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Published: June 19th 2015
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Last day of this amazing vacation! Kelly and I planned a 24-hour layover in Panama City which we had heard was as much time as you needed there. Plus if we didn’t make it a 24-hour layover it was going to be a 6-hour layover and we were dreading spending that much time in the airport.
Kelly and I had decided to go directly to the Panama Canal since that is the place we really wanted to see; however, the owner of our hostel convinced us to go to the Canal after lunch. Usually the ships only go through the canal from 9-12(ish) and then from 2-5(ish) and the owner told us that all the tour guides visited the canal at 9 so it was better to go after lunch so we would have the place to ourselves. So in the morning Kelly and I walked around the Old Town area of Panama City. The weather was very humid and hot but it also rained, literally poured, on us the entire time. But we didn’t have much time so Kelly and I put on our raincoats and braved the conditions.
Old Town had a colonial feel and all the
buildings were painted in bright colors. Most of the streets in Old Town were paved with cobblestones or bricks. What really shocks you is how rundown all the buildings are. From the outside you would see the front side of the building with a hole where the door used to be. Once you look inside this hole you see trees, bushes, grass, flowers… literally a jungle inside of these buildings. A jungle enclosed by four walls. The other weird thing about this area is that the Ministry of Government and Justice Building is located here so there were a lot of military personnel walking around and access to some streets was restricted.
We walked to the very edge of Old Town which takes you to the Pacific Ocean…. Well a bay fed by water from the Pacific Ocean. On the other side of the bay you can see the huge Skyscrapers that make up downtown Panama City.
We went through one market where locals came to sell their handmade products. They tried to sell us a hand painted switchblade; if they were not illegal in California I may have been tempted to buy it. Haha just kidding.
Also in Old Town was the Fish Market. Here merchants sold dozens of different varieties of fish, in addition to crabs, shrimp, lobsters, and eels. The smell was overpowering so Kelly and I very quickly moved through the aisles. The Fish Market is known for their $2 ceviche but unfortunately we did not get a chance to try it since it was so early in the day.
Didn’t stay in Old Town long, between the pouring rain and the men cat-calling us, Kelly and I figured we would move on to the famous Panama Canal. We haggled with a cab driver to take us over to the Panama Canal which was about 15-20 minutes away.
First about the canal, it is a 48 mile-long waterway allowing ships to pass between the
Atlantic Ocean and
Pacific Ocean, saving about 8000 miles from a journey around the southern tip of South America.
The Canal uses a system of locks (compartments) with entrance and exit gates. The locks function as water lifts: they raise ships from sea level (the Pacific or the Atlantic) to the level of Gatun Lake, ships then sail the channel through the Continental Divide. Each set of locks
bears the name of the townsite where it was built: Gatun (on the Atlantic side), and Pedro Miguel and Miraflores (on the Pacific side). The water used to raise and lower vessels in each set of locks comes from Gatun Lake by gravity, it comes into the locks through a system of main culverts that extend under the lock chambers from the sidewalls and the center wall.
Ships from all parts of the world move daily through the Panama Canal. Some 13 to 14 thousand vessels use the Canal every year. The Canal operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Immediately when we walked into the canal’s visitor center we were told that a ship was just about to exit the canal so we rushed outside to watch. Most of the visitors had cleared out by now so we got the perfect view of the ship floating out to the Pacific Ocean. What an awesome site. As I mentioned above the ships only go through the canal for a few hours in the morning and afternoon. So while we waited for the next ship to come through Kelly and I toured the museum.
The 4-story
museum was very interesting; we learned how and why the canal was created, the statistics on the number of ships that go through it, and the plans for expansion. But unfortunately touring the museum did not take 4 hours which is how much time we had before the next ship went through. To pass the time Kelly and I drank $2 Panamanian beer and people watched. We also scored an amazing front row viewing spot for when the next ship came through.
After four long hours a ship finally approached the canal, but getting through the canal would take another 30 minutes. Though the process was very slow, it was incredible. To watch the locks fill with water, then the ship would float through and then watch the water drain was fascinating. After watching the ship go partially through the locks Kelly and I had to run to catch a cab to the airport.
When we first arrived in Panama a young German guy asked if he could share a cab with us because the fare was a flat rate into downtown Panama City. He had just arrived from Cuba so he said he would haggle with the
driver to get them to lower the price. The driver made us follow him over to a giant board which listed the price for a cab to drive you downtown. This price was set by the government because of how shady the drivers acted. Needless to say the German was unable to get the price down. I brought this up as background on the cab drivers in Panama. When we got in the cab to get to the airport the driver said something to us in Spanish and then headed off in the opposite direction of the airport. About 10 minutes later the driver stopped in the middle of the highway and this kid jumped into the front seat. With our limited Spanish, Kelly and I were able to figure out that this was the driver’s son and he was being picked up after school. But only in Panama would we have to pay for a cab that went 10 minutes in the wrong direction and then picked up someone from the side of the road…. By this point we were definitely ready to get back to America.
In all I do not regret our 24-hour trip in Panama, it was definitely a trip I will never forget. That being said I have little desire to ever go back. The canal was truly a site I will never forget, such a simple sight but one that truly changed the course of history forever.
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