Isla
Grande
The Lost Sides Of Isla
Grande ~ By Matthew Atlee
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I
was sitting up on the deck of the house and enjoying the sun and drinking
some Panamanian rum and listening to Peter Green’s The End Of The Game,
when I got the idea that I had to walk up the hill behind the house on
Isla Grande. The hill is not long or steep, but is covered in heavy vegetation.
I had thought about climbing the hill before as there are some beautiful
palm trees at the top; I could also see from below that the view was excellent
from the high vantage point on the peak of the hill. But more than just
the view was the history of island, and as I thought about the early history
of Isla Grande, which occurred in the areas that people either can’t reach
or don’t know how to arrive to, I decided to go walking. Most of the early
history of the island occurred up in the hills, whereas today most visitors
of the island stay to the beaches or the immediate coastline of the island
and don’t even bother to venture inland.
The early history
I refer to goes back to Colombus. On his last trip to the Caribbean – his
forth trip to the New World – Colombus passed by what is today Isla Grande.
The island was named Isla Bastimientos and was used by Colombus as he made
his way along the Panamanian Coast to Nombre de Dios. There is some question
about whether or not Isla Grande is Isla Bastimientos, but it seems likely
that it is as it’s one of the few islands in the area that has freshwater
on it. If Colombus, and there are later reports that place Francis Drake
on the island, did stay on the island, then he would have followed the
Spanish custom of finding the highest ground on an island and setting up
camp. Though the Spanish often established towns near the water in Panama,
they almost always established a camp high up above the town in order to
see trouble coming from the sea and to escape the deadly mosquitoes below.
So as I started my walk up the hillsides of Isla Grande to an area that
was not inhabited, I thought about the fact that exactly 500 years before
(1503) Colombus might have been climbing this very hill.
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| Top photo,
making our way up the hillside through jungle. Bottom photo, the French
lighthouse on Isla Grande. |
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The
walk up was not easy: there was thick brush and there were ants and other
biting insects, but there was no worry about snakes, as the island has
none. Our guide up the hill was an old friend from the village of Isla
Grande, Alexis, and he told me that the land on the hillside had a number
of different owners, but few of the owners ever came up to their land in
order to clean it. There was a barbwire fence that marked off different
plots of land, but other than that wire fence there were no signs that
anybody had recently visited this remote mountain.
When we reached
the top there was an almost perfect 360 degree view of the whole island:
in front of us were lines and lines of wonderful palms and fields of flowers
and small trees. But the most interesting sight from this high vantage
point was the French lighthouse which had been built in the 1880s. The
lighthouse had been built when the French had tried to build the canal
before the Americans: the French effort ended in an infamous scandal involving
tons of lost money, but the French effort to build the canal was substantial
and as you pass through Panama you will see little reminders of the French
effort. One of my favorite contributions the French made to the canal effort
was the French plan for Panama City, which had the canal running through
the middle of the city like a highway, with the city shaped as an octagon
around the canal. You can see the French plan of Panama City if you visit
the Canal Museum located in the
beautiful French Quarter of Panama City. The lighthouse we were now looking
at from our excellent viewpoint was originally built to help ships find
their way into the future canal, and even more interesting is the fact
that the man who designed the first light that sat at the top of the lighthouse
was none other than Gustavo Eiffel, the designer and builder of the Eiffel
Tower: funny these little surprises in life: a remote hill, on an even
remoter island, in a relatively unknown country, and then the Eiffel Tower,
Paris and Colombus.
As an interesting
side note to this story, there have been from time to time a large number
of people from France who have either settled on Isla Grande or the nearby
coast. They come and just as mysteriously disappear. They talk little and
what they do say is mostly fragmented and broken so as to be purposely
hard to understand or abstruse. On the coast they live off the main road
that leads to Isla Grande, back up in the hills. If you want to see the
original light that Eiffel designed for the lighthouse, again visit the
Canal Museum; the light is located in the lobby of the museum.
We hiked on
around the back of Isla Grande; here the forest is even wilder and the
setting more remote. On this side of the island there is a wonderful little
cove you can visit when the water is calm; when the weather is bad don’t
bother visiting the cove as the water and waves are too dangerous and a
number of people have drowned on the back-side of the island, which is
the side that faces out to the ocean. On the back-side of the island there
is a nice hotel that is expensive called Bananas;
it’s a nice place if you want a resort. |
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| As
we walked Alexis told me about what the island had been like 30 years before.
Today it’s hard to find a good beach on the island because people have
built over the water destroying the coral reefs and therefore wiping out
the beaches. Thirty years before white sand beaches ringed the island and
there was only one house on the far side of island, below where the French
lighthouse now sits. In those days it was hard to reach the island because
the road from Panama City stopped at Portobelo, which is about a 45 minute
ride on a good road from Isla Grande, so if you wanted to get to Isla Grande
you needed a very good 4X4 and enough luck to get through the rivers that
crossed the road. People still went to the island and when they arrived
the parties were wild. I won’t say too much, but imagine a remote tropical
island, nobody for miles and plenty of rum and good times. With comfort,
came calm, and though the parties today on Isla Grande are still great
fun, they’re not what they were years ago. In the late 70s and early 80s
the island became a favorite hang out for American GIs and they were the
ones who spent the money that made the island what it is today.
Today the island
has a number of small hotels and restaurants; this is a good place to go
to if you have a bunch of people who want to have a good time. Don’t go
looking for a good time, as the island can be sleepy. There are a few small
shops, but no real shopping. No money machines on the island so bring plenty.
During a full moon sit back and watch the moon shine on the waters of the
Atlantic, the best place to do this is at Hotel
Sister Moon; in fact, I recommend Sister Moon to anyone going to the
island: it’s a little rough but when crowded has a great atmosphere. Another
hotel you might want to check out is Hotel Torqueza or the Hotel
Cholita or the hotel Via Sueno. Remember if you are coming to
Panama to celebrate its 100th birthday (November 3rd) then you should check
out Isla Grande; it’s only 2 and a half hours from the city and should
have a party rolling for the centennial.
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More On
Living In Panama
Apartments:
If you decide
you want to move to Panama then more likely than not you will be renting
a place. Apartments can be expensive depending on the area, but because
apartment space is so available you should be able to pick up something
inexpensive: $450 to $600 should get you something very nice. Panama is
not cheap like Honduras or Guatemala. Things are in dollars and because
there was an American presence in the country that was willing to pay,
prices can seem high. If you’re an American, I’ll give you an idea of how
some of your tax money was spent in Panama. An apartment that, say, would
cost a Panamanian $600 would be rented to U.S. military officer for $1200:
the person renting the apartment knew it was an American soldier and therefore
also knew he had an apartment allowance of $1200. One other thing: security
deposits in many cases are held by the Ministry of Housing as a way of
securing the deposit, but it can take up to 2 to 3 months to get your deposit
out of the Ministry.
Education:
There are two
U.S. based universities now operating in Panama. FSU-Panama
offers four-year courses in International Relations and Latin American
studies. The university is less expensive than a university in the states
and it allows your son or daughter to learn Spanish (classes are in English)
and to study with students from Latin America and Europe. The university
is housed in a safe neighborhood in the former-U.S. Canal Zone; the university
also offers housing for overseas students.
If you are
unterested in doing graduate work in Panama, there is the University
of Louisville. Louisville offers an MBA as well as Master level courses
in other business specializations.
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| The cove
on the back-side of Isla Grande. |
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House
on back-side of Isla Grande.
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