Paseo Esteban Huertas

This guide to Paseo Esteban Huertas in Panama City follows the one-armed general whose name the rampart walk still carries: a boy who ran from the priesthood to join the Colombian army, lost his arm to a cannon in 1900, and backed the 1903 uprising that split Panama from Colombia. It also traces the wall itself, a Spanish anti-piracy rampart that engineers Manuel Hernandez and Joseph Antonio Birt spent more than thirty years raising, with soldiers, masons and prisoners doing the work. You'll hear how Huertas's command over the new republic's tiny army did not last. Look for the stone archway locals call the Lovers' Passage as you walk the old patrol route.