Panama City's small Old Town is situated on a rocky peninsula in the Pacific, a spot that was relatively easy to defend because it is protected by a reef and inaccessible from the sea except at high tides. That means it’s surrounded by ugly mud flats and stone much of the time because of high tidal variations in the Gulf of Panama. The current Old Town is actually not Panama City’s original settlement. That was a few miles away at a site now known as Panama Viejo that was destroyed in 1671 by pirate Henry Morgan. Casco Viejo and the ruins of Panama Viejo now together constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Until recently Panama City’s old town was very run down, but it’s impressive how rapidly it is gentrifying in Panama City’s economic boom . There’s an enormous contrast between the many newly restored buildings filled with new boutique hotels, restaurants, and shops and the crumbling nearby buildings still in a state they’ve been in for half a century. That probably won’t last long, though, considering how much of the Old Town is currently under renovation. Our guide Chris said construction always takes a long time to complete in Panama, but I’m sure the Old Town will look considerably more like a historical museum in five or ten years.

As recently as 1904 when construction on the Panama Canal got underway in earnest, Casco Viejo constituted all of Panama City, which explains why there’s almost nothing of any historical or architectural interest anywhere else in the city except for the Panama Viejo ruins. It also explains why many of the large buildings in the Old Town are occupied by the headquarters of government ministries, and the presidential residence is still located in one of the elegant seaside houses.

We took taxis from our hotel in the new part of our city over to Casco Viejo for a few free hours to explore before our last dinner together as a group at a tapas-themed restaurant called Tantalo. Tapas does not necessarily mean Spanish, though, and the eclectic menu of interesting international fusion was a little on the pricey side. The food made up for it, though, some of the best on the entire two-week tour from Nicaragua. A last night of a tour together of course can’t end early and has to be finished with some bar-hopping and mojitos late into the evening. Casco Viejo’s many bars are a great place to do so.