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The Azuero Peninsula
Bus confrontation looming
Sunset at low tide

photo by Eric Jackson

It's your good luck that they don't have the smellies on the Internet...

Looking at Panama City's waterfront can have its visual charms. Here, we're looking west from Avenida Balboa, with the Hotel Miramar's landfill, some of the tall buildings west of the hotel, a scintilla of the Casco Viejo and finally Ancon Hill in the background.

You don't want to get the smell of this place over the Internet, and you especially don't want the odor from about 150 yards behind where the photographer stood, at the mouth of the sewage-laden Matasnillo River near upscale Punta Paitilla.

Panama City does have its charms, but the "now's the time to buy" hype that's all over the net rarely mentions its problems. Now word is back that some of the people who bought into new developments going up along Panama Bay without actually having been here are now shocked and disappointed to find that just because the promoters told them that the high rise in which they pre-bought will be on the beach doesn't mean that it's next to water in which swimming is advisable. You will be able to safely swim at Donald Trump's new development, but in the pool, not the ocean.

Panama Bay can be beautiful at times, but it's grossly polluted and if you're thinking about moving to Panama City that's a fact of life that you need to take into account before sinking your life's savings into real estate here.

Yes, there are some plans in the works to improve the water quality in Panama Bay, but they have been in the works for decades now without visible progress. The obstacles are first, that jealous politicians habitually try to block a new sewage system if they don't want the mayor at the time to get credit; second, that powerful developers have other priorities, mainly to turn the bay into a landfill and let the people who buy into the new waterfront worry about the smell; and third, that predators in public offices won't agree to the large but relatively simple process of cleaning the bay unless and until they are assured that a big chunk of the money to be spent flows back into their pockets.