Panama - Day 3
Trip Start
Nov 27, 2008
1
3
7
Trip End
Dec 06, 2008
Panama City,
Panama
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Today arrived with more rain but with a comforted feeling of being settled into our hotel. We had breakfast in the hotel dining room -- better than typical buffet food with good pastries and omelets. We chatted with a foursome at the table next to us who were from Chicago. They were grateful for our suggestion of the Albrook Mall as a dry destination location. We mentioned that we were headed over to the Miraflores Locks and sure enough -- we saw them later.
Miraflores has a great area with which to see the activities of the Panama Canal along with a mini museum of its history. There is apparently a more in-depth museum in Casco Viejo but its hours are irregular and it is apparently not a safe place to explore once one leaves the museum so we decided that the locks was the best place to incorporate all that we were looking for. We arrived at about 11:30 a.m. and didn't leave until 4 -- it was fascinating. We went through the 4 story exhibition hall, watch a movie (the one in English) about the history of the canal and then camped out at a table in the cafe (under roof) to watch the ships come through the canal
day3
. It is quite an amazing operation. It takes nearly an hour for each ship to make it through the two sets of locks at Miraflore (there are two other sets of locks between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans at different locations). We saw what appeared to be an empty cargo ship, a couple of tourist type cruisers but the most fascinating of all were the last two ships we saw come through -- one being a US military ship that was guarded by the helicopter deck at the stern by sailors manning large guns in the event of an attack. It did occur to us that the slow movement and claustrophic "hug" of the canal would/could make a ship vulnerable to a terrorist attack. Right after the passing of the military ship, in the second lane of the canal, passed a huge freighter with containers stacked 6 and 7 rows high. This was truly amazingly awe-provoking! Dan already knew that the canal concession was purchased by the Chinese some time ago and the heavily-loaded freighter appeared to have come from China although hard to tell from the name of the ship "Seattle something" or the flags that she flew. As we watched the movement through the canal, we (again) shared a couple glasses of wine, a salad and some entre dish with steak and lobster -- not shabby at all!
As I type, Dan is taking a nap and once done here, I will return to the wonderful book that I started on the airplane, "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" -- excellent and engaging.
I believe the plan for tonight is to walk up the street to a dinner/show type restaurant called Tia Mares (I think) where they have dinner and fabulous Panamanian dancing
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. It has been described as not "being the least bit hokey" with decent food and excellent entertainment. We'll confirm these plans once we see what Dan feels like when he awakes.Tomorrow -- not quite sure. Thinking about getting up early and catching the 7:30 a.m. train to Colon but understand that perhaps we need to make reservations for that. If it isn't raining, there are many more options but the constant rain, though still very warm, puts a damper (ha ha) on some outdoor hiking plans.
We have confirmed our trip to the Embera tribe for Monday and although the airport was shut down this morning due to fog, we still plan on flying to David and renting the pre-arranged car that will take us to Boquette for Tuesday - Friday.
Thanks for coming along with us. It is really fun to think that by writing entries into this blog that is is similar to sending individual picture postcards daily!!
More tomorrow . . .
Ann (Mom)
