There's a question I can't give a definitive answer to, but a few theories have been put forward over the years.
Most likely it's because many of these hats passed through the Panama Canal or ports on their way to the US and Europe. Ecuador being one of those far away, foreign places that few folks visited in the early part of the century.
Panama in those days had a large US influence, both in it's creation as an independent country and in the creation, control and operation of the canal and the canal zone.
Anyway, the so called Panama hat found favour with writers and travellers alike. It's wide brim and light colour making it a very suitable headwear in tropical climates. And for the pretentious, it gave the impression of a suave world traveller.
Unfortunately it's popularity has overshadowed the real thing. The true Panama hat, made locally and worn by many Panamenos around the country, has languished under the name of Sombrero pintado and is virtually unknown outside of Panama.
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New viruses appear with monotonous regularity and you need to keep up with them.
My 2 favorite FREE systems are Avira and AVG, simply because they send automatic daily updates.
About time too, the old licences looked really cheap and nasty, any kid with photoshop could have produced an edited version that would pass inspection.
And, as usual here in dealings with the government, the expat community is in a state of total confusion due to the amount of conflicting information circulating the various groups, and the lack of official information being made public, combined with different answers to requests for information, even from the same office in subsequent calls. Hopefully the following, based on my own experience, will help. Or possibly add to the confusion.
Don't worry folks, it's not just us expats, half the Panamanian population is confused too. Some having an easy time and others still trying to fight their way through beaurocracy. It's just that they have had more practice standing in line and make a social ocaision of the performance..................
As I said before, this is a place I normally pass through, maybe stop to refuel myself and the car at the Los Tucanes bus halt. Santiago is one of those places that the PanAmerican Highway skirts around, and it's easy to miss the town itself.
Along the highway its a collection of hotels and filling stations, with absolutely no redeeming features. Hopefully spending a couple of days here will allow me to find out that there is more to the place.
In an effort to help our visitors, and improve the usefulness of the site, we have added a new feature which provides you with relevant links to other websites, based on popular search terms. No need to go searching around in goggle etc, we have done the work for you.
Check out the link "Panama Resources" in the main menu and let us know if you like the results so far. Also send us additional search terms relevant to Panama so that we can continue building this resource for the benefit of all.
Other new additions are a seperate site, not specific to Panama, where you can add articles for publication by other webmasters, as well as find articles for your own enjoyment or to add content to your own website. Check out the "Free Articles Directory' link.
And finally, theres a Link Exchange for other webmasters to add a link back to their own site.
I've been meaning to commit this to writing since I got back from a
conference in Panama City. The conference was held this past May in a
beautiful setting along with some truly inspirational people. But, if
you're going to Panama for the first and staying in some of the same
places I stayed in there are a couple of things you need to know.
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