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A visit to Ancon Hill
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A visit to Ancon Hill

photos by Eric Jackson

On this afternoon this reporter went up to Ancon Hill with a German television crew who wanted some shots of the canal's Pacific entrance and the parts of Panama City along the bay. This is a national park, and a hill that sends breezes coming off the ocean upward, creating wind currents on which the season's migrating hawks, kites and vultures soar. (If you didn't know that the top of Ancon Hill is a national park, the people who live just below are trying to let you know. A lot of them have signs opposing the government's proposed cable car and tourist center development.)

While the video crew was paying more attention to landscapes, your correspondent was watching the birds (which were too far away to properly photograph with the camera available) and checking checking out the things that were in bloom. The flowers shown below are domesticated rather than wild varieties, but beautiful additions to the park nevertheless.