July 13, 2014
Karen gave me a ride to Las Tablas, where I was able to
catch a direct bus to Panama City. We
said goodbye and I got on the 9:30 bus.
I arrived at the Panama City bus terminal about 1:45. The bus terminal in Panama City rivaled any
major airport. It had two levels and was
as big as most shopping malls. Actually,
it was a shopping mall with shops and a food court downstairs. Arrivals were upstairs. I got off the bus and bought a Rapi>Pass,
which is necessary to use the buses or light rail in Panama City. Unfortunately, the music was so loud in the
terminal that it was impossible to communicate with the woman selling the cards
and I didn’t end up getting enough value added to the card to use it for
anything. Be sure to buy a bus pass
before leaving the terminal because you can’t get them elsewhere. When buying a bus pass, it is a good idea to
put $5 or so on it to be on the safe side.
Just push your money towards the clerk if it’s too loud to communicate. Do not, however, assume you will be able to get around by bus. The system is frustrating and not well designed for visitors.
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| Country Inn and Suites |
The bus terminal is across the street from the Albrook Mall,
which is an immense modern shopping center.
I really wanted to take advantage of being there to shop for a backpack,
but there were no lockers or luggage storage that I could find, so I just took
a taxi to my hotel. I had reserved a
couple of nights at the Country Inn and Suites, which is close to the canal and
anchorages where cruisers wait to transit the canal. I figured I could stay there until I got my
bearings and had some idea how to get around and what I might be doing for the
rest of my time in Panama City and then decide where to locate myself. At $79 a night, it was a good value for such
a nice hotel, but far out of my price range for the long term. The Country Inn is a very large hotel, but
lacked some of the features such hotels usually offer, such as a pool and a
bar. The gym seemed to have been
converted to storage or maybe was undergoing renovation.
The World Cup finals were on when I arrived, so I stowed my
luggage in my room and went down to the restaurant to eat lunch and watch the
rest of the game. Much to my
disappointment, Germany beat Argentina 1-0 in overtime. I would have liked to go out and explore but,
by the time I waited on hold for an hour and finished arguing with Yahoo about
the state of my account, it was already dark outside. I wanted to join the Southbound Yahoo group
to have access to the forums and look for a position as a line handler, but
Yahoo insisted that my Panamanian cell phone number was invalid, so I couldn’t
receive the SMS message with my access code.
When I finally got through to them on the phone, they wouldn’t create an
account over the phone. They suggested I
wait until I got home! I would have to
get Scott to create an account for me.
July 14, 2014
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| The Malecon |
I got up at 6:00 so that I could eat breakfast and try to
get to a marina before 8:00 so as to hear the radio net. While the Country Inn & Suites is near
the anchorages, it is not near any marinas.
I walked along the malecon to the Amador Causeway and then across the
causeway to Isla Perico. The whole
causeway area seemed deserted. I could
tell that it had once been thoroughly developed, but apparently fell out of
favor. There was a lot of construction
going on, so it seems like redevelopment was in full swing. I saw what looked like a dinghy dock off of
the causeway, but a security guard yelled at me before I even got across the
street to where it was. The Abernathy
Marina out at the islands seemed to be exclusively power boats and I couldn’t
get near it because of the security, anyway.
My fantasy of walking into a marina office and posting a crew notice was
rapidly evaporating. I stopped for a
cappuccino on Isla Perico and then walked back.
Just before the causeway, they were building a Biodiversity Museum. The building was designed by Frank Gehry and
looked something like a giant MacDonald’s jungle gym.
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| Sailboat Anchorage |
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| Biodiversity Museum by Frank Gehry |
I wanted to find the bus stop nearest to the hotel and check
out a hostel further up the road, so I continued walking past the hotel. The MetroBus system was modern, but
they were very secretive about it.
Nowhere, could I find a map of the system and the website required that
you knew where you were going before you could look up a route. I was unable to determine how to connect from
the line near the hotel to lines that would take me to other parts of the city
without going all the way to the bus station.
The system seemed to bypass Casco Viejo altogether. The number of stops was very limited, which
made the buses fast, but resulted in some long walks. The closest stop was actually past the hotel,
out where the causeway joined the land.
I followed Amador Avenue and eventually came to the Amador Hostel. My guidebook said it was yellow, but it had
been repainted in a brick red color. I
went in and tried to make a reservation, but they were booked for the next
three nights. I made a reservation for
the three nights after that since, at $45 a night, it was much cheaper and just
as convenient. I continued walking to
where Amador Avenue ended. I could see
that another bus line ran along the street perpendicular to Amador, but never
could determine where it went. By the
time I got back to the hotel, I had walked about 10km and my calves were
killing me, which seemed strange since they never bothered me when I was
climbing volcanoes or hiking through the rainforest.
I took a brief rest in my room to cool off, check my email,
and set up the Yahoo account that Scott had handled for me. Then I walked back to the bus stop and caught
the Amador-Albrook bus which took me to the Albrook Mall and bus station. I had paid the previous day’s taxi driver $6
to take me to the hotel. It cost me 25
cents to get back on the bus. We only
made about two stops, so I got there very quickly. My first stop was the bus terminal where I
added $10 to my card. A deluge started
about that time, but there was a covered walkway to the mall, so I stayed dry
and felt fortunate that I had planned a shopping trip that afternoon. I ate breaded shrimp at Popeye’s for
lunch. It seemed that every major US
fast food chain except Taco Bell was represented in the food court. Fortified, I headed out to do some shopping.
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| My Old Duffel Was in Shreds |
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| New Backpack |
The Albrook Mall is so large that many stores have two
locations. There was a profusion of
stores selling running shoes. I finally
decided on the Nike store and eventually found a pair of shoes in my size. Prices seemed reasonable. I might even have saved $25 or so. From there, I continued on to a luggage store
that sold travel backpacks. I had looked
at all of the outdoor clothing stores, but none of them sold much in the way of
camping equipment. I finally settled on
a 65 liter backpack that looked reasonably well made. I had never heard of the brand before, but it
looked big enough to contain my belongings and I hoped it would hold together
better than my rolling duffel, which was in tatters. I finished my shopping about 3:30 and went
back to catch a bus home. I waited for
over an hour and never saw an Albrook-Amador bus. Finally, I took a taxi. I negotiated a bit, that time, and got the
fare down to five dollars. On the way to
the hotel, I finally saw my bus returning to the station.
July 15, 2014
I actually managed to sleep in until 7:00, for a
change. When I went down for what I
hoped would be a leisurely breakfast, the restaurant was crowded with a noisy tour
group of middle aged Germans. Their
presence was probably the reason the nightly rate had shot up from $76 to $118
when I tried to extend my stay. I
decided to move to Casco Viejo for a couple of days until I could get a room at
the Hostel Familiar Amador up the road.
I ate my breakfast and retreated to my room to take advantage of the
luxury until checkout time.
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| Highway Around Casco Viejo |
I checked out just before noon. A taxi driver met me at the door, but I
started to get suspicious when I saw he was driving a nice minivan instead of a
yellow taxi. I asked him what the fare
would be to Casco Viejo and he quoted me $10, which was more than double what
it should have been. He came down to $8
when complained, but that was still too much.
I shouldered my new pack and walked a block to a yellow taxi who took me
for $6, which was still too much, but was the best I could do at that point. We drove from the leafy environs of the
causeway along the shore and then around a new highway that detoured around
Casco Viejo on piers erected out in the mud flats surrounding the
peninsula. It was a clever way to build
a freeway across town without cutting a swath through the old city, but must
have cost a fortune to build.
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| Casco Viejo Under Renovation |
Casco Viejo is not the original Panama City. That was located further east and was
destroyed by Henry Morgan in 1671. When
the Spanish rebuilt their city, they built it on a rocky peninsula surrounded
by reefs and mud flats where marauding ships could not approach. They surrounded the new city with stout
walls, hence the name “Casco Viejo” or “Old Compound.” This second city also fell to ruin over
time. Today, the 17th Century
colonial buildings are half ruins and empty shells and half gorgeous
renovations. Construction is going on
everywhere. The old buildings are being
gutted and their interiors replaced with modern, steel framed structures. One doesn’t have to walk very far north to
encounter a much dirtier and poorer section of Panama City.
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| Luna's Castle |
Luna’s Castle, where I stayed, was a creaky old mansion near
the sea wall on the eastern side of Casco Viejo. It had three floors. The bottom floor was a service area. The second floor housed the common area, bar,
reception, kitchen and a few rooms for those who planned to be in the bar all
night, anyway. The rest of the rooms
were on the third floor where it was quieter.
The ceilings were lofty (at least 13’) and even the doors were taller
than normal. I had a private room for
the first night. It had a strange bunk
bed with a single on the bottom and a double at least six feet up a rickety
ladder. I opted to use the double, as it
was larger and had more light (no window) and was closer to the ceiling
fan. The internet worked fine in the common
area, but did not extend to my room.
Luna’s Castle is one of the places where you can book a
sailing charter to Cartagena in Columbia.
I did so after settling in to my room.
I booked a spot on a Beneteau 50’ named Micamale that had four double
cabins with ensuite heads and was rumored to take only six passengers. It looked like a nice, new boat and got good
reviews. Including myself, there were
already four people signed up and I hoped that the remaining two spots would be
filled over the next week so that the voyage would not be cancelled or
postponed. The cost for the five day
trip (three days in the San Blas Islands and a two day passage to Cartagena,
Columbia) was $550. All meals were
included in the price. The boat left
from Portobelo, which was accessible by public transportation, unlike boats
leaving from Carti, which required an expensive jeep trip to get there.
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| The Facade of the Church Was Moved from the Old City |
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| Half Ruined Buildings Everywhere |
My arrangements made, I went out to explore Casco
Viejo. I walked to the cathedral plaza
and ate Thai fried rice for lunch at a café nearby. I wandered around from one side of the
peninsula to the other until I found myself in a dodgy neighborhood and started
to work my way back to the hostel. To
leave Casco Viejo, I would either need to take a taxi or walk a mile through
that neighborhood to the nearest bus line which was not something I was going
to undertake in the late afternoon. I
returned to the hostel and did a little research on my trip to Columbia. Just before it started to get dark, I went
out to get a lock and a few things at the grocery store and then took a walk
down to the city walls where it would have been great to watch the sun set if
it had not started to rain heavily.
Craft vendors lined the bougainvillea covered walkway, but they were all
packing up by the time I got there. I
would have to come back in the morning.
I went back to my hostel, careful not to slip on the wet pavers that
might as well have been ice under my sandals, and spent a few hours using the
internet in the common area before retiring to my room.
July 16, 2014
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| Las Bovedas |
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| It Takes All Kinds |
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| Monument to the French |
I only had my private room until noon, so I wanted to get up
and take a walk around Casco Viejo before I had to move. I made myself a big pancake in the kitchen
and had a banana and coffee. I chatted
with some of the other guests over breakfast and met a young Russian woman who
was the owner of one of the boats that sails to Columbia. I was gratified to learn that I had made a
good choice when I selected a monohull instead of a catamaran because the trip
was upwind the whole way and the catamarans had to motor. After breakfast, I took a walk down to the
old city walls and visited the monument to the French who had started the
construction of the canal. I finally
managed to access the free Wi-Fi that is available in the parks, so passed a
pleasant hour sitting in Plaza Bolivar, catching up on my correspondence.
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| I Had the Top Bunk |
At noon, I returned to the hostel and moved from my private
room to a four person, all female dorm room.
The room had two tall bunk beds with large, backpack sized drawers
underneath for our stuff. There were
small lockers in the lobby for valuables, each of which had an electrical
outlet so that phones and computers could charge while locked away. I locked up my computer and cash and went out
to the Panama Canal Museum. The museum
fronted on the Plaza Bolivar and was housed in the original headquarters of the
canal company. The museum filled two
floors, the first of which covered the history of oceanic exploration
concluding with the crossing of the Panamanian Isthmus and the discovery of the
Pacific. The second floor was all about
the construction of the canal and the concomitant development of the nation of
Panama. The exhibits were excellent, but
they were all in Spanish. I didn’t have
any trouble reading them, but the process was exhausting and required
hours. I was a bit disappointed that
there wasn’t more about the actual mechanisms of the locks, but I learned a lot
about the development of the Canal Zone.
One reason that there are so many hotels today is that numerous hotels
were built to house the single workmen during the construction of the canal.
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| Panama Canal Museum |
I was hungry when I left the museum and headed up Avenida
Central in search of food. Just as I
reached the point where the neighborhood began to deteriorate and I was
debating whether or not to continue on to find cheap eats, I ran into my friends,
Akela and Kelly, whom I had met in Quepos.
We chatted for a few minutes on the street corner and then agreed to
meet later for dinner. Knowing that I
would be going out in a few hours, I abandoned my search for food and returned
to the hostel to eat a can of tuna and write.
I was supposed to meet Kelly and Akela at a restaurant
called Zafran at 6:00. As I was walking
up the street towards the location they gave me, I heard them calling me from
behind. Apparently, the restaurant had
ceased to exist, so it was a good thing that my neon green “Pura Vida” shirt
made it easy for them to spot me from afar.
That shirt had been attracting attention all day. When I came out of the canal museum a taxi
driver greeted me with the statement that I must be tired and need a ride
because he had seen me walking at 10:00 that morning. Earlier in the day, a smartly dressed
Panamanian gentleman in a pinstriped suit had commented on my shirt and started
a conversation that ranged from travel in Costa Rica to his admiration for
Jimmy Carter. He ended the conversation
by telling me I was beautiful, even though he wasn’t trying to sell me
anything. I started to understand why my
friend, Gail, had considered moving to Casco Viejo.
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| Kelly & Akela at the Tantalo Roof Bar |
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| Night View of Casco Viejo |
Kelly, Akela and I decided to eat tapas at the roof bar of
the Tantalo Hotel. We got there for
happy hour just before dusk and got to enjoy the sunset over the Pacific and
all the lights coming on in the New City.
There was even a fireworks show for some reason. We had been somewhat reluctant to leave the
air conditioned interior for the roof, but a breeze came up and the temperature
was perfect. The food was excellent,
too. We dined on cheese empanadas,
pulled pork and thinly sliced eggplant drizzled with a balsamic glaze and pesto
made with cashews. We didn’t stay late
because we were all tired, but it was nice to see the girls again and hear
about their travels and also nice to get out of the hostel for the evening.
I had been forced to move to a tiny four bed dorm. There were only three of us in there, but
there wasn’t enough floor space for more than two people to move around at a
time. While the top four feet of the
walls were lattice and the two fans kept it well ventilated, there wasn’t a
window and it wasn’t a pleasant place to hang out. I spent the rest of the evening in the common
area and then took a cool shower and retired to my upper bunk about 10:30 when
I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.
I wasn’t particularly hot or uncomfortable, but I had a hard time
getting to sleep. The girls sharing my
room came in late, but they were very quiet and went straight to bed.
July 17, 2014
I woke up early, but stayed in my bunk until the other two
cleared out. Then I dressed and went
downstairs for breakfast, arriving at peak pancake cooking hour. Staying at Luna’s Castle was like sharing a
big house with 50 roommates. The dining
area was crowded and noisy and I wasn’t feeling social. I ate as quickly as I could and then grabbed
my computer and phone from the locker where I had left them charging and
repaired to the living room to hang out until it was time to check out and move
back to the causeway.
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| My Room at Hostal Amador |
For five dollars, I got a cab to the Hostal Amador. The cab driver thought he knew where he was
going and took me to the Balboa Hostel first, so I got a nice tour of the big
houses in the former American compound.
It really was a lovely neighborhood.
The people who lived and worked here were extremely lucky. They got to live in the beautiful environment
of Panama with all of the conveniences of American life. Although the Americans are gone, their way of
life remains. Highways, skyscrapers, drinkable water, shopping malls with every
imaginable store, MacDonald’s, tracts of comfortable houses and even the U.S.
dollar remain.
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| Hostal Familiar Amador |
The Hostal Amador began life as bachelor’s quarters for
canal workers. The common area, dingy
dorm and reception were downstairs and there were two floors of spacious rooms
with private baths upstairs. An open air
kitchen where breakfast was served was in a separate pavilion. At $45 for a private room, it was more a
hotel than a hostel and I saw no backpackers in the dorm. It seemed to be mostly frequented by
Panamanian business travelers. My room
had two double beds, windows on two sides, air conditioning, hot water and such
American amenities as towel bars and a reading lamp that I had sorely missed. Panama was definitely Central America Lite
with most of the benefits and few of the inconveniences.
My goal that day was to visit the Parque Natural Metropolitanio,
a swath of jungle in the middle of Panama City.
Foolishly, I thought I would take the bus that passes in front of my
hotel. It had stopped there when I took
it before but, after I waited for 45 minutes, it did not stop for me. I took another five dollar taxi ride to the
park, which at least saved me from having to walk there from the bus
station. The park was surprisingly
nice. As my taxi driver was sure to remind
me, it is called the “lung of the city.”
Panama City is pretty green by American standards, but it truly was a
nice park. It wasn’t virgin jungle, but
the jungle had been allowed to reclaim the roads and structures that existed
within. There were a research station
and nursery near the visitor center and a large, grassy space, but the rest was
given over to trees and vines.
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| Parque Natural Metropolitanio |
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| Blurry Titi Monkey |
After I got my fill of the view, I headed down the hill via
a different route. Along the way, I was
lucky enough to encounter a troop of titi monkeys. Titi monkeys are quite tiny. They were even smaller than the squirrel
monkeys I had seen in Costa Rica. They
looked like miniature capuchin monkeys.
They were about the size of a Yorkshire terrier. I got a few pictures of them, but they were
shy and my camera batteries took that moment to die. By the time I had replaced them, the monkeys
had seen me and decamped. I did see an
agouti (large rodent – see my posts on Playa del Carmen for pictures) and a
very large lizard (not an iguana) on the way back to the trailhead.
If I had had more time, I would have hiked some of the other
trails, but I knew I would probably have a long wait for my bus and I wanted to
try to find the gathering of cruisers that was rumored to occur on Thursday
nights. I started walking back to the
bus station and then came across a bus stop.
I waited there for 15 minutes or so and then wedged myself into an
already full bus with the dozen or so other people with me at the stop. The bus was so full that they had given up
trying to collect fares. I was forced to
shimmy past the non-functioning turnstile and there were at least six people
riding between the turnstile and the exit.
It was only one stop to the terminal, but the bus had to circle the
entire immense Albrook Mall and navigate a couple of freeway cloverleaves to
get there. The driver must have been in
a hurry to reach the restroom, because he drove like a maniac and we were all
tossed about mercilessly.
Once we arrived at the station, I was hot and out of
sorts. I used my buss pass to take
advantage of the public restrooms and then got some ice cream and sat in the
air conditioning to cool off before continuing my trek home. The Amador-Albrook bus only runs once an
hour. For this reason, it does not have
a designated stop of its own at the bus station. It stops at the place allocated to the
Tocumen – Southern Corridor route, which is very busy. When you are waiting for the Amador bus, it
is hard not to doubt yourself. I had
noted that the bus arrived across from my hotel at about 15 minutes past the
hour, so I tried not to get concerned as I waited more than 45 minutes for it
to come. There were a few other people
standing around, not getting on the Tocumen buses. About 10 minutes past the hour, just as I was
about to despair, my bus arrived. It was
only two stops or so to my hotel, although it was a fair distance.
The MetroBus system operated like a subway, with electronic
toll gates and a limited number of stops.
It could have been very efficient if they had bothered to post maps of
the system anywhere, but they were conspicuously absent. My advice to those coming to Panama City is
not to depend on bus travel unless you know your hotel is on one of the major
lines and you have someone to instruct you on how to use the system. The bus passes cost $2 for the card. You can share one card between two
people. Don’t put a lot of money on your
card unless you are sure you will be able to use it. The $10 I put on my card would end up mostly
going to waste because buses didn’t cost much (25 cents in my case) and half
the time I ended up taking a taxi because the waits were so long. Many routes had more frequent service,
however.
I got back to my room about 5:30. All that I knew about the rumored gathering
of cruisers was that it was on Thursday nights at a pizzeria “on the
causeway.” There was a pizzeria next to
my hostel and I foolishly hoped it might be there. I could see the pizzeria from my room but,
when no one had showed by 6:00, I decided to walk to an Italian place I had
seen close to the Biodiversity Museum.
It was further than I thought because I stuck to the well-lit road
instead of taking the path along the malecon, since it was starting to get
dark. By the time I reached the
restaurant, it was nearly 7:00 and almost full dark. No one was there. If there was, indeed, a gathering, it must
have been at a pizzeria on one of the islands at the other end of the
causeway. That made a certain amount of
sense, since there were some marinas on the islands and the anchorages were
equidistant from the islands and the shore.
It was, however, too far for me to walk in the dark. At that point, I really didn’t have time to
make a crossing on someone’s boat, anyway, so I gave up and hoofed it back to
my neighborhood as fast as I could. I
ordered a Hawaiian pizza at the pizzeria next to my hotel and ate it out in the
kitchen where a few amiable Panamanian guests were watching TV.
July 18, 2014
My mission for the day was to visit Panama Viejo, the ruins
of the original Panama City that was destroyed by Henry Morgan in 1671. I got up reasonably early but, by the time I
was ready to go wait for the bus, the sky had grown dark and buckets of rain
were falling. I decided to hang around
my room for another hour or two to see if it would pass. When 11:30 came, it was still raining
lightly, but I decided I could wait no longer.
I went out to the bus stop, hoping I had timed my arrival so that I
wouldn’t need to wait for an hour for the bus to arrive. The bus came after only ten minutes or so,
but it failed to stop for me. I had seen
another one passing outbound, so decided to walk to the next station while I
waited for it to come back. I never did
find another marked station in the inbound direction, although there were a
couple going the other way. I walked all
the way to where the freeway began and then ducked into a MacDonald’s to eat
lunch before grabbing a cab to the bus station.
Sympathizing with the driver about Argentina’s loss in the World Cup
paid off. He only charged me $1.50 for
the short ride.
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| Albrook Bus Terminal |
I seemed to have a knack for choosing the bus routes with
unmarked stops. While I had seen plenty
of “Panama Viejo” buses passing by the previous day, it took me some time
before I could find someone to tell me that they stopped at an unmarked curb at
the far end of the station. The bus was
packed and it was a very long ride all the way across Panama City. I missed the stop for the visitor center, but
eventually saw some ruins, so got off the bus.
A large part of Panama Viejo now lies under a rather poor neighborhood
of Panama City. I saw a sign for “Monuments,”
but it pointed down a decrepit street and I didn’t want to walk there. I took a look at the few ruins by the road
and then got on the next bus, hoping I would see the visitor center further
on. Eventually, I came to the end of the
line and everyone got off. I got off,
walked over the pedestrian bridge to the other side of the street and got on a
bus going the other way. Once again, I
got off across the street from where I had disembarked earlier because I saw a
sign for “Monuments and Museum.” It
turned out that the parking lot for Panama Viejo was the first driveway off
that dingy street. There was a ticket
booth near the side of the road in what was once a shipping container.
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| King's Bridge |
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| Ruined Cathedral |
 |
| Cathedral Tower |
The ruins of Panama Viejo cover a large area. They run from the parking lot along the coast
all the way back to downtown. Having
been heavily bombarded, there was not a lot left. The cathedral tower was the largest structure
standing. It had been reinforced and
reroofed and there was a modern staircase leading to the top, which afforded a
great view of the site and the surrounding area. Most of the cathedral was gone, but they had
paved an area cov-ering the orig-inal foot-print of the church so one could get an
idea of its original shape. I wandered
around the ruins. In their sorry state,
they looked much older than 17th century. The La Merced Church and convent were the
best preserved, possibly because Morgan had used the structure as his
headquarters. They survived the attack,
but the elaborate façade of the church had been new at the time and the friars
took it apart and moved it to their new location in Casco Viejo.
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| Low Tide in Panama Viejo |
The tide was out, exposing a large expanse of rocks and mud
flats. It seemed odd to me that the area
could ever have been used as a harbor until I was reminded that the tidal range
in the Bay of Panama is six meters.
During migration season, the expansive mud flats are covered with huge
flocks of resting sea birds. The area is
especially rich in sea life because a cold upwelling brings nutrients to the
surface there. Plankton feed on those nutrients and are, in turn, food for fish
and so on, up the food chain. I
contributed my share to the food chain, as I was swarmed with the first
mosquitoes I had seen since arriving in Panama City.
It was quite a long walk across Panama Viejo to the museum
at the visitor’s center. If you come by
bus, the visitor’s center is a modern, curved building on the right side of the
road, just after you leave the high rises of the city. You can stop in front of it if you know where
to find it. It was fairly easy to catch
a bus going the other way, but I made the mistake of catching a “Panama Viejo –
Mercado de Mariscos” bus instead of a “Panama Viejo-Albrook” bus. It followed the same route for most of the
way, but then terminated at the fish market instead of continuing on to the bus
station. If you were staying in Casco
Viejo, you could catch the bus at the fish market to go to Panama Viejo, but
there were no buses going from the fish market to the terminal. I had to walk back up the route to where the
Albrook buses stopped.
The MetroBus system seemed to be determined to frustrate
me. The first Albrook bus that stopped
only let passengers off and wouldn’t let me get on. The second one that passed by didn’t even
stop. After waiting for half an hour,
I finally hopped on an elaborately decorated chicken bus that was headed for
the terminal. Interestingly, the chicken
bus cost twice as much as the MetroBuses.
The service was far superior, however, and I enjoyed the red quilted
vinyl dashboard and fringed gearshift. I
wasn’t as enthusiastic about the small video screen for the driver’s amusement
(…er…distraction.) Somehow, we survived
the ride and I arrived at the station convinced that chicken buses are the way
to go in Panama City, although none of them say where they are going, which is
a different frustration. I did manage to
catch a bus back to my hostel after a wait of only 20 minutes or so. I ate tasty kebabs at a restaurant close by
and retired early because I had to get up before dawn the next morning.
July 19, 2014
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| Sloth on a Gas Pump |
I got up at 5:00 am and was out the door by 5:45. Knowing I couldn’t rely on the buses and not
knowing if I could find a cab at 6:00 AM on a weekend, I walked across the causeway
and out to the Flamenco Marina, which was about four miles. I arrived just at 7:00, when I was supposed
to check in, but somehow managed to be the last person. While waiting in line to board the boat, I
saw a baby sloth clinging to the top of a gas pump. In was very strange to see him there, after
having spent days craning my neck, hoping to see one while walking in the
jungle. Our vessel for the transit was
the Pacific Queen. There were close to
300 people aboard and, being last, I was unable to get a seat outside. The interior of the boat was intolerable
because the air conditioning was out of order.
Eventually, the crew removed the glass from some of the forward windows
to let cool air in, which helped.
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| Puente de las Americas |
We left the dock about 7:50 am, looped around Flamenco
Island and headed for the Miraflores locks.
The Amador Causeway was built with part of the material removed when
they dug the Culebra Cut through the Continental Divide. Not only does it provide vehicular access to
the islands of Naos, Perico and Flamenco, but it also acts as a breakwater to
shelter the entrance to the canal. As we
approached Balboa Harbor, a launch met us and dropped off our canal pilot. The transit officially begins once the pilot
is aboard. We motored through the harbor
and under the Puente de las Americas where the Pan-American Highway crosses the
canal. Prior to the building of the
bridge in 1962, the only way to cross the canal was by ferry.
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| Pilot Stepping Aboard |
We shared a lock chamber with a large ship, its tugboat and
a 68’ French yacht. The ship was towed
through the locks by electric locomotives.
Being under 125’, we used hand lines.
When we entered the lock, the line handlers at the top sent down a light
line. Our deck hands tied our heavy
lines to the light line and the canal employees then hauled our lines up to the
top and looped them over large bollards.
Even though our vessel was quite large, we were attached to the wall of
the lock with only two lines. Two or
three large round fenders protected us from the wall. I watched very carefully to see how the lines
were handled and was surprised that the deck hands left quite a bit of slack
and only adjusted the lines a few times as the water level rose. The French yacht rafted up to us, being
secured fore, aft and amidships, with numerous fenders between us. No one in our chamber used the tires that
agents always want to rent.
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| Entering the Miraflores Locks |
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| Emmy Sailing into the Second Chamber |
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| Tying Up to the Wall |
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| Doors Closing Behind Us |
The Miraflores locks have two chambers. Once everyone was secured in the first
chamber, the doors closed and water began to flood in. It took eight minutes to fill the chamber. There was quite a bit of turbulence in the
water, but all the vessels rode peacefully.
There are no pumps in the Panama Canal.
All the water flows downhill from the Chagres River to Lake Gatun and
the locks are fed by gravity. Once the
first chamber was filled, the gates opened and we all moved forward into the
second chamber where the process was repeated.
When the doors opened the second time, we were at the level of
Miraflores Lake. We crossed that small
lake and then were raised once again in the Pedro Miguel locks to the level of
Lake Gatun. Before the construction of
the Hoover Dam, Lake Gatun was the largest manmade lake in the world. The lake was created by damming the Chagres
River. By raising the level of the water
in the river, it became unnecessary to deepen the majority of the canal’s
path. The majority of the digging was
necessary between Pedro Miguel and Lake Gatun, where the canal crossed the
Continental Divide. One large mountain
had to be split in two to allow the passage of the canal. This stretch is called the Culebra Cut. Many workmen were killed in landslides in the
process of digging that passage.
Landslides are still a problem today and some re-terracing work way
underway to repair the damage from a recent slide when we passed by.
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| Puente Centenario |
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| Sailing Across the Continental Divide |
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| Manuel Noriega's Prison |
Panama is in the process of building two new sets of locks
to accommodate the larger “PostPanamax” ships that won’t fit through the
current locks. On the Miraflores end, the
new locks are on the west side of the canal.
They will raise the ships to the level of Lake Gatun in one series of
locks, instead of crossing Miraflores Lake and then ascending again. This means that the water level in the new
channel will be above that in the old channel until after the Pedro Miguel
locks. A substantial dam was under
construction to contain that water and coffer dams were in place to reinforce
the banks of Miraflores Lake. On the
Atlantic side, the new locks will be on the east side of the canal. The gargantuan gates for the new locks had
already arrived and towered above the Gatun locks, awaiting eventual transport
to their final position on the Pacific side.
The ship that had brought them from Italy was too large to pass through
the canal, so they would need to be loaded onto smaller vessels and transported
through the canal one by one.
 |
| Navigational Buoys in Lake Gatun |
Once we reached Gatun Lake, it took a few hours to motor to
the far side. Jungle covered the hills
and islands on both sides and closely spaced navigational buoys stretched into
the distance, delineating the deep channel.
Crossing the lake, we began to
see southbound vessels. The Culebra Cut
is the bottleneck of the Panama Canal and traffic through it is one way. The large ship that had come up the locks
with us was too slow to make it through the cut before the direction of traffic
changed, so it was forced to moor and wait until the direction changed back
later that evening. The Pacific Queen and Emmy, the French yacht, were fast enough to make it through the cut
and complete the transit in one day.
Sailboats are usually not fast enough to cover the 50 miles in one day
and are required to spend the night in Gatun Lake.
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| Ialands in Lake Gatun |
On the far side of Gatun Lake, where the dam was located, we
finally came to the Gatun Locks. This
time we shared a chamber with Emmy and
a different bulk carrier. Each set of
locks has two lanes. The chamber in the
other lane was completely filled with a “Panamax” (maximum size for the current
locks) container ship that loomed over us.
The Gatun locks let us down to sea level in three stages. Letting the water out of the locks was a more
peaceful process than filling them, but required more vigilance to prevent
hanging the boat from too short lines.
Even so, our deck hands mostly just left them slack and only adjusted
them a couple of times on the way down.
Once we reached the Atlantic side, we steamed past the monstrous new
lock gates and followed the coast of the city of Colon to the cruise ship
terminal where we disembarked. Colon was
a grubby place. There was a lot of
container shipping activity and many ships anchored, but I only saw one sailing
vessel there, although I kept my eye out for the sailboat anchorage. Another breakwater had been constructed on
the Atlantic side, but two beached ships attested to the fact that it could
still get rough in that harbor.
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| Panamax Container Carrier in Gatun Locks |
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| We Shared a Chamber with This Monster |
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| Gatun Locks |
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| Going Down |
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| The Gates for the New Locks |
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| The Pacific Queen in Colon |
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