We checked in to our splurge hotel - Panama is so cheap it seemed silly not to stay somewhere a bit snazzy, so we chose the Hard Rock hotel. It was huge, with 1500 rooms, not quite what we were used to, the previous hotel in Quito had 8! We managed to negotiate ourselves an upgrade to a suite, blagging is something we have become quite skilled at over the last few weeks, and explored the craziness of the hotel for the evening. I don't know if it was the music constantly blasting from every corner, or whether I'd been listening to Green Day without realising, but I had the continuous urge to sing 'Welcome to Panama' in Green Day 'Welcome to Paradise' style for the whole time we were there...
The following morning was canal time, after the most ridiculous breakfast I think we've ever eaten - we were so overawed by the full American breakfast buffet experience that we felt we had to take advantage!
We headed out to the place to board our boat for the canal trip, via a quick stop where Andy picked up a questionable hat, and settled in for the journey. It was over 30 degrees C, so a nice day for a cruise down the river. We joined the canal at the Gailard Cut, before heading down to the Pedro Miguel Locks.
We were following a tanker loaded with containers, with another one not far behind us. When we got to the lock, we entered with a catamaran cruise, and the tanker was pulled in behind us. The locks are 1000ft long, and 110ft wide, the ship behind us was 106ft wide, so a tight squeeze. The laer ships are held in place by electric tug type vehicles on the sides of the canal, they are maneuvered to ensure they are kept central and no damage is done to either the ship or the canal. The 7 storey lock doors closed behind us, and the draining began, we dropped around 1m a minute, 9m in total.
The next step was the Miraflores Locks, where you drop 18m in a double set of locks. We had caught up to the tanker ahead of us, and it was good to get some perspective on the speed he water flows out when watching that being lowered as we waited to go through. There are grandstands next to the locks full of people watching the process - as a feat of engineering it really is quite staggering.
They're expanding the canal to allow larger ships to go through, a large percentage of the ships currently in operation will not fit rough the existing locks, which are celebrating their 100 year anniversary this year. The new ones will mean that much larger ships can pass through, although the restrictions of the Bridge of the Americas and Centennial bridge on height, and the depth of the channel mean that some will still not make it, including some of the larger cruise ships.
It was interesting to see the docks, for the ships too large to pass through, or for those that don't want to pay the passage fee (quite high!) they offload their containers at one set of docks, where they are transported by train to docks at the other side of the country - certainly time consuming, but quicker than a passage around the continent!
We were both really glad we'd made the time to visit Panama and the canal in our trip, it is so interesting seeing how they out the system together, and looking at the expansion work going on. Panama City is very lively, although we only saw the old town from the bus as we didn't have much time to visit - one of the perks of staying in the Hard Rock was that Andy could borrow a guitar to play with (he borrowed 2), and I could lie by the pool for a day working on my suntan... Having been away 2 months we are both still remarkably pale!
Next stop Costa Rica, our last country already - not sure how that has happened!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment