NEWSROOM PANAMA
Thursday, 7 April 2011
By Jaime Figueroa Navarro
During their first Panama foray, I always encourage the increasing number of tourists to book an "A" seat, located next to the window on the port (left hand) side of the aircraft.
By doing so, they'll enjoy a magnificent view of the Panama Canal, the vastness of Gatun (the largest artificial lake in the world at the time of the flooding for its outset in 1904) and the surrounding vast greenery, whose greatness, often embroidered by blooming yellow guayacan trees, certainly drenches some with envy while welcoming all to visit its monumental ecological wealth.
Upon turning left over Taboga Island on the Pacific side of the isthmus for the final approach to Tocumen International Airport, visitors can view afar the incipient Panama Bay and its towering skyscrapers competing in bloom with the majestic mahogany trees of our mystifying jungles.
Of all the urban works launched during the first decade, the emblematic coastal strip (Cinta Costera) marks a leap to the XXIst century endowing our capital city with a boulevard that transforms its image to a Latin-Caribbean vision of Miami, with the only difference, as I spell out to our visitors, that more English is spoken here.
On its axis, the strip features an iconic 20th century tribute: the imposing statue in honor of the Pacific Ocean’s discoverer, Vasco Núñez de Balboa, donated by King Alfonso XIII of Spain, sculpted by gifted artists Miguel Blan and Mariano Benlliure, unveiled in the presence of representatives from 15 Latin American countries by Panama´s President Dr. Belisario Porras on Monday September 29, 1924.
Its resolute evidence that it was here and nowhere else that the greatest geographical conquest in the history of mankind began. In my recollections of bygone years, lay silhouettes of romantic couples that bejewelled its perimeter and the adjacent Anayansi Park, prior to its transformation. The strip’s actual condition with its golden-haired grass, limited pedestrian overpasses and gloomy personality, distresses the soul.
In a capital city that boasts the silhouette of the Trump Ocean Club in Punta Pacifica, the bolt-shaped F&F Tower in the financial district and Frank Gehry’s, soon to be completed, Biodiversity Museum in Amador, the on going battle for the control of the Cinta Costera between City Hall and the Public Works Ministry is evident and has taken us to more of the same: trivial Christmas decor and improvised and dull summer carnivals. This is not Panama!
If in charge, I would repaint the strip’s dying canvas, outfitting it with a tropical fruit trees garden to fascinate visitors, inviting them to trolley car admire and savor its exotic fruits permeating the boulevard where the tourist would originate, past the renewed Chinatown, gripping the ridge to Casco Antiguo and further, drifting on to Amador, with a link crossing pedestrian Central Avenue to the Cinco de Mayo Plaza, allowing thereby the comprehensive improvement of a tourist-centered metropolis frankly unique in the world.
For the strip’s gardens upkeep, instead of sapping additional funds from taxpayers, our coastal strip would garnish the bay with restaurants, leisure spots and the pristine fish market at its center, outfitted with a multipurpose pier to include fishing and leisure yachts as well as water taxis, fashioning an additional lung to the city that separates traffic with a tropical path and a tourist oasis.
Taking advantage of the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the discovery of the Pacific Ocean, on Wednesday September 25th 2013, I would christen the Vasco Núñez de Balboa strip and would place the icing on the cake by also unveiling a galleon to serve as permanent testimony of our glorious past, in operation for tours, romantic dinners and a forced gathering spot for all tourists that honor us with their visits. Only by thinking grandly will we accomplish a difference. That’s the way tourism should be!
Jaime Figueroa Navarro is a tourism specialist
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