Panamanian Pandemonium

Photos, photos, photos:

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To be honest, there wasn't much pandemonium in Panama, I just liked the title. There was, however, plenty of r'n'r following our jungle trials. Rich, myself and Christina (a fellow escapee from the farm) headed for the hills and the refreshingly cool mountain town of Boquete. Here we spent several happy days taking in the scenery, patronising the local ice cream parlour and playing table football. We also participated in the local Easter festivities which, being in a Latin American country, were not on a small scale. We followed a nocturnal parade that must have involved every single inhabitant of the town and its nearby villages, saw locals putting together elaborate Stations of the Cross outside various shops and houses along the town-wide route, and I went the extra mile by sitting through a 2 hour Good Friday service given entirely in Spanish. (Had I known about the 2 hour part I may have reconsidered...)

After bidding a fond farewell to Christina as she set off for home and the backwoods of California, Rich and I boarded a bus for the capital - Panama City. Panama is not your typical Central American city. The new part is like a cross between Miami and Dubai - full of shiny new (and not-so-shiny still-being-built) waterfront skyscrapers, funky coffee shops, restaurants offering cuisine from all corners of the globe and even a strip of uber-trendy nightclubs that wouldn't be out of place in LA. A few blocks away, however, is Casco Viejo, the old part of town. Here whole streets of beautiful colonial buildings were left to crumble when the city's elite moved out to other neighbourhoods, and until recently the city's entire historic heart was a rapidly declining slum. A few years ago, the gentrification fairy found Casco Viejo and by the time we visited she had started to work her magic. Dotted amongst the tumbledown houses you can now find a sprinkling of boutique hotels, gourmet restaurants and trendy cafe bars. But to get to them you still need to traverse the menacing slum that surrounds the old city, and even then the regeneration is still in its infancy. It was a fascinating time to visit, and it will be interesting to see just how far, and how well, the transformation goes.

Now it's well known around the world that when visiting Panama there's one thing that everyone has to see. That's right, a Guns n' Roses concert. In fact, Guns n' Roses, despite having a huge following throughout Central America, had never played in Panama before the week that Richard and I happened to be in town, so we decided it would be rude not to go along and lend our support. After getting our hands on a pair of tickets in the usual way (queuing up in the Panamanian equivalent of Boots and buying them at the till) we trooped along thinking we'd catch a bit of the support act before the main event. 4 hours later, still no sign of Axel & co. Still, we had had the pleasure of listening to Sebastian Bach (of "Skid Row" fame) for 2 hours and a nice bit of space on the floor to sit on for the hour or so after that, so I suppose I shouldn't complain.

Just after midnight Guns n' Roses finally deigned to grace us with their presence. Or rather an ageing Mickey Rourke look-a-like, several session musicians and a teenager in a Slash costume appeared and launched into Welcome to the Jungle. The crowd were elated. For about 30 seconds, until Axl took exception to a plastic cup that landed somewhere near him, stopped the song and gave us all a good telling off. The poor man was so distracted by the whole thing he completely forgot to apologise for keeping us waiting so long. S'alright Axl, we forgive you...

Luckily for Mr Rose, Gn'R have some fairly excellent tunes in their arsenal and getting to thrash around to Sweet Child O' Mine, November Rain and Paradise City (possibly the biggest missed lyric change opportunity in history) as performed by almost the band that created them was a definite joy generator. Less enjoyable was hearing Axl screech his way through Gn'R's latest material and watching an obviously talented young guitarist posturing like a trained monkey with a top hat and drooping cigarette in the hopes that noone in Panama had heard Slash had declined to join the tour. Still, it was an early morning to remember and at 2am we headed home happy.

Final port of call was the Panama Canal. I went along with fairly low expectations, and was duly delighted to find that not only can you watch enormous ships go through the equally enormous locks right in front of your strategically positioned multi-level viewing platform, you can also go round a museum and pretend to pilot the boats yourself in a groovy simulator type-thingy. Much fun was had by all. Next day we struck out for the airport and our flight to South America. After almost 3 months in Central America this stage of our trip was drawing to a close, and we both agreed Panama had been an excellent way to round things off. Next stop Chile!