Panama booming

PANAMA. “Panama is booming, in fact it has been booming for some time now,” says a writer in the British national newspaper, The Daily Telegraph.

While he may have been wearing glasses with a slight rose tint at the time of writing, or sipping an extra glass of vino at bargain prices relatively speaking, it is the sort of review in an “upper class” publication that former Tourism manager Ruben Blades would have endorsed without a blink. It leans heavily on the real estate industry’s view of Panama and is illustrated with a toucan.

There is only passing reference to the crime wave, and that in the “dangerous” city of Colon.

But it’s all good breakfast time reading, so pass the marmalade, and relax with writer Richard McColl in Balboa, at a safe distance from hot spots like Chorillo, but dangerously close to the dumping ground of bodies of narco trafficking executions. See page 2.