Panama Canal

After a beautiful night's sleep we went down for breakfast. We both chose pancakes and were each delivered with one giant pancake the size of a dinner plate and about 4cm thick! Anna couldn't even finish hers...I just about managed.

We caught up on wifi things, checked out at midday and waited for Amy & Cor (from San Blas trip) to pick us up in a taxi ($15) to go to the Miraflores Centre ($15) which overlooks the main lock for the Pacific side of the Panama Canal.

There is a very short 3D video, informative exhibition centre over 4 floors and an observation deck. We were told there would be a ship at 3pm so we waited, and waited... One eventually came at 4pm with another right behind it. Possibly the canal closes for lunch?! An overly enthusiastic, crazy man gave non-stop commentary / shouted a lot over a loud speaker. The centre closed at 5pm so we were kicked out before the 2 ships had completed their transit but we saw most of it. The locks are much narrower than I expected and barely fit a big ship in. Pelicans and other birds dive into the water as the locks fill searching for fish in the newly disturbed water. I wasn't overly excited about visiting the canal but it was interesting and clearly an amazing feat of engineering - seeing some of the equipment they first used made us think we were completely bonkers!

Amy also pointed out a slim lady with a huge bum which was clad in tight leggings - our first experience of butt implants. Apparently Amy's seen loads in Columbia and a lady told her you can have boobs, bum and nose done for $5,000!

We haggled a taxi back for the same price (down from $30), picked up our bags and headed to the bus terminal with plenty of time. There were only junk food options available so we had Burger King and 2 Dunkin Donuts each ($12). Despite having tons of time we only just made the 7:30pm bus as it took a while to find the platform and then we had to buy a $2 card to pay the 50c exit tax! Stupidly you can't use the metro card we had but needed a multi-use card which could have been used on the metro but can't be bought at the metro!

The bus took us to Almirante ($28), arriving at 6:30am. Despite it only being a normal bus and having a screaming child onboard, we both managed to get some sleep.

Interesting facts about the Panama Canal:
- Started by the French in the late 19th century but abandoned due to financial woes and workers dying from malaria / yellow fever.
- Completed by the Americans in 1913 who ran it until Panama took over in 1999.
- Currently being expanded to include another bigger lock to allow more and bigger boats through.
- The canal is 26m above sea level and the locks act as elevators using gravity, not pumps.
- Boats pay by weight, the heaviest pay $400,000! Boats take 8-10 hours to traverse the 80km. Special canal captains take over the boats to navigate the canal
- A swimmer paid 36c to swim the canal taking 10 days in ~1930s.
- A few tugs push the ships into position and then up to 8 little trains run along rails with ropes tied to the ship to keep it straight.
- 14,000 ships pass through annually which is about 38 per day (operates 24/7). We're not sure how this is achieved since in the 4 hours we were there we saw 3 pass!Read more