The Psychedelic Buses of Panama City

Maybe it was because it was only 7am in Panama City. Maybe it was because I'd just got off an 18 hour bus ride from San Jose. Maybe it was because I'm just not that smart. But I sat there in my first local Panama City bus wondering for a good five minutes whether the purple, leather trim that adorned the entire front dashboard came standard when this American Blue Bird bus rolled off the assembly line in North Carolina.

Fortunately I needed no such deliberations to reach a conclusion about the gigantic purple feather boa (no, seriously) that circled the driver's rear view mirror and extended across the entire front of the bus. I was certain that it had only been installed once the bus reached Panama.

I have seen old American Blue Bird buses in every Central American country I've been to and the best days for most were definitely behind them. However the buses of Panama City have never looked better. The spray jobs on some of them are a combination of 1960's hippy designs merged with 1970's "Sin Bin" Panel Van artwork (think Conan the Barbarian style fantasy scenes), with 1980s graffiti text and comic book characters thrown in. Not to mention an excess of hood ornaments, like a bus with three pairs of rear view mirrors two rows tail lights and a set of three 'aerials' all on the bonnet.




Just about all of the local buses servicing the city centre have been made over in this style, and showing the pride behind the transport most also have been named. Typically these are girls names, although a few "boys" (with suitably macho paint jobs) work the streets too.




Of the Panama City neighbourhoods I walked through today, Casco Viejo was easily the most interesting. It used to was the old Panama City, and must have been quite beautiful, with French and Spanish architectural influences before being abandoned in the late 19th Century. The buildings have been left to fall down, and a good number seem to have done just that.

It is a case study in urban renewal as probably the worst neighbourhood in the city is being regenerated into a tourist district one building at a time. So at present you have five star hotels and fancy restaurants sandwiched between derelict buildings and metres from squatters slums. A significant presence of tourist police throughout the whole area are there to keep the peace.