A few miles north of the Panama Canal Zone lies the Valley of Square Trees, a unique tourist attraction where trees of the cottonwood family have rectangular trunks.

Unique in the entire world, this group of square-shaped cottonwood trees grows in a valley created from the ashes of a giant volcano – El Valle de Anton. Featuring hard-right angles, the trunks of the square trees have baffled tourists and scientists alike for several years. Experts from the University of Florida took saplings of the mysterious trees to see if they retain the same characteristics in a different environment, and concluded that their square shape must have something to do with conditions unique to the valley in which they grow. Evidence that the cause of this bizarre phenomenon is deep-seated is indicated by the fact that their tree rings, which represent its growth, are also square.

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At an age when most kids keep their hands busy with video game controllers, smartphones or tablets, 12-year-old Ezrah Dormon, from Panama City, is already a popular tattoo artist. Despite his young age, people are lining up to have him ink a permanent tattoo into their skin.

Tattoo parlors are usually off-limits to kids, but walk into the Honolulu tattoo shop in Panama City, and you may see a cute long-haired kid painstakingly working on a client’s tattoo or honing his inking skills on a grapefruit. His name is Ezrah, and he is already one of the most in-demand artists in Panama. I don’t know what it is about getting tattooed by an inexperienced child, but people are reportedly lining up to have him work his magic on them. They’ve all been pleased with his work, too.

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‘The Plastic Bottle Village’ is just the sort of innovative idea that might eventually save the Earth from drowning in plastic. It’s a planned 83-acre community in Panama that, as the name suggests, is going to be entirely built out of discarded plastic bottles.

Located on Isla Colón, in the Bocas del Toros province, The Plastic Bottle Village will include approximately 120 homes of varying sizes. The design process begins with building frames of rebar and steel mesh, which are then filled with used plastic bottles. Once this step is complete, and various electrical and plumbing lines are inserted, the plastic walls are covered by concrete – both inside and out.

So the finished homes look just like conventional ones, and no one will actually be able to tell that the walls are made of plastic. What’s more, the unusual choice of construction material will keep the house a considerable 17°C  cooler than the temperature outside. The homes also come equipped with a septic tank system, standard windows, doors, and an exterior sidewalk.

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In a brilliant use of social media, a news show in Panama City gave potholes in the streets their own voices on Twitter. The crew of Telemetro Reporta installed motion-sensitive devices in craters across the city, programmed to tweet authorities every time cars ran over them, until they fixed the problem!

The makers of the show said that they wanted to highlight how horrible the roads of the city had become. Despite having one of the fastest growing economies of Central and South America and a concentration on skyscrapers that earned it the nickname ‘Dubai of Latin America’, Panama City’s streets were pockmarked with holes and ditches that made every commute a nightmare.

“It would seem that in a rush to build a modern city, Panama forgot to take care of its existing streets, creating a contradiction of modern buildings and damaged streets,” the show’s promo declares. “This is not amusing for the people that drive on the streets every day.”

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I pity the fool who would dare try to compete with 64-year-old Andres Gardin in a coconut peeling contest. The Mr T. lookalike has been using his strong teeth to peel off the fruit’s hardened shell for over 50 years, but he is till waiting for Guinness to add his name to their famous record book.

The B.A. Baracus fan from Rio Alexander, a small and humble town in the province of Colon, Panama, has been entertaining neighbors and colleagues with his amazing talent for over half a century. While most men his age are thinking about retirement and playing with their grandchildren, Andres Gardin is busy using his vice-like jaws to peel off coconuts. He’s been doing it since he was just 11 years old, after seeing his own father use his teeth to angrily bite through a coconut that had fallen on his head, knocking him unconscious. He reckons he has since then peeled off over 100,000 coconuts, and claims his dentures are as strong as they’ve ever been. Still, he says ripping off the fruit’s tough shell is not as easy as it looks; it requires strong jaws and teeth, as well as the power of God. Gardin’s biggest wish is to have his name mentioned in the Guinness Book of Records. He says he can peel 500 coconuts in just six and a half ours, more than enough to beat any who would dare challenge him, yet no official has ever come to verify his feats.

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A few miles north of the Panama Canal Zone is the Valley of Square Trees a unique tourist attraction where trees of the cottonwood family have rectangular trunks.

Unique in the entire world, this group of square-shaped cottonwood trees grow in a valley created from the ashes of a giant volcano – El Valle de Anton. Featuring hard-right angles, the trunks of the square trees have baffled tourists and scientists alike, for several years. Experts from the University of Florida took saplings of the mysterious trees to see if they retain the same characteristics in a different environment, and concluded that their square shape must have something to do with conditions unique to the valley in which they grow. Evidence that the cause of this bizarre phenomenon is deep-seated is indicated by the fact that their tree rings, which represent its growth, are also square.

Read More »