In fact, Froude never visited COLA?N , claiming that his curiosity was less strong than his disgust, but his opinion of the city during the French canal construction was widely shared by his contemporaries and were he to visit the city today he would find little to change his mind. Situated at the Atlantic entrance to the canal, with a population approaching 150,000, Panama's second city represents the dark side of the Caribbean that never makes it into the holiday brochures, and to most Panamanians its name is a byword for poverty, violence and urban decay. To a certain extent, this is fair enough - much of the city is a run-down slum, the streets strewn with rubbish and rife with violent crime. But despite decades of terminal decline, ColA?n retains the decadent charm of a steamy Caribbean port where pretty much anything goes, its former glory still evident in its many monuments and crumbling turn-of-the-century architecture. Moreover, if you can get past the initial hostility and suspicion, the people of ColA?n, mostly descendants of West Indians who came here to build the canal, are as warm and friendly as anywhere in the country, and enjoy a lively street culture that helps offset the desperate poverty that most of them face. Most visitors to ColA?n come here solely to shop at the ColA?n Free Zone , a walled enclave where goods from all over the world can be bought at very low prices - the starkest possible contrast to the rest of the city, which they avoid assiduously. Beside the Free Zone a similar enclave development known as ColA?n 2000 has been set up in a bid to persuade passengers on the many cruise ships that pass through the canal to disembark and spend some money, but it has little to offer besides souvenir shops. Southwest of ColA?n, a road runs along the Costa Abajo to GatA?n Locks, where ships are raised and lowered between sea level and Lago GatA?n, and on to San Lorenzo , a formidable colonial fortress overlooking the mouth of the RA­o Chagres.