Panama: More Than a Canal

By Agustin Gurza
Los Angeles Times - October 2006

PANAMA CITY — Panama has always been a convenient shortcut for travelers on their way somewhere else. The Spaniards used it to haul treasures from Peru. Prospectors used it to race by rail to California for the Gold Rush. And the whole world still uses its canal, the fastest way to move cargo and cruise ships between oceans.

Poor Panama. Always a detour, never a destination.

But I didn't come here earlier this year to cross the canal or even to look at its locks. I came to explore something that has been as overlooked as the country itself: its music and culture.

My guide to this largely undiscovered world was Ruben Blades, Panama's most celebrated pop-culture figure. The acclaimed salsa singer and songwriter, who ran unsuccessfully for president here in 1994, now serves as minister of tourism, a job that, like his songs, he has undertaken with creative spirit and a sense of social purpose.

Today, he may be the country's second-most recognizable name — after Gen. Manuel Noriega. But Blades bristles when reporters ask him about the dictator whom U.S. forces ousted during a military invasion almost 17 years ago. Time to look at Panama in a different light, Blades says.

Major change

Noriega's exodus helped spark a surge of creativity and a corresponding nationalism for Blades and some of his contemporaries, motivated by a new faith in their country and its promise for the future.

Blades hasn't performed publicly since he became tourism czar two years ago, hoping to avoid criticism from political opponents. By largely giving up his recording and acting careers, Blades is sending a signal that there's more to Panama than we may have thought.

And he's right.

Today, Panama doesn't seem like a banana republic. The Central American country and its capital, Panama City, are booming with purpose and energy.

Visitors to Panama City will be instantly struck by the multimillion-dollar building boom that is transforming the capital's skyline with new office towers, hotels, condominiums and casinos.

They include developer Donald Trump's 65-story Trump Ocean Club, with its stunning tower shaped like a yacht sail, planned for Punta Pacifica on the northwestern side of the Bay of Panama. And the planned Museum of Biodiversity to be built on the Amador Causeway at the opposite side, with its own fanciful design by architect Frank Gehry, whose wife is Panamanian. Civic boosters hope it will do for Panama what Gehry's Guggenheim Museum did for the Spanish city of Bilbao.

For those who want to delve into the city's music scene, it takes a little more effort — and good local guides — to find first-class Latin music here. But in time, Panama's artistic profile could match its surging economic stature.

Capturing the country in music

In interviews during my six-day visit, El Ministro, as Blades' staff respectfully calls him, reminisced about growing up in Panama's poorer barrios, about leaving for New York as a young man in the early '70s to pursue his career in music and film, and about his reason for giving all that up to come home, another repatriated artist brimming with aspirations for his homeland.

Toward the end of the Noriega dictatorship, Blades tried to capture what it meant to be Panamanian in his song "Patria," from his rootsy 1988 album "Antecedente." It's considered a second national anthem here, but I didn't really appreciate the song until I heard it performed at Xoko (pronounced sho-ko), a Spanish restaurant in the central district of El Cangrejo. Young vocalist Luis Arteaga closed his eyes and sang the lyric with a soaring spirituality:

"Homeland is so many lovely things,

Don't commit to memory the lessons of dictatorship and detention,

Homeland is a sentiment like the gaze of an old man,

It is the sunshine of eternal spring,

It is the smile of a newborn little sister."

It's tough to make a nation out of a young republic with so many disparate ethnic elements, Blades would later explain. Panama's fabulous folkloric diversity went on display during my visit on a sunny Sunday when the heavens suspended their daily tropical downpour. It was the Desfile de las Mil Polleras, a parade named for the "thousand" folkloric dancers dressed in Panama's typical gown of frilly lace and colorful embroidery.

This year, Blades invited other groups to join the polleras in their march along broad Avenida 50, propelled by musicians pumping out a furious pace with a tropical flair. The result was a surrealistic carnival of people of African and European descent, of Native Americans and mestizos on foot and on floats, streaming past bank buildings and luxury-car showrooms, some in feathered headdresses and others dressed as devils, dragons and tigers in outlandish, big-headed costumes.

At the front of it all was Blades, pushing forward like a cultural pied piper in his crisp guayabera and straw hat.

Finding its way

As a city, Panama's capital is struggling to find an identity.

Its high-rise skyline on the waterfront is reminiscent of Miami. Its fortressed historic center jutting into the sea, Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Its crumbling colonial buildings, Havana. Its congested streets and touristy craft stores, downtown Tijuana.

Geographically, the serpentine metropolis hugs the crescent coastline of Panama Bay, spreading out its attractions from the modern Amador Causeway on the west to the ruins of the original old city, Panama Vieja, on the east.

This is not a city that invites you to walk. It's difficult to get your bearings here, because Panama is the place where the continent turns sideways, placing oceans north and south.

To get around, I admit, it helps to be on a first-name basis with "El Ministro." Blades, whom I've known for almost 30 years, had his staff at the Panamanian Institute of Tourism lead me to the best spots for good local music. Many tour operators and taxi drivers can also direct you to hot local venues.

The most unexpected place was Bingo 90, a gaudy gambling casino in the middle-class district of Obarrio, near a fashionable new mall called Multiplaza Pacific. There, in a dark, hot and sweaty bingo hall, I saw two of the best local exponents of a native folk style called típico, accordionists Osvaldo Ayala and Ulpiano Vergara, with their bands.

Like Latin youth anywhere, Panamanian kids are also keen on reggaeton, the hip-hop style that exploded out of Puerto Rico. But no pop artist in Panama has survived as long as Blades.

Hot on radio, in clubs

His music plays on the radio constantly. In nightclubs, people sing along to his lyrics, as they did when they heard "Buscando Guayaba" (Looking for the Guava) played by transplanted Cuban bandleader Fidel Morales at Platea, one of the chic new clubs spearheading a restoration of the shamefully dilapidated Casco Antiguo, the fortressed historic quarter at the southern end of Panama Bay.

The area's revival is also being fostered by residents like Blades, who owns a stylish flat overlooking the Teatro Nacíonal and the Church of St. Francis of Assisi.

The historic quarter has been home to Blades since his boyhood. The characters he met here later inspired his classic narrative songs, parables of everyday life for everyday people of Panama and beyond.

Panama info

Lodging:

To call the numbers below from the United States, dial 011 (the international dialing code), 507 (country code for Panama) and the local number.

• Hotel El Panama, 111 Via Espana, Panama City; 215-9000 or www.elpanama.com. Historic, tropical-style hotel where salsa singer Ruben Blades gave his first professional performance, centrally located in the banking district. Doubles begin at $125, including continental breakfast.

• Gamboa Rainforest Resort, P.O. Box 7338, Zone 5, Panama City, 314-9000 or www.gamboaresort.com This full-service resort, 30 minutes from downtown Panama City on the banks of the Chagres River within Soberania National Park, offers a natural getaway featuring an aerial tram over the jungle canopy. Doubles from $175.

• Hostal La Casa de Carmen, Calle 1ra No. 32 El Carmen, Panama City; 263-4366, www.lacasadecarmen.com. A budget hostel in a quiet neighborhood just one block from Via Espana. Doubles begin at $30, including continental breakfast.

Where to eat:

• Manolo Caracol, Avenida Central y Calle Tercera, Casco Antiguo, Panama City; 228-4640 A trendy fusion restaurant in the historic quarter, with art exhibitions and a fixed-price menu of up to 11 courses, all for $16.

• Parrillada Jimmy, Via Cincuentenario, Panama City, 226-1323, www.parrilladajimmy.com. Across from the Atlapa Convention Center and the Tourism Ministry headquarters, this casual family restaurant is a favorite lunch spot for Blades. Known for its steaks. Entrees $4.50-$15.50.

• Restaurante Miraflores, Miraflores Locks, Panama Canal. Food is passable. Dining on the outdoor patio watching huge ships pass through the locks only yards away: priceless. Most expensive item $15.

More information:

An extensive Web site, www.panamainfo.com with information on travel, investment, retirement and more

Panama government tourist office: 800-962-1526 or www.ipat.gob.pa/eng/index.php