Panama Excursions: The Canal

One of our excursions from the city is, of course, to the Panama Canal. 

This monument to globalization was already inaugurated over a hundred years ago, and cost about 5600 human lifes. (Not counting the 20000-something people who died during the failed French attempt to construct the same thing in the end of the 19th century.) As people are prone to pat their own shoulders, it was elected one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. After 100 years of US-American control, the canal was fully handed over to Panamanian authorities.

Scepticism nonwithstanding, I'm still an engineer, and I'm not going to miss seeing this one.. To be more specific, along the 70-odd-kilometers of canal, we pick the Pedro Miguel Locks. There isn't a visitors' centre like at the Miraflores Locks, so looking at this spot doesn't cost a thing.

The trip from the central bus terminal takes about 20 minutes, and we are quite happy that we get to ride on one of the old Blue Bird buses again. While they are everywhere in Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, they are slowly dying out in Panama... but the ones that are left, are painted, spray-painted and modded with LED lights and chrome exhausts. The new soul-less modern buses can't even dream to compete with the character of these old monsters.

We jump out onto a nearly empty parking lot, with the sun scorching down on us. And we are extremely lucky: at the far end of the locks, we can already see a few containers piled high on the bow of a container freighter.

This oil tanker (I presume) is actually the last ship we saw, but it makes an awfully good baiting photo.

Thank you, Hannah, for being so clever to bring the umbrella. We would have been roasted otherwise.

Container freighter ahoi! Also, the bridge of that cruise ship a peeping around the bridge of the freighter, although I didn't notice at the time.

If you keep on staring at the ship, it really doesn't seem to move. But if you look away for a minute, and then look back, it does move. As it moves upwards in the lock, it seems to grow. And grow.

The freighter moves up, very slowly. The cruise ship pulls into the second lock.

And grow! Then, frantic action starts to happen. A small guide boat scuttles pasts, and four mule railway engines start to pull the freighter forward.

The freighter starts to emerge from the lock, pulled by four massive railway engines that are simply being dwarfed by the ship.

Finally, the freighter starts up it's engines again, and moves forward by its own. The cables running to the mules go slack, and are finally removed, while the guide boat pushes and steers a little in the stern.

Big boat.

Meanwhile, an enormous cruise ship has emerged from the locks. We watch the spectacle another time.

The cruise ship lurches forward.

Bloody hell, these things are gigantic. Just imagine: over a thousand people shitting into the ocean at one spot every single bloody day. (Sorry, but that really is my first association with cruise ships.)

Cruise ship, with mule engine in the foreground.

Okay, it is fascinating to watch the boats in the Panama Chanel. Even cruise ships. Finally, I get a grip on myself, and we are on the way back to the city.