Take me down to Panama City

I left Eleuthera. After 9 months on the little island, with many beautiful moments, learning curves, and plenty good times. Everything cool, as they say.

I travelled intergalactically, through time and space, bending geographical space to my will, and arrived in a new universe.

Panama city, the biggest metropolis in central america, home of a massive cut through earth and rock, home of sky scrapers, and to vultures circling above the city.

 Travelling into the city early in the early morning after landing, I saw massive glass and metal structures clawing, twisting and fighting there way ever upward. Many are being built, and many look as though they are falling down. The architecture in the city centre is the type that quickly becomes dated, modern monstrosities, spiraling towards the heavens.

In contrast, massive contrast, the neighbourhood I headed towards couldn't be more different.

Casco Viejo is the oldest standing neighbourhood in  Panama city, built in the early 1600s after Henry Morgan, a pirate and a rogue raised the previous city to the ground.

The architecture is Spanish, and beautiful. Buildings are falling down, collapsing in on themselves, their regal arches remaining after the roofs cave. Some are beautifully restored, with many terraces, and curved balustrades and wrought iron fences. 

Massive, heavy dark wood doors bar the entrance ways. 

The rich and the poor live door to door, and an air of transition, and more contrast fills the streets. 

Casco Viejo is home to massive churches, with massive arches, stained glass and  incredible alters. One alter is carved entirely of mahogany and plated in gold. It is at least thirty foot tall and intricately detailed.

The power of belief has built much of this city.

The Panama canal is a fine example of belief carving the landscape in mammoth ways. I visited the Miraflores locks, a key stage in the transit of ships through the canal and was blown away by the scale of the place. I cannot fathom the motivation and commitment to build something of that size. 

The French tried in 1880, but after tens of thousands of workers died of diesease they gave up the ghost. Then, between 1904 and 1914 engineers operating under the United States managed to dig through millions of tons of rock to accomplish the gigantic engineering feat.

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Yes, its a mind twist being here, and I am really living. 

Soon I will be leaving for the coast for to reunite with the ocean and its energies. For today I will have a brunch and a dinner somewhere nice before changing my diet to rice and beans. 

I need to lighten my bag, though I don't have very many things its still too heavy.

The hostel I am at is called Luna's castle, and its a transient place. Youth and older people travelling to and from Colombia, or north, like me. 

An old colonial house with three levels, massive doors, many rooms, a large dining room, free pancakes, bearded people, people with dogs, people from Israel, France, Germany, Australia wherever. 

Stimulus overload. mind crash. must go. drink coffee. eat crouissants. drink cheap beer. pack. sleep. leave.