The second to last day (if we don’t count the 14 hours in a bus as a day) we went to Panama Viejo, Old Panama. This UNESCO World Heritage Site is the ruins of the first Panamanian city settled in 1519 but later abandoned for a more strategic location. We got there just as it closed and didn’t have to pay the entrance fee. From the top of the old church tower, amazingly still standing, we could see the ancient city as well as the skyline of the new city. Almost all the skyscrapers (rasca cielos, literally sky scratchers) have been built in the last 10 years.
Upon decent from the tower an old man stopped us from wandering further and told us we needed to leave because we had not paid. We told him how the fee collecting gate-lady had let us in but he was skeptical. We left. Outside the gated part of the park are additional ruins and so we wandered through them. About 5 minutes later a policia turistica on a bike showed up. He told us the neighborhood was extremely dangerous and we needed to leave ASAP. We wandered a little further through the ruins to the side of the road. The tourist cop showed up again and demanded we leave immediately. He even flagged down a cab for us that already had one passenger because our attempts were not speedy enough. He was acting like he was saving us from impending doom. Either that, or he wanted to go home for the night and didn’t want to follow us around any longer.
Needless to say the ruins were very interesting and it was too bad we did not have enough time to look through them all. I think there are also some museums around the area that we did not get a chance to see either. Here are the photos:
