Written by Kim
Our port today was Colon in Panama. We enjoyed a beautiful day in Panama on a Viator tour we booked with Almiza tours. We met the tour right outside the port where a small van took about 18 of us around Panama. Traffic downtown was a bit crazy but Bruce, our driver managed it well.
Milton shared a lot of history with us and was an excellent guide. He told us that Colon, our port, was named after Columbus who first discovered Panama. Panama is a volcanic island that divided the ocean and sits between the Atlantic to the north and Pacific to the south. The 2 oceans are very different with the Atlantic being more salty with less diverse fish but more coral and Pacific less salty and very diverse fish. Also the Atlantic tides don’t vary much on the coast of Panama (only about 3 feet) but the Pacific tides vary by 20 feet which caused challenges that the canal needed to address. Panama is often called the connection for the world. The population of 4.47 million is a melting pot of Europeans, Africans and Native Americans. A fun fact – Native Anericans were called Indians because Columbus thought he reached Asia or India when he discovered America.
Our first stop was Fort San Lorenzo which is located on the west bank of the Panama Canal. It was built by the Spanish to protect the mouth of the Chagres River, a strategic waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Control of the waterway provided access to the riches of the South American colonies along the Pacific Ocean and the site was considered to be one of the “keys” to the Americas. Due to its strategic location the fort was under constant attack by pirates and other conquering forces and as a result, the fort had to be rebuilt three times between the 17th and 18th centuries.
Bruce, our driver, spotted some Coatis while we were headed to the port so Milton had him stop to feed them.
There were 2 routes that Spain used to move gold & silver through Panama during colonial times it was a shortcut to Mexico. The Royal Route was all by land. It was a road that ran through the Panamanian jungle before the construction of the Panama Canal and the introduction of trains. The road connected Panama City on the Pacific coast to Portobelo, a Caribbean trading partner that on the Atlantic. The Cruces path was mules on land, canoe on Chagres River, ship in ocean.
Panama, and is a conduit for maritime trade between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Locks at each end lift ships up to Gatun Lake, an artificial fresh water lake 26 meters (85 ft) above sea level, created by damming the Chagres River and Lake Alajuela to reduce the amount of excavation work required for the canal.
The original canal built in 1914. The French company who built the Suez Canal was the first group to attempt building the canal. They failed miserably because the environment was almost the exact opposite of Egypt – it was volcanic rock instead of sand, very tropical vs desert, and mountainous vs flat land in Egypt. After several years and 20-25,000 people lost trying to built the canal the French gave up. They worked with Panama government to negotiate their freedom from Columbia and helped negotiate a treaty with the US for the US to build the canal. The treaty allowed the US to control the canal from 1914 until 1999. It took 10 years to build the original canal.
A new lane was built for the Panama Canal by the Panamanian government and opened in 2016. They call it the extended canal. It took just 9 years to built (only 1 year less than the 102 year old original canal). This was needed because the original canal couldn’t fit the size of today’s ships. Original canal could carry ships with 5,000 containers. Yesterday the largest ship carrying 24,500 containers came through the expanded canal. Fees for the canal must be paid 48 hours in advance, pilot captain must drive all vessels and revenue is approx $12 million daily for an average of 38 ships a day.
Panama is clearly more wealthy than other Caribbean nations due to the income from the canal. Their roads are well maintained, you see modern malls instead of shanty towns and people are diverse. Panama has the 2nd largest duty free shopping in the world (Hong Kong is first). Panama is very proud to be a connector in fact COPA airline is based here and offers nonstop flights from many major US cities to Panama. COPA flies daily to all major cities in Central and South America.
After our tour, we stopped for a local snack on the way back to port.
It was Asian night tonight in the dining room. Inyomen and Luisa were glad to see us since we went to Giovanni last night. We enjoyed a nice dinner. At the end of dinner, Inyomen brought me Ismail coffee that he had from his home country, Bali, for me to try. It was delicious with some nutty flavors. He was so happy I liked his coffee. What a sweet man.
We really enjoyed our visit to Panama. My favorite engineer really loved seeing the locks operate. Tomorrow we are in Cartegena, Columbia. Until then…
