A new app gives a self guided walking tour of Panama’s Casco Viejo. http://pty.life/live-walk-pty/
Here is a description from Laprensa:
Walking through its streets and breathe the pure air is to explore the soul of a country struggling to preserve intact its heritage and culture. That feeling led to a young Panamanian, Rob Howard, and his wife, Elizabeth Hurtado Eisman, to develop an audioguide to tell the secrets of Casco beyond its walls and houses.
LiveWalkPTY This is an application for smartphones that revives in 19 stories dramatized the colonial history of this area.
“In the Old Town it is the old soul in a young city. Come on! let the following stories guide your steps “are the words of welcome you hear in this application that can be downloaded from the App Store for IOS technology (Ipad and Iphone) and from June 2016 will be available for Android devices .
Rob Hurtado, an industrial engineer, says that the idea of developing the virtual tour came after a trip to San Francisco, California, with Elizabeth. Together they toured the old prison of Alcatraz and the enclosure story was told through a headphone in which sounds and place the crudest moments are relived. “It was not a documentary, it was an audio installation in which the story is recreated and testimonies that I found very interesting. Months after returning from that trip, walking through the Casco we decided that was the perfect place to build a new country on the tour place, “says Hurtado.
The project began in October 2013 and required a plan of “craft” business, which included intense days of history studies, realization of the scripts and the parliament, in addition to the technical work for the development of the app’s hand Hypernova Labs Panamanian company. Until 2014 it launched the platform, whose mark a golden huaca of an Indian warrior.
The history of the independence of Panama, with Colombia separation, the plot to create the Canal, pirate stories and tales of intrigue are summarized in 19 episodes of two minutes each, starting in landmarks such as the Plaza Herrera and continue in the church of San José, the convent of Santo Domingo, the Carlos V park, the Plaza de Francia, the ride Esteban Huertas, the Union Club and enjoying the view towards the Bridge of the Americas, and to the Amador Causeway besides the National Theatre, Heurtematte home, among others.
Rob Howard, founder and creator of LiveWalkPTY, wants to expand the project and create 'tour' dramatized over the country. LaPrensa / Luis Garcia