I don't remember when was the last time I visited Gamboa. I think it was 2 years ago, or three maybe. Last Sunday I decided to go there and take a look at what was new.

Built as one of the many Canal Zone townships to house Panama Canal employees and their families, Gamboa is now a shadow of what it once was. It is still inhabited, but you somehow get the feeling that there's nothing going on. Just a 40 minutes drive from Panama City, Gamboa sits on a sharp bend of the Chagres river, at the point which feeds the artificial lake Gatun (a major part of transit for vessels on their journey across the Isthmus of Panama).

Zonians (the term for US citizens who lived in the Panama Canal Zone) had it all here. Like other Canal Zone towns, Gamboa had its own post office, commissary, churches, railroad station, fire station and gas station. But this wasn't always a Zonian town. Gamboa was initially populated by "silver roll" workers. "Silver roll" refers to Afro-Antilleans and other non-US workers of the Panama Canal. "Gold roll" was the term for US employees. The term comes from the fact that unskilled labour force (coming mostly from the West Indies) was paid with the local silver-backed currency, whereas American workers received gold-back US Dollars. Some argue that these racially coded payroll categories never existed; however, some textbooks state even post offices included segregated sections.

In 1936 (22 years after the conclusion of the Canal construction), the Panama Canal Company decided to move its Dredging Division from the town of Paraiso to Gamboa. By September of 1936 the first Dredging Division families started to move in and within a year the town reached its peak population of 3,835.

Unlike other Canal Zone towns, Zonians regarded Gamboa as less desirable to live because of its location and distance from other townships. For an instance, the new arrivals to the Zone were assigned to live here before they could be eligible to live somewhere else. US personnel remained here until the total withdrawal of American troops from Panama in 1999, following the agreements of the Panama Canal Treaties signed by Panamanian de facto leader Omar Torrijos and US President Jimmy Carter in 1977.

Due to its remote location, Gamboa is a door to relatively undisturbed rainforest, where you'll surely find crocodiles, iguanas, caymans and hundreds of bird species. In fact, the "pipeline road" trail starts here, said to be one of the best bird watching sites in Central America.

Wandering the streets of this former Zonian town is like jumping into a time machine. I somehow felt that this particular place is stuck in time and it's quite a shock. But not a terrifying one. It's a testament of what's part of the history of Panama.

A church in Gamboa.

Last time I visited Gamboa the structure was still standing.

The only visitors pose with the fire station.

Gamboa as seen from Gaillard avenue.

A stop to explore Gamboa.

Gamboa Post Office.

The Gamboa post office quickly became the coolest spot for an improvised photo shoot.

More of the post office.

Gamboa post office.

Many houses are abandoned in Gamboa.

View of the Panama Canal.

Chagres river.

The single lane wooden bridge is the only road to access Gamboa.

Tugboats assist the vessels during their transit through the Canal.

An old lighthouse.

The "Titan" was built by the Nazis and taken to the US after WWII. It was then transferred to Panama.