travel

You can see this flag from many parts of Panama City

A walk up and down Ancon Hill

photos and captions by Eric Jackson

                              Just below the national park, Quarry Heights is a

                             neighborhood of  well tended gardens and one of

                              the cleanest and quietest parts of the metro area

Sometimes even the best maintained plants give you problems

For buzzards the pickings at this dumpster are slim, even

if the thermals blowing up from the hill are attractive

In the background is Punta Paitilla, a part of the city much

storied in all the real estate hype found on the Internet

Let's see --- if they don't honk, or if they do honk but they're going too fast, or if

the other person doesn't hear.... Who said there's no such thing as free lunch?

The canal, from one side of the hill...

From near the top of the hill, you might see this depiction of a dilemma facing

most developing tourist destinations: a luxurious white cruise ship in the bay

and the miserable crime-ridden pastel high rise slums of El Chorrillo closer in

From the same spot as above, you might want to look the other way at the city below

Ancon Hill became a national park in large part due

to the efforts of poet Amelia Denis de Icaza

Despite its height and grandeur, Ancon Hill is also

a good place to see and appreciate small things

You will not, however, appreciate these anthills

if you are so maladroit as to step on them

There were deer hoof prints leading into this undergrowth. However, such niches

are not good to visit when wearing flip flops because snakes also like such places

Ancon Hill is, as the people who put up this banner would remind you but the

developers who want to build a cable car and tourist center at the summit would

have you forget, one of the crown jewels of Panama's national park system