Hey all,
I´ve had two very busy days here in Panama, and as the guide today stated, two oceans in one day. I´ve taken scores of pictures (thank goodness they´re all digital) and it will take some time to get them uploaded, depending on the internet back on base. But I start with this one I took yesterday at the gift shop at the Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal. I have actually seen a number of signs to this effect, I´m not sure if there is a suspicion of counterfeiting or what.
Sunday I woke up, had the buffet here at the hotel (included in the price) and then was met by a tour guide. We went over to another hotel to get a couple more folks then headed out to the Panama Canal. Along the way he pointed out all the places that had once been US military bases and what the Panamanians were doing with them.
We got to the locks and it was quite something to see. There was a four story building with an observation deck on top, and a museum that wound through the rest of the building. I thought the most interesting thing was one of the ship´s and it´s cargo (you might be able to see it when I post the pictures). It was a ship that carries other ships and in it´s hold was a Swedish submarine. Not real easy to see since the sub was so small, relatively speaking. I´m not sure what the story is, but I do recall reading sometime ago that the US Navy had contracted with the Swedish Navy to play the opposition force in submarine war games. The Swedes are supposed to be pretty good submariners, and their boats are desiel, but have a pretty lengthty underwater duration.
After the trip to the locks, we went out through Balboa along a causeway to what used to be a couple of islands, some nice boats in the Marina. Then a city tour into the heart of the historic district, which is very, very decayed. You could see that many of the buildings were nothing but walls standing, nothing inside, no roof, etc. The guide stated that the Panamanian government is investing heavily to restore the buildings and make them nice, into restaurants, hotels, condos, boutiques, etc. I have to say, as we looked across the bay, there is a lot of construction going on. It almost made me think of Dubai in terms of the number of cranes and number of high-rises going up.
Today, a different guide picked me up and we went across to the other side (Carribean side, north) and saw the Gatun locks (more pictures) and it was even better since the observation deck was closer to the locks. Along the ride, first on the Jungle Highway, then on Roosevelt Highway, what sturck me were the number of billboards for the Duty Free Zone in Colon, the guide called them ¨propaganda¨, what an approriate word. Then it was a trip to Portobello, a historic old town that was the financial center for the Spanish Empire for 200 years. Some real neat old forts, all fallen down, but neat never the less. A qick lunch, then back to Colon, the northern terminus of the Canal. I took the Panama Canal Railroad back to Panama City, it was only the second train ride in my life. It was a nice ride, but it was late, rainy and I only saw one ship in the Canal. As I was sitting there at the train station waiting for the train to pull in, I started taking pictures of the chicken buses as they passed. I probably took about 6 or 7 dozen. I decided to start a sister blog with nothing but chicken bus photos :)
One other note, the driver today drove me crazy. He was more passive than I am aggresive. He would leave the turn signal on forever. He would forget to turn off the wipers, twice he turned them on when it wasn´t even raining. He would slow to a near stop in traffic to try and complete his merge. He frequently drove 10-20 kph below the speed limit, and this is in part of the world where they don´t even bother to respect the speed limit. Really truly, I was beside myself. Oh well, the rest of the day was good.
Evan
P.S. I´ll add notes later when I get photo albums of the places visited and the chicken bus blog.
