Why is it that winter vacations always seem to begin with major histrionics and high drama? As we prepared to leave on our most recent journey, we were hit with 18″ of snow and temperatures in the single digits. Our regular snow plow guy didn’t even attempt to plow us out, since our driveway was already flanked by two-foot-high ice walls, the vestiges of past storms and relentless sub-freezing temperatures. In desperation, I called our neighbor, Jim Nilson, who happens to own a dandy skid-steer with a front-end loader on it. He kindly volunteered to help us out.
Well, our driveway held a hidden challenge, a thin layer of solid ice under most of the long uphill stretch. The skid-steer foundered several times and needed to be pulled out by Jim’s huge farm tractor. Four and a half hours later, we finally had a semblance of a path, narrow and treacherous, which was at least navigable by our four-wheel-drive vehicles. But, with three more inches of fresh snow on the morning of our long-awaited departure for Panama, our regular plow dude dropped by and managed to beach his F350 on one of our snowbanks, blocking the driveway. Just then, Jim stopped by to drop off our bill for the first fiasco and promptly beached himself as well. So there we were, ready to leave for the airport, and our driveway was hopelessly blocked by not one but two snow-plowing professionals. “What’s wrong with this picture?” I says to myself. That’s not what I really said.
Thankfully, Jim got his tractor again and pulled everyone out, and we made it to the Newark Airport with time to spare — and a lot more gray hairs, as though we needed them. After all that, our takeoff was delayed an hour, but the pilots made up for some of the lost time in the air and we arrived in Panama City only about half an hour late, clearing customs around midnight.
We checked into our excellent little boutique hotel near the heart of Panama City at around 1:00 am and went promptly to dreamland. Today, Wednesday, after a nice breakfast in the hotel, we took some time to decompress and plan our two-day stay in Panama City. High on our list was a visit to the new Biomuseo, the colossal biodiversity museum, designed by Frank Gehry, under construction for the past seven years overlooking the Gulf of Panama at the entrance to the Panama Canal. We had seen earlier stages of construction last year when we visited this area and were eager to see how things were coming along. We negotiated with a cab driver to take us there and wait for us while we walked around the museum.
All I can say is that I have no idea how Frank Gehry conceives of these buildings. This museum is a cacaphony of colors, shapes and textures, itself a fitting visual allegory of the biodiversity it is destined to celebrate. I’d venture to say that something this complex could not have been designed before computers and CAD systems were available to calculate and integrate the thousands of intersecting planes and structural elements. I still can’t see how any mortal contractor could build it. It will be great to see it when it’s finished, certainly by the next time we visit.
Next, we had our driver take us down to the three small islands at the end of the causeway, where we had a lunch at a Columbian restaurant overlooking the yacht club marina. The view across the water of the Panama City skyline, framed by sailboats, fancy yachts and mountains in the background, is dramatic and unforgettable.
We finished off a wonderful day with a memorable meal at La Posta, an Italian restaurant in the Marbella District, less than a mile from our hotel. Tomorrow we will head out in the morning with an English-speaking driver for a more extensive tour of some local landmarks we have not yet seen. I’ll report on those adventures when time permits.