Recommend April 2012 - (Page 55)

Old Canal Zone Close to Panama City, the Embera have migrated in the last quarter century from the Darien to the jungles of Chagres National Park, where they live in small communities along the Chagres River. Traveling by car, motorized canoes and on foot, travelers can take a day tour from the capital to visit one of these communities. The welcome will include a music and dance presentation, a fresh-ﬁsh lunch, a chance to buy their crafts and to be painted with the traditional jagua, a natural dye the Embera use to adorn their bodies. While there, visitors can walk medicinal trails with a native healer or swim in the river. People to People: Let’s Meet in Panama Panama City has been a hub of travel and trade in the Western Hemisphere since Pizarro sailed for Peru in the 16th century and gold began coming in huge quantities to the isthmus. Centrally located between the Paciﬁc and Atlantic oceans, today’s multinational metropolis is ideally positioned to welcome meetings of companies and organizations with interests in both North and South America. Now is the perfect time and Panama the perfect place to combine business with relaxation south of the border. The capital’s major meeting place is the Atlapa Convention Center offering the most modern facilities for every kind of meeting, convention, exhibition or cultural event. Climatecontrolled throughout, its innovative design includes a 32,000-sq.-ft. exhibit hall accommodating 3,000 for a meeting or banquet, as well as space for 200 booths. Moveable, soundproof walls can divide the main hall into three sections for 1,000 persons each, while drive-through truck lanes permit exhibit materials to be transported directly into the hall. Cultural and theatrical productions take the stage in Atlapa’s two professional theaters, one holding 3,000 people in ﬁxed seating, the other 500 in ﬂexible seating. For smaller groups there are 16 meeting rooms, ranging from a capacity of 40 to 400. There are full travel services, simultaneous translation in six languages and a modern sound system throughout the convention center. Where one stays is particularly important to meeting planners, and Panama City offers a full roster of deluxe and boutique hotels, including international chains, offering ﬁne accommodations, along with pools, spas, and their own conference facilities. Equally important is ﬁne dining, an activity that has a special place in Panamanian life. In addition to hotel dining spaces, the capital is indeed a gastronomic melting pot of international cuisines—served up in a variety of appealing restaurants that often occupy colonial houses and historic sites. Panama offers planners a variety of a day-away from the capital activities, from teeing off on championship golf courses or world-class deep-sea ﬁshing to a dinner cruise at sea or a catered sailing along the famous Panama Canal. And above all, Panama City is fun, with a varied nightlife of folkloric ballet entertainment, government-regulated casino gambling, and lively nightclubs. SPOTLIGHT ON CRAFT TRADITIONS— AND SHOPPING, OF COURSE In general, things uniquely Panamanian are paintings by accomplished local artists; clothing at its most elegant among the Via España boutiques; jewelry, often reproductions of pre-Columbian designs, always of high quality at excellent prices; wood carvings and ﬁnely made baskets of collector quality. From the Azuero peninsula in southern Panama come the famous lacy, intricately sewn pollera dresses, while the central provinces are noted for their wax candles, furniture and woven hammocks, to name a few items. Other handicrafts of particular importance include patterned, beaded collars called chaquiras of the Guaymi ethnic group, whose fashion style is all copied in indigenous-style dress for ladies and loose-ﬁtting guayabera shirts for men; wood and tagua nut carvings, ceramics, masks and straw hats; and those famous applique molas of the Guna’s ethnic group. Among the best shopping places in Panama City for regional crafts from all over the country are the YMCA Handicrafts Market in Balboa, the Gran Morrison department stores, and the Artesanias craft center next to the Panama Viejo historic site. Outside the capital, the Sunday market in El Valle de Anton carries a wide variety of Panamanian handwork. In visual arts, the nation’s largest collection of works by Panamanian artists is found in permanent and revolving exhibition in Panama City’s Museo de Arte Contemporaneo. In the Casco Viejo quarter, the Reprosa jewelry store is an institution, most famous for its reproductions of gold and silver huacas (ﬁgures recovered from pre-Columbian graves); make note that the store offers an interesting tour of its factory near Panama Viejo. SPOTLIGHT ON GOOD LIVING Dine Around As an international crossroads, Panama offers a surprising variety of ﬁne cuisine at affordable prices. The El Cangrejo and Bella Vista are the capital’s major dining districts, with dozens of wonderful restaurants featuring indoor and/or patio settings. Restaurants in the capital represent international fare (tops is Manolo Caracol), as well as Italian (Mostaza is a APRIL 2012 P27

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recommend April 2012

Editor's Notes/Agent Speak
Hotel Desk: Provenance Hotels
Tour Talk: Trafalgar
Sailing the Galapagos Islands
Now Sapphire
Paradisus Playa del Carmen
Treat Yourself to Brussels
Panama Specialist Program
New Zealand
Turkish Delights
Women Wellness Retreats
The Still-Single Mingle in Vegas
Club Med Sandpiper, Florida
Hawaii: Escaping to the Islands

Recommend April 2012