Convent ruins from the site of the original Panama City

Time Travel and Searching for Einstein

     You may have noticed that Peggy has been doing most of the blogging lately.  My neighbor, Henry Morales, a Venezuelan Canadian who lives for golf, has been keeping me busy golfing.  Because Henry has his own golf cart and has been a resident here for months, we can golf every day for no charge.  With Henry's in laws visiting, Henry's wife can't go golfing with Henry, so I have been.  That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
   

Time Travel to Panama La Vieja (Old Panama)

     We decided to check out the Metro (subway) system.  From the main station we rode the subway part way and took a cab the rest of the way to Panama La Vieja.  At that location one finds a museum and what's left of the original Panama City.  The city was founded on August 15, 1519, by the notorious conquistador Pedro Arias de Avila (who you probably know as Pedrarias, right?), and burned down during a battle with the equally notorious Welsh pirate Henry Morgan in 1671. 

The national terminal  located at the Albrook Mall.  This is the staring point for regional and local bus routes and is connected by overhead walkway to the Metro station which is the starting point for the subway.  The subway currently has one route which was completed in 2014.

 

The Metro trains are new, clean and run very efficiently.  The challenge was to figure out how to purchase the rechargeable card that is used to pay for the ride and get through the turn styles.  The instructions were in Spanish and the person selling the cards didn't speak English.  I plunked down a $20 bill and did my best to say I wanted a card for each of us and I wanted each loaded with $10.  I couldn't understand, at first, why the lady was hesitant to simply do as I asked.  At first I thought maybe I needed to pay extra for the card.  Not having any smaller bills I put another $20 bill on the counter.  What the lady was trying to tell me was that it didn't make much sense to buy two cards because we could simply swipe one twice (once for each of us) to get on the train.  The amounts I was suggesting to load were a little silly as well considering the one way trip was about 35 cents per person.  She gave us a card loaded with $2.00 and we pretty much had all we needed for our trip on the train. I've called it a subway because most of it runs underground although you can see from the picture that it also has an elevated track and stations for part of the route.

One of the structures at the ruins is the cathedral tower, one of Panama's national symbols.  From the top of the structure there is a great view of the the ruins site, Panama City and the ocean.

Arch and well ruins.  One the nice things about the site was that there were signs with English explanation of the structures and drawings of what the original buildings would have looked like.

Searching for Einstein

     While looking through our tour book about neighborhoods in and near Panama City, I saw a picture with the following caption, "A massive bust of Albert Einstein is a handy landmark in El Cangrejo".  The tour book doesn't contain any explanation of why the bust exists, but I was determined to find it.  After a fairly long cab ride from our travel back in time to the ruins of the original Panama City we were pretty hopelessly stuck in noon time city traffic.  We bailed on the cab and set out on foot, without a map in 90 degree weather, to find Einstein (just because he was there).

Eureka!  Located in one of the tiniest "parks" in the heart of a congested area of Panama City is Albert's bust.  I took a picture and we ate lunch at a New York style deli.

Urban "hiking"

   Today was the day for turning the rental car in.  After 29 days and over 1,000 km of using the car I drove it back to the airport.  I'm very proud of the fact that the car was returned with no dents, scratches or additional charges.
    From the airport I took the Metrobus (regular city bus) back to the main terminal at the mall and then a cab from the mall to our temporary home.  Regular bus fare is 25 cents although I took the bus with fewer stops which took the tollway (Corredor Sur) and paid $1.25 for the one way trip.
    Getting a cab is extremely easy as they are everywhere.  Cab fare is reasonable and negotiable.  Often the cab drivers speak English and it is interesting to learn a bit about their history.  My cab driver's grandfather was from Barbados and came to Panama in 1906.  He worked on the canal's construction.  My cab driver was a veteran of the Panamanian army/air force.  Along the way "home" we stopped at a couple of sites that I often drove past but was unable to take pictures of.

Statute in honor of Arnulfo Arias Madrid, who was elected (and overthrown) president of Panama four times.  He is flashing a "V for victory" sign at figures representing the Panamanian people, who are struggling to their feet.

The Bridge of the Americas we used nearly every day to travel across the canal.  The aging nature of the structure and its "used" pavement made the trip something of an adventure.