I arrived in Panama city at 5am and after waiting around in the bus terminal for a couple of hours until it got light (and safe) enough to travel into town, I caught one of the Diablos Rojas the ¨red devil¨ buses that serve as public transport in the city.
How come Aussie buses are so boring?
I arrived at the hostel to find out that I needed to wait until 11 for a bed to be available but that turned out to be not so bad as there was a bunch of aussie guys out on the balcony with a big bottle of rum, the grand final having been played the night before....
The view from the front of the hostel...
.......and the back.
After a couple of days of hobbling around with my dodgy foot feeling sorry for myself I went out to check out the Panama Canal, one of the greatest engineering feats of all time. I saw it from the observation deck at the Miraflores Locks, the last set of locks lowering ships down ten metres to sea level on the Pacific side.
One of the gates ready to lower a ship down to sea level, the original gates from 1913 in fact
Ship comes in
Gets tied to the small locomotive ¨mules¨ that guide it through (it moves along under its own power)
Drops down ten metres
Gates open
I arrived at the hostel to find out that I needed to wait until 11 for a bed to be available but that turned out to be not so bad as there was a bunch of aussie guys out on the balcony with a big bottle of rum, the grand final having been played the night before....The view from the front of the hostel...
.......and the back.
After a couple of days of hobbling around with my dodgy foot feeling sorry for myself I went out to check out the Panama Canal, one of the greatest engineering feats of all time. I saw it from the observation deck at the Miraflores Locks, the last set of locks lowering ships down ten metres to sea level on the Pacific side.
One of the gates ready to lower a ship down to sea level, the original gates from 1913 in fact
Ship comes in
Gets tied to the small locomotive ¨mules¨ that guide it through (it moves along under its own power)
Drops down ten metres
Gates openShip passes through
Ready to go
Those engines ROARED
Next ship moves into the parallel lock
All up it took about 20 minutes for each ship to pass through, the first one paying $184,000 US and the larger car-carrier paying over $200,000 for the 11 hr transit. This is actually a significant saving for the shipping companies as it costs more than a million dollars in fuel per ship to sail all the way around Cape Horn.
To fill and empty the locks which contain countless millions of litres of water actually takes less time than it does to fill a standard bathtub......
The next day I caught the bus out to Portobello to rendezvous with Captain Bob and his yacht ¨Viva¨ for the trip out through the San Blas Islands to Cartegena in Colombia.
Ready to go
Those engines ROARED
Next ship moves into the parallel lock
All up it took about 20 minutes for each ship to pass through, the first one paying $184,000 US and the larger car-carrier paying over $200,000 for the 11 hr transit. This is actually a significant saving for the shipping companies as it costs more than a million dollars in fuel per ship to sail all the way around Cape Horn.
To fill and empty the locks which contain countless millions of litres of water actually takes less time than it does to fill a standard bathtub......
The next day I caught the bus out to Portobello to rendezvous with Captain Bob and his yacht ¨Viva¨ for the trip out through the San Blas Islands to Cartegena in Colombia.
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