Our first Panama adventure, “ubering” to Panama City’s Old Town, Casco Viejo. We dined outdoors in Simon Bolivar Plaza with live music, mellow locals, tourists and cats.

Old Town’s architecture, seriously gentrified, is a big part of its charm.

We wandered the deserted city that night, well lit because a movie was being filmed there.

Below are the Policia getting their orders. They were hired to guard the movie set all night.

The movie has the buildings flying flags of a non-existent country. It’s a sequel to Suicide Squad.

Next day we met our affable and knowledgeable Road Scholar guides, Rey and Benny.

Ed’s samples the local brew while Yona shops.

We rode the train from Colon back to Panama City after we’d traversed the canal.

Here we are on the fancy dome car with snacks and drinks. Jerry’s brother, Bill, knew the history of this car, originally a Tavern Car built for Southern Pacific before WWII, later converted to a dome car that went between LA and Bay Area. It had more lives and finally was shipped to Panama. How did Bill know all that when all he saw was this photo?

Local music and dancing…

Entertainers with Yona & Ed, Jerry and Betty. Where’s Betty?

Downtown Panama City is very impressive, very modern, very wealthy.

But there is more of the city and the countryside that is very poor.

Someone called Panama a third world country with islands of first world. We saw such a small part of it, we don’t really know.

Old US school buses are part of the “chicken bus” system designed to carry locals. The government wants to set up a metro bus system that would do away with these people’s buses and many jobs.

Creative.

Molas originated in Panama are one of the many beautiful crafts.

A street vendor’s daughter being a modern kid.

Many opportunities to purchase the ubiquitous Panama Hat.

Colorful art, many murals and copious flowers – tropical magic.

A particularly badly camouflaged cell tower.

Our hotel in Colon, first a hospital then the headquarters of the School of the Americas where the US military and the CIA trained the South and Central American dictators.

Frank Gehry designed the Biodiversity Museum, a natural history extravaganza. It tells the story of Panama’s indigenous people, the flora and fauna.  Their mantra – Fall in Love with Panama.

This exhibit “Bridge Between the Continents” shows how species have merged from either side of the isthmus. About 3 million years ago the isthmus was formed joining North and South America.

Colorful, extravagant plants like bananas.

Lizards everywhere

A birders paradise.

Walking stick on our bus window.

Palms unlike any we know.

Howler Monkeys – do you see the baby with the mom on the left. There were at least 2 moms with babies in this troop,

Toucans in the early morning, much of their color blotted out to our eyes by the bright sky.

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Leaf-cutter ants dismembering a fallen flower, carrying filaments longer than they are back to their nest as fertilizer to feed their their real food, an underground fungus.

Coatamundi scurrying off into the forest.

Sloth, the new darling of the “sloth mode” cards and tee shirts appearing everywhere. We were slothful at 93 degrees…their pace makes a lot of sense, methinks.