A Trip Down Memory Lane - Panama City

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Hot, hot, and hot! We arrived at our hostel hot and sticky after six days at sea and a six and a half hour journey from the boat. Needless to say we were looking forward to a shower and some air conditioning. We followed the staff member to our allotted room dragging our bags up two flights of stairs then down another set. She showed us into our small, dark and hot 'sweat box', aka 'our room', where we were told the air conditioning would not be turned on until 9pm. 9pm is long after the mosquitoes have dinner! This was the point at which I 'lost the plot’. The heat, tiredness and hunger got the better of me and I begged and begged to be taken home. Leigh calmly suggested I take a shower to help me cope with the sweltering heat. Meanwhile Leigh staggered up the stairs, bathed in a river of perspiration, to speak to the manager about having the air conditioning turned on before our allocated 9pm to 8am time. Leigh soon had it sorted so we celebrated by eating some snacks and taking a nap in the cool.

Our second day was spent visiting the main shopping area in the city to search for a replacement camera for me. You see on our flight to Peru my drink bottle leaked in the airplane overhead locker so my camera had no choice but to try to swim that leg of our journey. Unfortuanetly the camera drowned and it was pronounced dead on arrival! After a long walk to visit several specialty camera stores, I carefully weighed my options then made a purchase. Hooray! No more frustration for me about not having long enough arms to see the LCD screen on Leigh’s camera when I wanted to take a photo. Camera bliss restored.

You cannot visit Panama without a trip to the Canal. On my way to New Zealand from Scotland, forty-mumble years ago, I travelled through the Panama Canal on the “Oronsay”. I have fond memories of watching Dad enjoy the day’s journey travelling from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean through the Gatun Locks, the Gatun Lake, the Pedro Miguel Locks, the Miraflores Lake, and the Miraflores Locks. The memories flowed as I climbed the stairs to the viewing platform of the Miraflores Locks. A tear rolled down my cheek as I remembered the journey with Mum, (Muriel - RIP), Dad (Alex - RIP) and my sister, Moira. I remember as a youngster becoming quickly bored with the all day travel to cross the 77 kilometres yet Dad was fascinated by the whole process and the beauty of the landscape. Returning now as an adult, I am now able to appreciate what Dad saw many years ago.

Reminiscing over, we headed to the museum to be overwhelmed by the enormity of the engineering feat that is the Panama Canal. So for you information hungry folks here are some of the many facts:


• The Panama Canal was constructed in two stages. Between 1881 and 1888 work was done by a French company headed by de Lessop and then between 1904 and 1914 the Americans completed the canals' construction.
• Building the canal cost the U.S. about 380 million U.S. dollars, which included the 40 million dollars to the French company, the 10 million dollars paid to Panama, and 20 million dollars for sanitation and 310 million dollars was spent on the actual construction.
• Dams hold back two artificial lakes, Gatun and Madden, which supply water for the locks.
• It is 80 kilometres long from deep water in the Caribbean to deep water in the Pacific.
• Although there are 12 sets of locks total, there are only six massive pairs of locks that ships use for transit, each 1,000 feet long and 110 feet wide. Each may be filled or emptied in less than 10 minutes, and each pair of lock gates takes two minutes to open.
• A 30,000-pound fender chain at the end of each lock prevents ships from ramming the gates before they open.
• Water is not pumped into and out of the locks, but flows from the artificial lakes through culverts 18 feet in diameter.
• Electric locomotives, called "mules", guide ships by cable through the locks. Most ships require six of these mules, three on each side.
• One the greatest obstacles to building the Panama Canal was overcoming disease. Colonel William C. Gorgas, an American doctor, took charge of the task of clearing brush, draining swamps, and cutting out large areas of grass where the mosquitoes swarmed. As a result, he managed to wipe out yellow fever, eliminated the rats that carried bubonic plague, and he reduced the rate of deaths caused by malaria in the Canal Zone.
• The hardest task was digging the Gaillard Cut through hills of soft volcanic material. Instead of the estimated 73 million cubic metres of earth and rock the builders had to move more than 160 million cubic metres.
• At times more than 43,400 people worked on the Panama Canal.
• In 1914 the first ship to make the first complete trip through the canal was the Panama Railroad Company's S.S.Ancon sailing from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
• The lowest toll ever paid was 36 cents by Richard Halliburton for swimming the Canal in 1928.
• On the day this photo of the Santa Patricia was taken, the ship's owners paid over US$300,000 for her to travel through the Canal.
• The average time spent in crossing from ocean to ocean is approx. 8 - 10 hours.
• The new Panama Canal Locks due for completion in 2014 (the 100 year anniversary), will be 427 metres long and 55 metres wide.


Leigh was keen to see a Jaguar so we travelled out to the Summit Botanical Gardens and Zoo, 10 kms from the Miraflores Locks. The grounds are large but the animal enclosures are small, reminiscent of zoos pre 1970’s. With the sun beating down on us we managed to snap a photo on the other side of the enclosure through a wire fence of the only Jaguar in the park; the new camera's first challenge. In the evening we ate at a local cafe and watched the curious sight of illuminated truck-like buses race through the streets looking for passengers to wave them down.

On our last day we visited Casco Antiguo (the old city) which is in the middle of a massive reconstruction project. In the early evening we travelled along the causeway which was built with Canal rock and joins Isla Naos, Isla Perico and Isla Flamenco to the mainland. We had dinner at one of the waterside restaurants on Isla Flamenco and admired the expensive boats in the marina. Then it was back to the hostel to pack our bags ready for the next leg of our adventure – Florida.

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