I moved to Casco Viejo because I had heard it was dangerous. Dangerous things enticed a boy from Jersey like myself who spent the better part of his childhood in what amounted to an geek bubble. Schoolwork and the arts, such as piano lessons and art camp, were all I was exposed to until the age of nineteen at which point my mother bought me a popular handheld video game system. My version was a knockoff and was called the GameChild.

My first visit to Panama’s dangerous old quarter of Casco Antiguo consisted of two memorable incidents which would eventually play a large role in my moving there. The first, and perhaps most prominent, was an older man, around sixty years old, who was taking a dump in the middle of Avenida Central. Wouldn’t it be great, I thought, to live in a neighborhood where a man isn’t judged by the movement of his bowels. I took photos of the man as if he was performing an exorcism; fascinated by his guile.

The second incident was a little more civil in the sense that it didn’t involve fecal matter. Instead, I observed a small boy beside the Canal Museum urinating in a paper cup. Upon filling the small vessel, the boy threw its contents over his head as if a confetti celebration, several drops of which struck a tourist passing by. She thought it was rain coming off the roof and kept walking. This, to me, was truly living.

When I learned that there were dangerous areas to be walking alone in the Casco, I became more intrigued. The nearby slum of Chorillo had gotten a bad wrap for twelve consecutive gun incidents in just as many weeks. Fringe regions like Santa Ana had seen tourists mugged in a number of different fashions: my favorite being the woman from St. Louis who was robbed of her Gucci sunglasses.

I envisioned the thief bringing the sunglasses to the black market where I’d be sitting, waiting eagerly to buy them at a reduced price. It turned out though, that I was to be outbid by an older man who’d end up using the lenses to cook his eggs in the morning sun. Hate it when that happens.

I liked the rawness of Casco and the run-for-your-lives vibe it emitted. And eventually, I liked it enough to move there. Don’t go if you are freaked out by these things as they happen on a regular basis. Over the years, crime has decreased significantly and streets have been cleaned which to me is no fun. But in reality, we’ll always have the public bathrooms which, whether you like them or not, are what brought me here in the first place.

This post's rating:

Related Stories

Filed under: Country Guide, Culture, Reviews on February 7th, 2008