Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
SAFETY IN COLÓN
Although sometimes exaggerated, Colón's reputation throughout the rest of the country for
violent crime
is not undeserved, and if you come here you should exercise extreme cau-
tion - mugging, even on the main streets in broad daylight, does happen, with the preferred
method a knife discreetly pointed at some point of your anatomy until you hand over the
goods, which you should do without fuss. Don't carry anything you can't afford to lose, try
and stay in sight of the police on the main streets, and consider renting a taxi (recommen-
ded by your hotel) to take you around, both as a guide and for protection.
Brief history
As work began on the construction of the Panama Railroad in 1850, the settlement now
known as Colón began to mushroom on a low-lying lump of coral known as
Isla Manzanillo
.
Surrounded by mosquito- and sandfly-infested mangrove swamps and lacking a source of
fresh water, the location was so unfavourable that the workers initially lived on a brig
anchored in the bay rather than on the island itself. American historian H.H. Bancroft, on
his arrival in 1851, summed up the general view: “The very ground on which one trod was
pregnant with disease, and death was distilled in every breath of air”. Yet the Americans in
charge of the railway bewilderingly insisted on establishing the
Atlantic terminal
here, and
in 1852 unilaterally named the place
Aspinwall
after one of the railway's owners. This upset
the New Grenadan (present-day Colombia and Panama) authorities, who insisted that it be
called Colón, after Cristobál Colón (aka Christopher Columbus), leading to a long-running
dispute that the Colombians finally won by ingeniously instructing the postal services not to
deliver letters from the US if addressed to Aspinwall.
The railway brought many immigrants and a degree of prosperity to the town despite the
constant threat of yellow fever, malaria and cholera. Since then, wealth - via canal construc-
tion, a spell as a fashionable cruise ship destination in the 1950s and the success of the Free
Zone, founded in 1949 - has come and gone, and Panama's main port predominantly remains
a slum city. In the face of extreme poverty and soaring unemployment levels, it is little sur-
prise that many have turned to crime, particularly drug and arms trafficking, as a way to sur-
vive.
