Panama, a country, a city, a canal

It was all about surprise and delight. Surprise because I had planned a few days only in this country. But it eventually pleasantly surprised me. I didn't expect to find much very interesting; I left the country with the regret of not having stayed longer. Landscapes, cuisine (I become obsessive!), people, everything delighted me. A little less the climate. It feels like a greenhouse so the heat and humidity are oppressive.

Let's talk a little about the Pan American highway. Given the shape of the country, it is difficult not to drive it in Panama. But to be honest apart from a few dozens of kilometers at the border between Chiapas and Guatemala, I drove it on bus from Mexico City to Panama City. You will see some pictures of the road that connects almost continuously Northern Alaska to Tierra del Fuego in Argentina. Although in some places it is a real highway, sometimes it looks like a simple road crisscrossing the jungle. Whatever its form, there are still large semi-trailers traveling at breakneck speed.

After spending a day in the mountains of the west and two days on the south coast, with Kati (a Hungarian from Romania who lives in Ireland and with whom I traveled in Panama), we took the path the city of Panama. At the southern entrance to the canal of the same name, the city extends horizontally but also vertically. This cityscape is rare enough since San Francisco to be noticed. Far away in the bay, we see freighters waiting patiently for their entry into the canal.

The canal precisely! Well, I admit that I was as excited as a kid in the sandbox playing with a new toy (affectionate thoughts for my nephew!). I was initially excited by the moment. Crossing the canal on the Bridge of the Americas meant going from North to South America. I begin the second part of my trip. A symbolic moment that I did not think too hard at first.

Then, nothing better than to take the train along the canal to better understand how it works. Basically, two sets of locks, one to the south near Panama City, one in the north near Colon, a channel and an artificial lake between the two. And on the sides, from time to time a dam to prevent water from escaping otherwise than by locks, and another one just to refill the lake, which releases tons of water each time a boat is passing by locks.

Finally I arrived at the locks of the north, those of Gatun. There you would have probably seen me dumbfounded by those huge container ships towed by small locomotives along no less enormous communicating basins between locks. Everything is calibrated to the millimeter. Ballet of locomotives and slow parade of boats: it's fascinating! Crossing a set of locks takes a good hour for a ship, crossing the channel as a whole, about ten (excluding congestion at peak hours!). And further, finally, we see the work of pharaonic construction of new locks, larger than existing ones. Within two years, they allow the passage of even larger vessels. For the moment, the site is a huge trench in the clay soil.

For the curious ones, an internet search (starting with the detailed article from Wikipedia) can quench your thirst for knowledge. From my side, this time back to school, I saw myself back in time, at secondary school, studying the Panama Canal, trade across the world, the US-linked history of Panama through this channel etc.. And to see this wonder of engineering and to see what I only saw in pictures in my history and geography books brought me several years back. Fun sensation. And for the sailors I know, I guess crossing the canal by boat must be something!

And now here are the pictures and below, a video.