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.
Noriega’s exodus sparked 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.
That artistic energy and sense of purpose were evident during a performance I attended on my first night in the now-booming Central American capital, part of a six-day stay.
The show featured Romulo Castro, a stirring singer-songwriter who went into self-imposed exile in Cuba during the Noriega regime. It was a dark and depressing period for him and his young nation, both politically and creatively. Castro returned just in time to see his homeland invaded and occupied, another blow to the national psyche.
Yet it was shortly after the 1989 invasion that Castro wrote his most famous song, “La Rosa de los Vientos” (The Rose of the Winds). Blades recorded the poetic, uplifting number on a 1996 album of the same name, which went on to win a Grammy for best tropical performance.
The title song is an expression of hope, Castro told friends and fans during the recent show at Xoko (pronounced sho-ko), a Spanish restaurant in the central district of El Cangrejo, where he regularly performs with Tuira, his rousing Afro-Panamanian group.
“Ruben was supposed to come tonight, but I guess Martin didn’t let him,” Castro cracked between songs.
He was referring to Panamanian President Martin Torrijos, who made Blades his tourism czar two years ago, elevating the singer and the post to his Cabinet. Blades hasn’t performed publicly since he took the job, 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. 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.
It takes a little more effort – and good local guides – to find first-class Latin music here. That concert on the first night convinced me that, given time, Panama’s artistic profile could match its surging economic stature.
In interviews during my 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.
It’s tough to make a nation out of a young republic with so many disparate ethnic elements, Blades would later explain. Until 1903, Panama was a provincial outpost of neighboring Colombia.
Panama’s fabulous folkloric diversity went on display on the last full day of my visit, 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.
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 the 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 local music. Many tour operators and taxi drivers can direct you to hot local venues, which are listed in guides and newspapers.
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 tipico, accordionists Osvaldo Ayala and Ulpiano Vergara, with their bands.
Outside the bingo hall, in much brighter light, a small salsa combo had customers dancing in the aisles near the roulette table and the slot machines.
In Panama, you find the fun in funky.
Like Latin youth anywhere, Panamanian kids are keen on reggaeton, the hip-hop style that exploded out of Puerto Rico. Daddy Yankee, its biggest star, performed this month at the new Figali Convention Center on the causeway, site of the 2003 Miss Universe contest.
People don’t give enough credit to one of reggaeton’s originators, Panamanian singer El General. Although the music didn’t have a name back then, El General experimented with the style in the late ’80s by borrowing reggae beats from the children of Jamaican immigrants who had come to work on the canal.
El General (born Edgardo Franco) is now retired from music. When I tracked him down, he was on location outside the city making a movie about a boy and his grandfather. One of his co-stars is Blades, playing a psychiatrist.
Small world, Panama. It turns out Blades was a high-school classmate of Ulpiano, the accordion ace.
No pop artist in Panama has survived as long as Blades. 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 being fostered by residents. Blades owns a stylish second-story flat overlooking the Teatro Nacional and the Church of St. Francis of Assisi, with a panoramic view of the modern skyline beyond. But this 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.
If you go
Telephones: 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, fax 269-3309, 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, www.gamboaresort.com. This full-service resort, just 30 minutes from downtown Panama City on the banks of the Chagres River within Soberania National Park, offers a spectacular 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. Billed as Panama’s first bed-and-breakfast. The budget hostel is in a quiet neighborhood just one block from Via Espana. Doubles begin at $30, including continental breakfast.
* Manolo Caracol, Avenida Central y Calle Tercera, Casco Antiguo, Panama City; 228-4640. This trendy fusion restaurant in the historic quarter offers art exhibitions and a fixed-price menu with up to 11 courses, all for $16.
* 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.
* An extensive Web site, www.panamainfo.com, with information on travel, investment, retirement and more.
* Official site of the Instituto Panameno de Turismo (the government’s tourism ministry), www.ipat.gob.pa.
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