Our time in Cuba was up. We think all on the LNG Expedition found it an interesting and rewarding experience, even if the rocking of the Pan Orama II was off-putting for some. Our departure was on a brand new American Airlines Boeing from the tiny Cienfuegos airport. Departure bureaucracy was minimal, although we did have to prove our entitlement to enter the USA, a little tricky with ESTA being an online system. Luckily we had a printout to confirm our approval. The airport itself serves only two flights a day (the other from Montreal), yet managed to have a gift shop, duty free, a cafe and a bank all open.
After regrouping in Miami, we flew to Panama City half a week in advance of our scheduled embarkation on our next Lindblad-NG Expedition. We deliberately chose an out-of-town hotel, the only one we could find right on the Canal de Panama.
Panama City's famous Frank Geary designed biodiversity museum, about 2km walk from our hotel.
It should be a 30 min taxi ride from Tocumen Airport to the Country Inn and Suites at Amador, but we spent an hour for 1km in a huge traffic jam on a road approach to the Bridge of the Americas. Luckily, we were in no hurry. The driver told us this was a daily occurrence. We later found out that there are alternative roads to the hotel, but they went through Red Zones, not recommended for safe travel. In fact, on this drive and later ones, we saw that much of Panama City is very poor, with people living in dirty, crowded concrete blockhouses, and with debris and litter scattered everywhere.
Commuter buses roar around the streets of Panama City.
We could sit on our hotel balcony watching the endless parade of ships entering and leaving the canal on the Pacific Ocean side. The traffic is not that heavy, about 50 ships per day, but our view was spectacular and entertaining, as we watched tankers, container ships and luxury cruise ships taking on pilots and positioning themselves for the 10 hour passage.
Canal view from our hotel balcony.
The Bridge of the Americas. We hear it's not quite high enough for the tallest ships.
A tasteful Korean War Memorial enhances the canal-front walk near our hotel.
The Albrook airport, an ex US Air Force base, is quite busy with domestic flights.
It's always a bit worrying to stay in an out-of-the-way hotel in case of a lack of bars and restaurants nearby, but this one had a TGI Fridays on the premises, a tiny 24hr cafe, and the Balboa Yacht Club was next door, not to mention a big swimming pool. This hotel, in the perfect location, was a good choice!
Our hotel (#2) in Amador had a great view of the canal.
The Yacht Club was little more than a large thatched hut with bar and burgers. It seemed to own the adjacent pier which, we discovered, was also a major ferry terminal. Mornings and afternoons were busiest, with many passengers (tourists and locals) going to nearby islands with beautiful beaches and luxury hotels. We saw that these islands competed fiercely for the tourist trade. At these times, the terminal area was a bustling but scruffy place, lots of mercantile activities going on, trolleys laden with produce, provisions and other supplies being wheeled around. There was way too much litter around, and no-one seems to clean it up.
The Balboa Yacht Club's pier and ferry terminal.
Panama (pop 4M) uses USD for currency, although it mints its own coins in the same sizes and denominations as the US equivalents (why bother?). Panamanians refer to the dollar as the Balboa. We found that prices here were quite low (espresso $1-2), and we notice that the country is keen to encourage wealthy enough people to relocate here - all you need for residency and or citizenship is a guaranteed income or a sufficient property purchase. This puts those "move to the sun" shows we see on TV into perspective - cost of living is low and the government is willing! Spanish is easy enough to learn, they say.
We didn't spend all our time watching ships from our balcony or lazing by the pool! We hired a local guide to show us around. Clemente was a native Panamanian who plainly loved his country - way back, his family were slaves on sugar plantations in Jamaica until they came here for the first attempt to build a canal. Interestingly, and accurately, Clemente corrected us when we referred to people from the USA as Americans. He said, "we are all Americans"! There doesn't seem to be any neat way of referring to US citizens specifically, though (maybe gringos?).
Getting around in Clemente's Toyota, we saw the Miraflores Locks in operation from a large, splendid and very popular visitors centre (2000). These are the closest locks to Panama City. A very good museum in the centre told us the history of the canal, with Clemente emphasising certain details, particularly how the original French attempt in 1881 was ill-conceived and failed partly because of the incredible mortality rate of the workers in the mosquito infested muddy conditions, not to mention the deadly snakes, spiders and chiggas. The causes of malaria and yellow fever were not known. (In the midst of this, Panama separated from Great Columbia and became a separate state in 1903.) The USA took over the canal in 1914 and applied much better technology and mechanisation. They learned from a Cuban doctor how mozzies caused disease, and took steps to eradicate them, simple things like clearing stagnant fresh water, paving roads and installing insect screens.
The Miraflores Locks have an excellent visitors centre, but the new larger locks (background) has none.
Electric mules use ropes to position large ships in the centre of the locks.
Egrets like the fishing in stirred up lock waters.
The Miraflores Locks hold vessels large and small, but newer "Panamax Plus" ships have to use the expanded locks.
The French plan, from Ferdinand de Lessups, fresh from his triumph of the straight-through 100 mile Suez Canal through a desert, was to make a deep cut right through the mountains to create another canal without locks. This proved to be just too difficult - there was a mountain range to cut through, a huge river (the Chagris) in the way, and the technology and engineering available at the time wasn't up to it. Plus there was a good dose of corruption. Eventually, the company went broke.
The American solution, aided by the geography of course and much more capable land moving equipment now available, was to create a man-made lake 26m above sea-level and build locks on both sides. Lake Gatun provides more than half the length of the canal, eliminating that much cut. The lake is fed by the rain soaked Chagres River which, we learn, provides hydroelectricity to run the canal plus enough water to keep the locks running (although the canal employs reutilisation basins to save water), thus making a virtue of the huge rainfall which was the enemy of the straight cut French design.
The canal, nevertheless still a mighty engineering feat, opened in 1914 under the control of Columbia, USA and France, imposing an indignity which long infuriated the Panamanians, leading eventually to student riots and deaths in January 1964 which triggered change. Panama finally negotiated full control in 1977, and took over in 1979. Clemente noted that the US's objective with the canal was military and strategic - Panama's is commercial, the canal is a good earner, making about USD8M/day from the ships, with operating costs USD1M/day. The largest ships pay USD0.5M plus, for a single passage.
From this visitors centre, we have only a distant view of the latest canal expansion project which opened only mid 2016. It's a pity not to be able to see the new wider, longer and deeper locks, and Clemente didn't think there was a plan to build a new visitors centre. For the record, the old locks limited ships to 294m long and 32m wide. The new ones are 366m x 49m. The widest ships can barely fit into the locks.
Through heavy haze, heavy canal traffic is seen near the Centenary Bridge.
In 1513, Vasco Balboa became the first European to cross Panama and see the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish immediately realised that here was a path between the two mighty oceans. They built the Camino Real or Royal Road and made an industry out of lugging looted Inca gold back to the Atlantic side and home to Spain.
The Centenary Bridge only the second to cross the canal in Panama City.
Clement took us to a heavily forested place in the Soberania National Park, about 20km out of town, where a remnant of this rocky road can be seen. Signposting called it Sendero Camino de Cruces, trail of crosses, apparently because of the many graves of people who died on this road, building it, using it. Clement forbade us from walking even 20m into this forest here. It's apparently unsafe, although there are other walking tracks in this park with appropriate security. The litter by the side of the road even out here was disconcerting.
A tiny part of the old Spanish gold road across Panama.
Clemente and his tour Toyota. He seems pleased with the success of his one-man business.
Stunning architecture characterises the modern downtown of Panama City.
Back in the city, we saw more poor districts as Clemente showed us around. We went to Ancon Hill, Cerro Ancon, the highest point in the city with great views over the old town and the very modern skyscrapers of Panama City, as well as a downtown airport which used to be the US base. Road access to the hill was fenced off (landslides?) and it took a strenuous 20min walk to get to the top.
Rather unwelcoming entrance to Cerro Ancon, but Clemente knew the way in.
View of modern Panama City downtown.
This is how to bypass a traffic clogged city with a new road.
On the walk up and back, we saw armadillos, sloths, and other large, camera-shy rodents whose names we didn't catch. They all scurried away as quickly as they could. And some birds, a turkey vulture on the ground (injured perhaps) and noisy toucans in the trees.
Ginger plant on Ancon Hill.
Toucans seen in trees on Ancon Hill.
Clemente, on a subject dear to his heart, took pains to show us street-fulls of roughtly painted murals commemorating the martyrs who died by American gunfire in those canal-zone sovereignty riots, but we didn't stop at any of them.
Ruins of the orginal Panama City, sacked by English privateer Henry Morgan in 1671.
Meanwhile Casco Viejo is being restored to old glory with modern businesses in heritage buildings.
And we got to drive through and walk around Casco Antiguo, a well restored historical old town which is miles away from Panama Viejo, the orginal city and the pride of the Spanish New World, but poorly defended and burned by a licensed English pirate in 1671.
Example of fine building restoration in Casco Viejo.
Panamanian indigenous art shops enliven Casco Viejo.
Tiny electric cars being recharged from their hat shop.
Tourists shopping in a malecon walkway yet to be improved.
Apart from that, we found that the Country Inn and Suites at Amador was a great place to regroup after Cuba, psych up for the Sea Lion, watch the ships from our balcony, walk along the malecon, swim in the pool and generally hang out.
Sunset over the canal.
