“Trains, Boats and Trails: Tracking Levi Strauss in Panama — Day One”
 On this first day in Panama I did something Levi could never have dreamed of: I crossed the isthmus twice in one day.
My tour guide, Hernán Aráuz, picked me up at my hotel in the historic quarter of Panama City and we spent most of the day driving through jungles and tiny towns to get to the Caribbean side of the isthmus. We saw an amazing variety of wildlife along the way: a tree sloth, howler monkeys, and a black and white anteater, which walked across the road right in front of our car and looked like a skunk with a really long nose. 
“A VISIT TO THE HOME TOWN OF LEVI STRAUSS”
 The founder of Levi Strauss & Co. was born “Loeb” Strauss in 1829 in Buttenheim, in the Bavarian province of Germany. (Actually, he was born in the Franconian region of Bavaria, but we’ll get to that.) In 1847 or 1848 Loeb, his mother and two of his sisters left Germany for New York, to live with two older brothers. His father had died and the tiny village of Buttenheim offered few opportunities for young men and women.
After spending time in New York, young Levi – he changed his name around 1850 - moved for good in 1853, to gold rush San Francisco. In 1873 he and tailor Jacob Davis created the first blue jeans when they received U.S. Patent #139,121 for making riveted men’s trousers.
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