Saturday, December 1, 2018- Fuerte Amador Marina Panama City

Saturday, December 1, 2018- Fuerta Amador Marina, Panama City The ship did rock with the pacific swells, and swung on its anchor overnight.  After a quick breakfast in the buffet, we headed down to the theater at our appointed 7:45AM time.  We sat less than 5 minutes before being herded down to the tender embarkation.  The weather was sunny with scattered puffy clouds, and a very light breeze- just enough to occasionally luft our flags.  It was 85 degrees and still very humid.  The tender ride into the Fuerta Amador Marina was smooth and trouble free.  The marina has lots of very expensive megayachts tied up.  This marina looked just like you would expect to see in Catalina Island or Maui.  No junky rust buckets anywhere in sight.

 The skyline of Panama City is like yet another Miami, full of high rises.  There are several landmark buildings including one that looks twisted up into the air.  There is also the very colorful Panama Biomuseum designed by architect Frank Ghery.  And the skyline is completed by the Centennial Bridge across the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal.

  Our included excursion was a bus tour of Panama City.  They used chartered buses that were more what we expected for Viking- comfortable air conditioned modern coaches, although these buses did not have a restroom as the Viking branded buses throughout Europe had.  

We started by driving past the Panama Biomuseum, with its colorful sloped roofs.  The main exhibit explains how the Panamanian isthmus had at one time been submerged under the ocean so that in essence , there was just one great ocean covering the surface of the planet.  

When geological forces caused the Cordilla, or backbone of the Americas to rise up from the ocean floor, it separated the Pacific from the Atlantic oceans.  This lead to the great biodiversity now seen between the different oceans.  We didn’t get to stop or go into the museum, but our guide did explain this to us. We drove around Ancon, the former military headquarters for the Spanish, then the French, and then the Americans during the last several hundreds of years.  This is decorated with red tiled stucco buildings left from the turn of the century.  Unfortunately, many are in poor disrepair due to neglect and the tropical environment.  Our guide mentioned that this area is in the process of redevelopment into a neighborhood of very expensive million dollar plus houses.  Ironically, it is surrounded by what he called “rough housing”, which looked like Soviet era apartment houses covered with clothes lines and peeling paint.  Ancon is surrounded by a defensive city wall, as is Casco Antiguo, or the old town center.  

There is a monolith out in front of the Panama Canal Adminstration Building that is a monument to General Goethals, who managed to conquer the mosquitos and Culebra cut to get the Panama Canal finished. The bus then wound its way along the waterfront to the new part of Panama City, which looks and feels like Miami.  Our guide had to make an unscheduled bathroom stop for one of the passengers at the Panama City Hilton.

Then we headed to Casco Antiguo, or the old walled city.  Local indians, the Guna, were waiting to sell us wares as soon as we got off the bus to walk through the old town.

Due to the influence of the French, during all the years that the French had attempted to build their canal, there are many blocks of the old town that look and feel a bit like France, or the French Quarter of New Orleans.  

There is a remnant of a Spanish fortress at the end of the penninsula, where the French had erected an obelisk with a rooster on the top.  This was to memorialize the over 20,000 men who died during the French attempt at building a Panama Canal.  

             

  There is a cathedral at the central square. City workers were putting up large Christmas decorations including a nearly lifesized Christmas train made of tinsel and electric lights.  

The streets in Casco Antiguo are very narrow, and cobblestone.  Our guide tried to funnel everyone into a small gift shop where they supposedly had a bathroom that we could use for free, but it was just a single stall, and there was no running water in that part of the city for some reason.  We ended up wasting over a half hour with people standing in line to use the non-functioning toilet.  We walked past a few Porta-Potties near construction sites, but they were all padlocked.  While we were waiting, we tried out a few photography techniques we learned during one of the onboard lectures.

       

   

  We walked from the town square to the esplanade formed by the wall so of the old Spanish fortification, where vendors had set up tables, and there were views of the town, Centennial Bridge, Biomuseum and our Viking Star in the harbor. Janet found someone who had nice polished stones set in silver wirewrap.  She picked out a nice Labradorite pendant to add to her collection of South American and Central American pendants.

  Many vendors were women of the Guna tribe selling their characteristic Mola fabric artworks. These are made by sewing multiple layers of colorful fabric together, and then cutting away layers to expose others in patterns frequently reflecting mother nature. 

  The excursion bus took us back to the Marina, where the tenders were shuttling passengers and crew to and from the Viking Star.  There was also a free shuttle bus to the Multiplaza Pacific shopping center, so we took that back into town. The shopping center was very modern and opulent, looking like it belonged somewhere like Miami, Dallas, or Las Vegas.  

There were huge fake Christmas trees, including a Swarovski tree.  There were also stores for Tiffany’s and Cartier.  The mall was nicely air conditioned, and offered state of the art and well maintained bathrooms (with multiple stalls and running hot and cold water!).  We walked a couple of laps to check out the stores and get some indoor exercise.  It was amusing to see a Krispy Kreme store in the mall.  We returned to the ship via the free shuttle bus and tender.  We did not get back before the dining rooms closed for lunch, but we got cleaned up and had afternoon tea.  This time, we were able to sit in the Wintergarden.  The ship’s violinist and cellist provided live classiclal ensemble music, but the accoustics in Wintergarden are even worse than in The Restaurant because of it’s glass roof and walls, and marble tile floors. It made it very hard to carry on a conversation.  We ran into our Aussie trivia friends who joined us over tea.   After resting up a bit, we hit the fitness center and thermal suite to get our exercise and activity rings closed.  We attended the early show by the ship’s vocalists, who did a showcase of Beatles songs. They sang many Beatles songs with simple choreography in front of the LED backdrop and sidewings.  They made no attempt to “BE” the Beatles like so many other cruise ship Beatles tribute bands attempt to do with varying degrees of success.  We had dinner in The Restaurant after the show, and ended up being the last ones out of the Restaurant.  They were happy to empty their bottle of Merlot into our glasses as we left after finishing dessert.  Tomorrow is another day at sea. Our clocks get set back an hour tonight.