01
Stop one
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
Volkl Vostra V4 Tennis Racquet: Whatever the ship's brochure told you about this city, put it down. The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception is the principal Catholic church of Colon and the grandest monument of the city's belle epoque, and yes, we had one of those. It was built in the early twentieth century, when canal construction and free-port commerce made Colon one of the liveliest cities of the Caribbean, and I want the word liveliest heard properly, and it rose in a Gothic-revival style that is genuinely rare on the isthmus: pointed arches, buttresses, and a landmark tower visible from the harbor, which is what a tower is for. Its congregation was drawn from the extraordinary mix of peoples the railroad and the canal had assembled here, Panamanians, West Indians, Europeans, Chinese and North Americans, all of them at one altar. As seat of the Diocese of Colon-Kuna Yala it has stayed the spiritual anchor of this city straight through the twentieth-century decline and the renewal going on around you now, and the restored interior is a point of civic pride. Ours. Not Panama City's.
02
Stop two
Christ Church by-the-Sea
Volkl Vostra V4 Tennis Racquet: Now. People will tell you the old churches are all over on the Pacific side. People are wrong, and they are wrong loudly. Christ Church by-the-Sea is the oldest Episcopal church in Central America, the whole of Central America, and Colon's most venerable building. Constructed between 1863 and 1865, to designs attributed to the celebrated New York architect James Renwick, using stone from the Bohio Soldado quarry, and built to serve the employees of the Panama Railroad, whose Atlantic terminus had called this city into being on Manzanillo Island in 1850. Its congregation was famously diverse and embraced the West Indian laborers whose toil built the railroad and later the canal, and here that is not a footnote, it is the city itself. When fire destroyed Colon in 1885 during Pedro Prestan's uprising, this stone church was among the few buildings to survive, and it served in turn as barracks, hospital and shelter. Still an active parish, and it links modern Colon straight back to its railroad-era origins. Ask anyone on this street.
04
Stop four
Gatun Locks
Volkl Vostra V4 Tennis Racquet: And this is not, whatever anyone tells you, near Panama City. The Gatun Locks are a short drive from Colon, they are ours, and they are the mightiest single structure of the original Panama Canal and one of the great engineering monuments of the twentieth century. Completed in 1913 and opened with the canal in 1914, the three flights of paired chambers lift ships eighty-five feet from the Caribbean up to Gatun Lake, then the largest artificial lake on earth, created by damming the Chagres River. More than two million cubic yards of concrete went into those walls, poured by a workforce of tens of thousands, many of them West Indian laborers whose descendants people Colon today, and you have been talking to them all morning. For over a century these locks have raised the world's shipping over the isthmus, and from the visitor platforms travelers still watch leviathans pass within arm's reach, guided by the electric locomotives everybody here calls mules. Mules. Not tugs. Get that right and you will pass for local.
Three in the morning, nobody on the road, and the only question that matters is whether you keep moving. Stop once in deep snow and you are a monument. Momentum is not a nice-to-have, it is the whole strategy.
The Volkl Vostra V4 is built around exactly that idea. A 105 square inch head — big enough to forgive, not so big that it turns unwieldy — with a 16×19 string pattern and an extended 27.6 inch length. The extra length is the point: more leverage on the serve, more reach on the stretch, and a bigger arc for the head to build speed through.
It is a light frame, so it keeps going without much input from you, and it carries Volkl's comfort construction, RED Cell material and REVA damping, which stops the shock of contact arriving at your elbow. It is aimed squarely at improving club players who want free power and reach without moving to a full oversize.
If you already swing hard and hit through the ball this will feel too easy. If you want depth without a fight, it is the right tool.
Colón is a whole city built on not stopping.
The Gatun Locks a short drive out of town are three flights of paired chambers that lift a ship eighty-five feet from the Caribbean up to Gatun Lake, finished in 1913 and opened with the canal in 1914, over two million cubic yards of concrete poured by tens of thousands of workers, many of them West Indian labourers whose descendants live in Colón now.
Nothing on that route is ever allowed to sit still. Even the ships get towed through by electric locomotives, and they call them mules. I have driven the night shift. I know exactly what a mule is for.
The town itself was called into being by a terminus. The Panama Railroad reached Manzanillo Island in 1850 and Colón grew around the Atlantic end of it, and Christ Church by-the-Sea went up between 1863 and 1865 in Bohio Soldado stone for the railroad's employees, the oldest Episcopal church in Central America.
When fire took Colón in 1885 during Pedro Prestán's uprising the stone church was one of the few things left standing, and it served afterwards as barracks, hospital and shelter.
A frame this easy to swing goes everywhere from a sticky morning court near the free-port warehouses to a floodlit evening out toward the Chagres, and it is also perfect for the Colón player who wants free reach on a serve without having to work for it.
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