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Published: December 13th 2013
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PANAMA CANAL AND COLON, PANAMA--Monday, November 25, 2013
Overcast and nice and cool.
We were up early to watch the ship go through the first lock (Gatun) and then sail into and anchor in Gatun Lake. The four of us gathered after breakfast in the lounge until our tour was called, as we had to tender to the pier. The tender craft were lifeboats that held up to 120 or so people.
We then got on our small 20 passenger bus and rode by the construction of the new canal just as it opened up and started pouring rain. We were able to see some, but the rain made it difficult to see clearly. By the time we got to the lock itself the rain had cleared and we could watch a freighter go through the lock from the observation tower. I am not going to “talk” about the Panama Canal itself as I wrote about it before when we were on the previous Semester at Sea Cruise and went through the whole canal to the Pacific Ocean. Valerie’s pictures show some of the engines that were used to pull the ships
into and out of the lock. If possible, she will also post a video showing how it is done.
We rode on a freeway until we turned off on a small road and into the rain forest preserve. There, after walking down some forest stairs and putting on a life-vest, we boarded a small boat and traveled out onto Gatun Lake. This touted ecological tour was interesting as we boated around the islands covered in tropical trees and jungle foliage. The islands were originally tops of mountains that after the flooding of Gatun Lake became islands teeming with wildlife since their homes were being flooded andthey had nowhere to go but up.
We saw a couple sloths, howler monkeys, volts of vultures, cormorants, 2 Aztec ant colonies, orchids, and many flowering trees and shrubs. Our guide was a biologist and very knowledgably about the plants and animals. When the boat driver or he spotted something in the trees, the boat was stopped and he explained various facts and information about what we were seeing.
We were somewhat disappointed that the boat couldn’t navigate into narrower waterways between the islands due to
the fact that the land was not cleared before it was flooded and so trees and limbs can still be seen under the water making it too dangerous. It was a pleasant boat ride, but we didn’t really see anything new to us nor did it live up to the description of this part of the tour given by the cruise line.
The drive back to the ship was time consuming as we ran into very heavy traffic but we got back just as our cruise ship came into port. We all stood in the terminal until the Zuiderdam was docked and then the “authorities” made us move into another building where there was no air conditioning and we had to stand in line until everyone who wanted to come ashore, both crew and passengers, disembarked. I was fine until this point, but then got overheated and weary. FINALLY, we were allowed to board about 2:00.
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