Day 88 - A man, a plan, a canal... Panama

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We’ve been looking forward to using this famous palindrome for ages, so hopefully everyone will be sufficiently impressed.

The day began on the bus and, still half-asleep, we negotiated past the taxi drivers all pretending to be our best friends so they can take us to their cousin’s dump of a hotel. So we were on our way to our chosen hostel, with a taxi driver who was not a good liar. When asked if he was sure he knew where he was going, he said “Yes” when it was totally obvious that he should have said “No”. Eventually we found it (better to be lucky than good, as they say), although we were surprised to find that the hostel was an ex-2 bedroom apartment converted into a 12 person backpackers’ home. And literally miles from the downtown area. Still we settled in and had a nice chat with the owner, before taking advantage of the weird location by walking a couple of miles to the Miraflores Locks on the Panama Canal (walking is not an option from the more conventionally located accommodations).

The Panama Canal is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. Even a previously skeptical Gemma would now agree. We looked around the impressive new visitors centre and watched the dreadfully cheesy movie, but the clear highlight was spending time outside on the viewing decks watching enormous container ships being pulled through the 2-stage lock by 6 mini-locomotives. It just looks plain wrong to see something so big traveling vertically. It’s fascinating stuff and anyone with a few minutes to spare is encouraged to check it out on Wikipedia!

Hopefully there will be more to come on the Panama Canal topic as we’re hoping to go through it on a boat on Saturday.

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Comments

[mjp]

Or the invasion of the country in 1989 by George Bush inspired: A man, a pain, a mainia ... Panama. Great blog, keep it up.

[ben]

apart from that doesn't work.

[mjp]

thanks ...the correct version ..."A man, a pain, a mania ... Panama"