Panama City's Afro-Caribbean Museum.
Panama City's first metro line has 14 stations and I decided seeing their neighbourhoods would be a worthwhile way to start exploring the city.
The first station I chose for an exit was Cinco de Mayo, named for a nearby plaza commemorating an event in Mexico’s history. As I left the station I saw a directional sign indicating a museum, something that always interests me.
One of 14 stations on Panama City's new metro system.
Just across Avenida Justo Arosemena is the small Museo Afroantillo or Afro-Caribbean Museum in an old church. There I spent an informative hour learning about the migrants from the West Indies, Jamaica and Barbados in particular, who came to build the Panama Canal and whose descendants today form part of Panama’s estimated 4 million people. About a block along is an overhead roadway called Viaducto 3 de Noviembre (the date Panama separated from a union with Colombia) and from that point the area looks distinctly poorer. The street I was on merges with the very busy Avenida Central.
On a wall approaching the viaduct are a few words from Acción Poética Panamá. The poetic action movement started in Mexico in 1996 and has spread to other countries.
Never give up what makes you smile.
On the same wall is a quote from Colombian Gabriel García Márquez (1927-2014) who received the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature.
"Wrong destination is always a serious political error." The viaduct is in top left of the photo.
As I walked along Avenida Central toward Plaza 5 de Mayo I saw behind a fence a monument I later learned honours the volunteer firemen killed while fighting an exploded gunpowder magazine in 1914.
Monument to volunteer fire fighters who died in 1914.
Traffic is heavy along Avenida Central and a police officer stops cars so pedestrians can use the cross walk.
As I crossed to the plaza I realized this might be an area my host had suggested avoiding. Maybe that was why an officer at the station, seeing me fumble to check out with my metro card for the first time, had asked where I was going. When I replied "museo" he told me to go left outside the door and repeated his instructions to be sure I had understood. After taking a couple of photographs, I recrossed the street and returned to the metro station.
Walking back toward the metro station and the Afro-Caribbean Museum.