It's crazy, but Panama City starts to feel like home. Kind of surprising, really, that out of all the stopovers on this wild ride, PanaMAH is where I wound up hanging my hat for a spell.
It's crazy because of the streets that alternate between smelling like fish and urine, the crackheads who try to sell you broken wine glasses on the corner, the high decibel perverts in passing cars and the crippling humidity that wrecks havoc with my current war on commerical deoderant products. I've seen cats here so mangey and ugly that even I don't want to cuddle them. So you know it's serious.
But it's also Casco Viejo, my favorite, rag-tag, rummage bin, take a picture or you'll miss it, brokedown palace of a neighborhood in all the world. It's where I can get new dresses for $3. It's where fresh fruit juice sells for less than the sugary stuff in the grocery stores and, sobre todo, it's where Luna's Castle is. My hostel-away-from-home.
Luna's is a big, old mansion built into Panama City's original sea wall from hundreds of years ago. You should see this place. Unecessarily high celings, dark wood floors and window-balconies that stretch easily ten feet high. Thanks to the artists that pass through on a regular basis eager for a free night or two, we've got art like you wouldn't believe, canvasses covering every wall. There's a fort and a movie theater and, oddly, more fellow Oregonians than you can shake a stick at.
So we find our moments of beauty in a city that sometimes resists. And at the end of the day, what is Central America- a deserted beach in the middle of tourist paradise or a big, gritty mess of human community? Easy, right? It's Panama City.
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