Friday morning arrived way too soon. We had begun Thursday morning in Medford, arrived in Panama at 9:30 EST, taken a lightning fast cab ride, looked over the immediate neighborhood around the hotel, and fallen into bed at about 1:00 am on Friday.The Wifi didn't work in the first room we were assigned, on the first floor. The staff lady decided she would move us to a different room on Friday so we didn't get very attached to the first room, which turned out to be nearly identical to the second room. She arranged for us to move in the afternoon.
I went out and took a street scene which seemed to be capturing the essence of the locality but turned out to be mostly cars and the sign. Up the street, just beyond where the photo ends, is a very large casino and Windham Hotel. It seemed to be the focal point of the nightlife in our neighborhood. I didn't see the inside, partly because we were busy during the day and the night's activities don't seem to start there until late and by that time I wasn't interested enough to go.
The photo at the right shows the side and the front of our hotel. (I think you can click on each photo to enlarge it if you like.) Our fifth floor room was just above the tree line at the rear of the building. You can see the side opening of our balcony/terrace with its roof. The top floor windows are looking out from the conference/breakfast room and at the front, behind the arched window, is the pool deck.
By American standards, this hotel is of only modest quality. It is clean, except we found out quickly that the tile floors were not clean enough to walk around on barefooted unless you wanted to wash your feet afterwards. It has an exercise room, a laundry, a complimentary breakfast, 24 hour desk, bell, and door service, and a staff genuinely dedicated to customer service. The rooms are much larger than we would expect here; ours had a kitchen, a small dining area and table, a modest size desk and chair, a couch, two very good double beds, and plenty of room to walk around. The bathroom was small and the hot water took two minutes to arrive. We bought a shower head at the local REY Super Market so we could get more than a dribble from the shower. It worked fine after that. The air conditioner worked well but the maids turned it off each day so when we returned it would be hot in the room. It took only a little while to get the room back to a comfortable temperature. The Wifi worked in the fifth floor room but it was weak and I had to abandon my idea of posting photos and a narrative each day.
The pool is very nice and I used it several times. I don't know if the hotel was full but we mainly
had the pool to ourselves any time we went there. At night, the view from the pool deck railing gave a bird's eye view of the neighborhood goings on.
The remaining photographs here are of the view from the pool deck. This blog platform is only allowing six or seven photographs at a time, so I may have to shorten the blog entries and increase their number. At this rate you may be able to follow the wonderful Panama trip into the summer.
The beautiful spiral building in the photograph beside the pool is an under construction office building. It will appear in several more photos of the City skyline. They were working to install the exterior glass walls when we were there and you could see the sun reflect from a panel being placed, kind of like the flash from a diamond facet. The view is toward the northeast.
The photo with part of the pool included is toward the east. The one on the right is to the northwest. It shows a portion of the large new construction shown in the photo below. Also in this photograph, at the corner of the Coral Suites building and the balcony half wall and behind a nondescript lower white building, is an under construction building that will be part of the subject of another post. I was amazed at the low quality masonry standards for bearing walls. There will be several additional photos and some commentary about that.
The last photo is of another under construction building. There was some painting being done on the exterior and workmen were entering the interior via the exterior elevator you can see about half way up the front. The two identical looking buildings in front are the ones to be used to show building practices. The one on the right is the same one as in the photo above.
Panama appears to be a City growing very rapidly without any real planning to accommodate infrastructure needs. Above ground power lines, and especially phone lines, seem to be going everywhere. Traffic is frantic enough that you could enjoy a day just watching the give and take, vastly more take, of drivers competing for the next foot, or inch of forward motion. There are traffic signals and lane designations and speed limits, but they seem to be only suggestions. And, without a horn you may as well stay on the porch. Honking is mandatory, or at least necessary, for traffic to flow properly. If a light changes and the intersection isn't clear, the traffic with the green light but no way to take advantage of it uses the full blown honk to clear a path. Eventually the offending traffic clears and the honkers have accomplished their goal. Not honking is perhaps considered timid and an unproductive use of time as you wait.
The next planned posting is of a tour of Panama City. If I can't figure out a way to get more photos included, it may take three or four to get through it. I have already selected 30, which is quite a reduction from the 114 available.
JCE
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