A Precarious Bridge

A sliver of land between two continents.

Panama City, Panama

April 24, 2024

“Geography is destiny.”

-Ibn Khaldun

The world has always contained crucial crossroads: trading depots, transit hubs, and meeting places where commerce is expedited, palms are greased, and ideas exchanged…rubbing opposing opinions together to soften certainty and dull dogma.

Ancient Athens marinated minds in unconventional thought, and matched money to merchandise around the Aegean. For more than a millennium, the Byzantines funneled buyers and sellers thru the Bosporus. And Renaissance Venice drew luxuries from across Asia up the Adriatic, to be distributed throughout Italy or over the Alps.

When De Gama and Columbus opened new avenues around Africa and across the Atlantic, Europe’s more prosperous ports moved north and west.

As colonists infiltrated fresh continents on the other side of the ocean, imperial merchants sought aquatic passages to the Pacific. The only viable one entailed a treacherous trip thru the Straits of Magellan, past Cape Horn.

A Perilous Fulcrum

In the western hemisphere, the great oceans were separated relatively recently. Only three million years ago…the geologic duration of a seismic sneeze…a Panama Canal wouldn’t have been needed.

But between the Americas, tectonic convulsions pushed the Pacific plate under its Caribbean counterpart, imparting pressure and heat that produced underwater volcanoes.

Before long, they came up for air. From adjacent land masses, erosion filled gaps between the incipient islands. An isthmus emerged, and connected the continents.

The new land was a perilous fulcrum, a precarious bridge between the waves. But for explorers seeking quick paths to the Pacific, the slender terrain was enticing.

Rugged mountains, thick jungle, and rampant disease rendered this narrow link virtually impassable. But the quest continued.

In 1501, Rodrigo de Bastidas became the first European to explore the isthmus. The following decade, Balboa crossed it. Six years later, in 1519, Royal Governor Pedro de Ávila founded Panama City.

Precious Metals Entrepôt

The town became an entrepôt for South American silver to be hauled over the isthmus and across the Atlantic. This Camino Real was colloquially called Camino de Cruces…for the graves that lined the grueling route.

Precious metals crossed the Pacific too. After reaching Panama from Peruvian mines, they were loaded onto Manila Galleons for shipment to the Philippines.

But this mineral bounty pushed prices up, and brought predators in. Inflation ravaged, and ultimately ruined, imperial Spain. For a few centuries, it retained some weight to throw around. But most of the muscle mass had withered away.

On either side of Panama, Dutch pirates and English sea dogs attacked the coasts. Within it, African “cimarrons” who’d freed themselves from slavery joined the fight.

Panama City wasn’t immune. In the late seventeenth century, English privateer Henry Morgan sacked and burned it.

Over the ensuing centuries, Panama faded in importance as technology eased passage around the Horn. The arduous crossing of the isthmus became more trouble than it was worth.

During this period, the Viceroyalty of New Grenada was created to resist competing powers circling Spanish conquests. But it was based in distant Bogotá, which may as well have been Barcelona.

The Panamanians, who’d had a previous affinity for Peru and a current one for independence, weren’t pleased. After separating from Spain in 1821, they remained a subdivision of “Gran Colombia.”

But they weren’t happy about it. Over the ensuing century, Panamanians repeatedly tried to secede. Antagonism toward Colombia persisted…till a rising power carved them away so it could construct a canal.

A Wet Heat

We arrived this afternoon to this sliver of land between two continents, thru which that miraculous canal connects a couple oceans.

The place is perpetually hot…but at least it’s a wet heat! Perched only nine degrees above the equator, Panama City has an equatorial climate featuring a hot and humid “dry” season, and a warm, rainy “wet” one.

This time of year, the transition is underway. If the soggy weather forecast is any indication, it’s already complete.

The city receives about 75 inches of annual rain, almost all falling from now thru November. Looks like most of that is predicted to arrive during our stay. But so far, it’s merely muggy, with a soft breeze bringing refreshing sprinkles off the Pacific.

December to April features the highest temperatures and least rain. This is usually the hottest month, with the mercury averaging 83F. October is the “coldest”; when it arrives, three degrees will have gone away.

A Good Excuse

Within and around this bustling metropolis, thick forests, lush foliage, and copious crops testify to abundant moisture and ample sun.

Panama’s unique location also makes it a natural logistics hub, providing the Georgia Tech Industrial Engineering Advisory Board (on which my wife sits) an excuse to hold its annual meeting here.

Added impetus comes from the previous president of Panama having received his Industrial Engineering degree from Georgia Tech.

Unfortunately, he also earned a place in the “Pandora Papers”…sequel to the “Panama Papers”…that revealed off-shore accounts controlled by political leaders and other members of the global “elite.”

A few years ago, he was indicted in the Odebrecht case on suspicion of money laundering, and has since been barred entry to the U.S. by a State Department that we all know has no patience for political corruption.

Regardless the reason the meeting is here, I decided to tag along…a civil engineering interloper amid a welcoming group of industrial engineers.

We’re in a place like nowhere on earth. Lewis Carroll couldn’t have invented it. The sun rises over the western ocean, and sets into the eastern sea. And ships cross the country by floating uphill.

While here, we’ll take a closer look at how they do it.

JD