Casco Viejo, Panama City, Panama

The walk about continues. We walked from our residence to Casco Viejo on Thursday. We wanted to have lunch at the Cafe Per Due, so we put on our walking shoes and headed out. The day was slightly overcast, but no rain. It took us about 1.5 hours to arrive at the restaurant. Lots of stopping for photography, window shopping, and people watching. It should have taken about 45 minutes. The Cafe Per Due has a very unusual sign above their door. A very clever wind chime and business advertisement, water, coke and beer.

Currently, the Casco Viejo area of Panama City is a mess. Many of the streets are torn up as new utility services are installed and the old bricks are getting replaced. New streets are laid by hand to keep the tradition of the neighborhood. Back breaking work. Car traffic in the area is almost impossible. Walking around the narrow crowded streets is the best way to travel.

The security/law enforcement personnel are everywhere. There are the tourist police (to help tourists), traffic police, quick response cops(two on small motorcycles carrying machine guns), traditional blue suited police, highway police, and then lots of private security guards at buildings, malls, etc. The quick response guys in the picture were talking to a undercover cop when I started to take the picture, he jumped out of the shot and stood away until we left. You can see in the picture these guys carry a bunch of gear.

Another motorcycle we saw in Casca Viejo belonged to a Colorado person, or at least had CO license plates. They were expired, but then who's checking?

Yesterday was our anniversary, yeah! We celebrated the day with a fine dinner, good scotch and vodka, each others company and working on Kryss's website. Still needs a little tweaking but getting lots of hits and wonderful comments. Today we are going with friends to an ex-pat July 4th celebration, bbq, fireworks, beer, etc. Should be fun and we don't have to walk to get there. Today's sunrise brought this view...it will be a beautiful day!