Panama city discovered by Inflight magazine
Another US publication has come out with fulsome praise of Panama even if some of the comments appear paternalistic and the writer barely strayed from Panama City.
American Airlines inflight magazine used Time magazine’s Joel Stein for its cover story article
Some of Stein’s impressions were ....
I expected Panama City to be sleepy and old: wide-brimmed hats, hammocks and excessive pride over a technological feat that’s nearly 100 years old. This is not what I’m seeing. … I’m finally seeing a city grow in fast-forward: buildings crawling up like silver sea monkeys; new infrastructure struggling to keep up with traffic; foreigners flocking to open factories, hotels and restaurants; construction vehicles blocking street after street. With a 10.5 percent growth rate, Panama’s economy is expanding faster than China’s. And if you told me that’s where I am, I would believe it…
Leaving the airport, the driver points out all the things a proud citizen from a newly first-world city would: the 70-story Trump Ocean Club International Hotel & Tower Panama, the 66-story Hard Rock Hotel Megapolis, the Le Méridien Panama — all new. The skyscrapers in the banking district. The enormous Albrook Mall, where Jennifer Lopez recently shopped. The almost-finished Frank Gehry-designed BioMuseo. The $1.6 billion subway project, scheduled to open to riders in 2014 to fix some of this first-world traffic we’re stuck in. The hospital that does some of the most cutting-edge stem-cell treatments in the world and dots the city with American medical tourists here to get some of the best treatment available…
The Westin Playa Bonita, an enormous, beautiful convention hotel that opened this past January. The rooms are modern and the views of the ocean and the boats lining up for the canal are fantastic. Though as every guest I meet tells me, as if they alone had come up with the best joke possible about the hotel, the playa isn’t so bonita. The nice beaches are either on the harder-to-reach Caribbean side or four hours away at either Peninsula Azuero — the Tuscany of the Americas — or the beautiful, untouched San Blas Islands…
There are three infinity pools, one swim-up bar and one pool bar — and lots of free American food: hot dogs, pizza, nachos. It’s also where I find out Panama uses American currency. What was more: These people love Americans, mostly because we took out their dictator, Manuel Noriega, in 1989’s Operation Just Cause, and gave back their canal as promised in 2000…
You can do, at most, only two things in Panama on one day, even though each event should take only an hour. That’s partly because the heat wears you out and partly because Panama City traffic is awful. So, after the tours, we were barely able to check out the Amador Causeway, a long, scarcely trafficked new road on the water outside of the city where the Gehry museum is being built. Right now, though, it’s just a bunch of Florida-style tourist restaurants and ice-cream places…
You can do, at most, only two things in Panama on one day, even though each event should take only an hour. That’s partly because the heat wears you out and partly because Panama City traffic is awful. So, after the tours, we were barely able to check out the Amador Causeway, a long, scarcely trafficked new road on the water outside of the city where the Gehry museum is being built. Right now, though, it’s just a bunch of Florida-style tourist restaurants and ice-cream places...
On the way home, we pass yet another of these insanely painted, psychedelic city buses, called Diablos Rojos. They’re independently owned, and every driver competes to throw the best party, with blinking lights, music and, on the outside, murals of half-naked women or famous singers. It’s as if Ken Kesey designed Las Vegas’ public-transportation system. The Diablos Rojos are being phased out, replaced by modern, larger, city-operated Metrobuses. There’s a small movement by the expats to save them, since they give the city so much flavor, but most Panamanians are thrilled to have ¬air-conditioned buses that are way less likely to kill them. It’s another example of the tension between old and new…
Panama, thanks to the canal, has had nearly 100 years to soak up a bunch of culinary cultures so that it’s become a fusion of Spanish, American, Japanese, Italian, and Central and South American styles. And much like everything else here, it feels like a new, better Panamanian cuisine is about to emerge.
The magazine’s editor, Adam Pitluk was equally stunned at finding a modern bustling city in Central America. In an editorial he wrote -
“During that cab ride from the airport, the first shock I had was passing through downtown Panama City. It is gigantic. More skyscrapers than in Cleveland, and more first-world. The second shock I had was when we passed the actual downtown of Panama City, whose skyline is very similar in size and aesthetic to Miami. If I hadn’t just cleared customs, I’d never have believed I was in Central … My boots-on-the-ground tour of the town, however, would confirm that Panama City is wrestling with growing pains.”
