously said, “What is the truth?” It’s complicated, and no short answer explains everything that happened.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxMVLDg8Gng
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJBXONGPy5U