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Gamboa --- home to the Panama Canal's Dredging division, north of the Continental Divide but closer to Panama City than Colon --- has long been considered something of a neglected backwater. Coming across the Chagres River and into the old town center from Canal Zone days it looks even more neglected, as for security reasons virtually all of the buildings fronting on Culebra Cut, which would be perfects blinds for one of Osama's boys to pick off a ship with a rocket launcher, are now abandoned. Years of haggling between the Panama Canal Authority and the Interoceanic Regional Authority over control of the housing and even the town's phone system have also left their unsightly marks on Gamboa. But many of the jurisdictional rivalries are now sorted out, and in addition to the Dredging Division, Gamboa is home to a lot of Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute offices and workers, and to a growing tourism industry.

With the canal's reversion to Panama, Gamboa has become more Catholic and more Spanish-speaking than it used to be, so the local Catholic Church has become a more important community institution.

The Union Church, a uniquely Zonian institution, also continues to exist in Gamboa, but probably more important than the church in the town is the prison ministry that Reverend Wilbur carries on at the nearby El Renacer Penitentiary.

Gamboa is one of those places where the gurgling water sounds of the oropendola call --- notice the birds' elongated nests above --- don't get drowned out by traffic noise.

It will be a few weeks before these cashews are ready to pick, process and eat. When they are ripe the purplish fruit atop the green seed pods will be much large than the nuts. The juice from the delicate fruit has a peculiar astringent taste that goes well when mixed with other tropical fruit juices. You must thoroughly roast or blanch the nuts before eating them --- otherwise they're poisonous.

It's a jungle out there, and one of the fundamental divisions of humanity is between those whose reaction is "eeeeew, the bugs and snakes" and those who appreciate life with a tropical forest as the back yard.

A number of the latter folks work here, at Smithsonian labs and offices, or commute by boat from Gamboa to Barro Colorado Island.

Also in this section:
Queen Mary 2 calls at Cristobal
Child prostitution: the ugliest side of tourism
Gamboa these days
Caribbean sustainable tourism conference
Candidate poses traffic hazard

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