PANAMA DAY SEVEN & FINAL THOUGHTS

It's impossible to know a country in seven days. It's even more impossible (can something be more impossible) to know a people in seven days.

While in Panama we went out as much as we could and when we had a good tour guide they would fill our travelling time from location to location with not only facts about the country but with little insights from their own lives

That's how you learn about people, form their own stories.

This day was our last day in Panama and it was our getaway day, we would be on our way to the airport by 1 pm. Oh yeh, it was also New Years Eve. Collette had woken up with a bit of a cold so she decided to nap while I went for one last stroll around the resort, which comprises most of the video.

It was the hottest day so far in Panama so of course, I kept myself cool with a few margharita's .. by 10 am

But I didn't really want to discuss my nascent tropical alcoholism, I wanted to post some final thoughts and impressions of Panama.

Here are a few of our favourite memories from this amazing little country

DIABLO ROJO:

It means Red Devil. And it refers the the traditional buses of Panama. The country has a very good road system, it's where the Pan American highway essentially end. Compared to Costa Rica and Belize the highways are quite good. The bus system is very good. You can go pretty much anywhere in the country by bus and it's fairly cheap. Traditionally the buses they used were big old school buses, not all comfortable from what I understand but quite something to look at.

The Diablo rojo's are painted in bright garish colours, traditionally by their owners and often reflecting that person's point of view, from politics to pulp culture to politics. It was though the colourful and personalized artwork could make up for the rough ride.

These buses are often being replace now by more modern, comfortable buses and the school buses are more often being "wrapped" in some form of advertising rather than being custom painted, but the rojo's are still rolling and they were something that gave us some flavour of Panama's personality

NEW YEARS MANNEQUINS:

As we were being driven around the country we kept noticing something odd: Mannequins, full sized dolls, put out by the road. Sometimes alone, sometimes in groups, fully dressed and made up. A few were superheroes, I saw a Reagan, most I would learn later they were local celebrities and politicians
For instance, here is the president of Veneziela and his companion

We couldn't figure out what this was all about until it was explained to us: The puppets are made by locals and put out as part of the New Years celebration, they are usually put out a week or so before. The dolls are stuffed with fireworks and on New Years Eve they are set up; you can drive up and down the roads and watch these hundreds of dolls blowing up. Unfortunately we flew out of the country before we could witness that but I just loved this idea.

THE CANAL:

The situation with the canal is a fascinating one. For a long time, a hundred years, the fate of this country revolved around something over which it did not even have control. The French began the canal, the Americans finished it and they controlled it for a long time. It's only been about 15 years that Panama has had total control of the canal and thereby, it's own destiny.

One our tour guides phrased it as Panama being one of the newest countries on earth. Columbia controlled Panama before the canal, and it wasn't the French of the Americans it was like dictators like Noriega. Now Panama rules the canal, and rules itself. The striking skyline of Panama city is one byproduct of these events, very few of the skyscrapers are more than fifteen years old

It's fair to say that the destiny of the country is tied to the canal. They are building a new one, new sets of locks, to accomodate larger ships. They are building a new airport, subway etc. In the country it looks like life is unwinding the way it has for a very long time. People live off the land, they follow old traditions; they enjoy health care and education that stems from the canal but at this point I don't know if they see the future the same as do those in the city.

Tourism is playing a larger role as well, particularly eco tourism. Panama still has a large amount of protected rainforest and beaches. Will that continue as the need to industrialize continues? I can't say, but when I think of Panama I will recall warm sand under my toes, warm ocean water over my head, the sound of the forest, the feeling of a water fall on my back, and smiling young women selling me home made candy from a road side stall.

Here's the video

PANAMA DAY THREE: INTO THE CANAL

AOK kids, here is your pop quiz for today (and no the answer is not Soda, go see the Principal)

If you go to Panama you must:

A:  Visit Manuel Noriega's former mansion

B:   Pee your pants on a zip line

C:   Be intoxicated before 9 am

D:   Go see the canal

Well by Day Three we'd already scratched the first three off our list, so that left us with C: Be intoxicated by 9 am .. no, I mean, go see the Canal

A full transit of the Canal takes you from the Pacific to the Atlantic and even for a small craft such as a sail boat, costs tens of thousands of dollars and pretty much takes a day. We were going to do a Partial Transit, going from the Pacific side, through 2 of the 3 lock systems and ending up on Lake Gatun, a enormous body of fresh water created for the canal.

We began our trip just outside Panama City

Shortly as we got underway we met up with a small boat from the Canal Authority. As required by law, the pilot of our cruise boat could not take us through the canal, only a specially ticketed canal pilot can dot hat. That is true of any vessel that goes through the Canal

With the new pilot aboard, we cruised along the Amador Causeway where we saw a building with a Toronto connection. Panama's new Museum of Biodiversity has been designed by local architect Frank Gehry the (ahem) genius behind the Crystal the (choke) beautiful and (cough) progressive addition to the Royal Ontario Museum. Even our tour guide suggested that perhaps Mr Gehry was having one over on the people of Panama

On our way to the first locks, we passed under one of the two beautiful bridges (there are three in total but we see only two) that span the canal. The Bridge of the Americas was completed in 1962 by the US and was considered an integral part of the Pan American Highway

Crossing the Canal is an expensive endeavour. For the largest ships currently allowed in the canal, called Panamax ships, the expense could run to 400,000 dollars for a passage. For some a more economical alternative is offload their cargo on one end of the canal and ship it by train to the other end. To that end, we passed a lot of giant cranes designed to pluck containers from ships and deposit them on to the trains

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We soon approached the Miraflores locks a two stage lock system that would raise our boat up to about 54 feet in total. The length of the locks are about 950. Our boat would fit in there were two other vessels but only one Panamax container ship can fit in the lock at the same time

Once in the lock we were pulled against the wall and lashed to in order to prevent us from being pushed around; our boat was big but the water coming into the lock can be that violent. We were about to be raised up 27 feet, displacing something like 26 million gallons of water ... in eight minutes. In my video I use a time lapse but I didn't speed up the video by all that much. If a small vessel is not secured, it will spin around in the lock like a top.

All of this is basically by gravity, using a technology that is over 100 years old. Very things have changed in the locks since they were built in the 1900's. Back then large ships were guided into the locks by mules, today the "mules" are electric machines but not much else has changed. The giant lock doors were not welded together, that technology did not exist back then. They used thousands of rivets to give these massive doors their strength.

After passing through the second stage of the Miraflores we made our way out into the Gaillard Cut. This is a seven and half channel actually cuts through the continental divide, the only place on Earth where this has happened. There were a lot of big Panamax ships in this relatively narrow channel. Traffic was not particularly heavy so ships where able to pass in both directions but when there are a lot of Panamax ships, the Cut is so narrow they restrict them; so that for half a day only westbound ships go through, for the other half only eastbound ships

Passing through the Cut we could see where they are working on a new channel and a new set of locks that will accomadate Super Panamax ships, even bigger than the ones that currently use the Canal. It's a massive project, one of several underway in the country. They're also building a new international airport out by the Decameron Resort and Panama City's first subway.

On our way the Pedro Miguel locks, we passed under the beautiful Centennial Bridge. We got to know this bridge pretty well during our stay but mostly we drove over it

We passed through the single Pedro Miguel lock which put us out onto Lake Gatun. This is a huge body water created, through damming, to provide the Canal with all the fresh water that gets the job done.

After having gone under the Centennial Bridge we drove over it now to go back to the DeCameron. Collette was a bit disapointed that we didn't see any wildlife on this excursion (aside from birds) so a local iguana rectified that for us

Here's the video