With Max and Mia in deep woods of NC, roughing it out – B, Lucas and I were heading for a quick getaway to Central America – Panama. Easy choice, quick flight, direct, no huge time zones and we had leftover credits that had to be used. Of course, everyone and I mean everyone thought we were heading down to Florida panhandle – no way, we are not FL friends given what De Santis is doing there. Real Panama it is!

8th wonder of the world

Is what, anyone? Ha – I didn’t know either – so apparently there are like 11 somethings called 8ths wonders. So like 18 together – whatever. The Panamanians naturally call the Panama canal the 8th wonder so we will go with it. And I have to say – as for human made wonders – it lived up to it. So first was the theory, a museum. A bit unexpected b/c we really needed to hide somewhere from the heat during our old town walk – canal museum just popped up – half empty and airconditioned! Also, quite big – basically after 3 hours and 3 floors of painstakingly detailed history of this piece of land and engineering – we were ready for a nap. Next day was the actual visit and we were beefed up with centuries of history, so bring it on.

6 am wake up didn’t go over well – it is vacation after all. Private guide picked us up to go to the Miraflores locks – all gibberish to me 2 days ago – but now, with all my museum self-taught science – I was all in.

The 2 mins history

My simple engineering mind thought that literally people dug up a canal thru the thinnest part of Panama to connect 2 bodies of sea. Ehm, well, I wasn’t that far off theoretically – maybe like 100 years behind? Because that is exactly how the English and French thought this should work since is Suez canal was built this way – 100 years ago. But, desert is not a jungle and boy did they learn it the hard way. The ground is not sand, and most importantly the 2 oceans are actually at completely different sea level – aha, also a big problem. Tides are different, there is a bit of a mountain in the middle – where you need LOT of water to get these giant ships through (otherwise they get stuck). It doesn’t even go through the thinnest part of Panama, instead NW to SE – where the water is.

So when the French got burnt by sun, disease, bugs, corruption and debt – they packed their bags. I don’t blame them – the heat is excruciating, the terrain difficult and digging up holes that yet don’t go anywhere sounds like a punishment. Surprisingly, it wasn’t – they way they marketed this work – first to European immigrants, later to slaves or islanders – was all about the great weather, safe job for a while and good pay. The # of countries participating in this adventure was mind boggling – this also explains the diversity of Panamanian population today. Black, Caribbean, white, Asian – I mean it is incredibly diverse as a result of this project labor. US took over and totally revamped the engineering plan to overcome the hills, tides and two oceans not aligned to each other. With locks – ok, I also didn’t know what all these locks are – everyone in Panama just keeps talking locks, locks, go to this lock and not the other one – what is this thing? Who is locking whom where?

How does it really work?

Lock is how you move the ship up and down – and forward. So basically, you close the ship in a lock, fill it with water from the lake (52 million gallons per ship) and the water lifts it up – it goes forward to the next lock. Repeat. Then once it reaches Lake Gatun, ships going both directions just hang out during the midday, and in the afternoon they go forward and down the locks. All is done with water from the lake and by gravity. About 40 ships move through in a day, it costs anywhere from $900 for a sailboat to $1M per large ship to cross – but you do save over 7,000km of a journey around South America in wild and dangerous waters and a week of time, so great deal. You have to make a reservation and can only hang out in Panamanian waters for 3 days so you better plan it. Another fascinating fact, the ship captains do not drive the ship through the canal. Here is why – it is incredibly tight in these locks, literally – there is like 1 m on each side of the ship – then you get stuck or hit the wall. There are these super duper locomotives that are riding on the side of the canal, who are tied to the ship and control its angle – the are called mules b/c they are really the magic here to make sure the ship gets through. Small, neat and incredibly powerful. However, the canal employs their own captains who board the ship, take it over and drive it to the other side – makes sense, you really don’t want people experimenting and block the whole thing.

We also saw an really great IMAX movie on it but at that point, we felt like we got it covered. Highly recommend – maybe not in the middle of the day – and get a private guide to do the Miraflores locks – they were all right on everything.

We weren’t finished with the tour though – now let’s go to the Gatun lake to see the ships as well as the monkeys that hang out there. Cappucin, howlers, some other little ones – saw them all and waited for them to show up. I, personally, always think of monkeys as carriers of Ebola so was totally fine for them to stay out of our boat but the tour guide thought we wanted an eye to eye. Monkey jumping on and off a wonky canoe is not my cup of tea – as I really don’t need a sharp teeth, almost domesticated, cheeky animal causing a flip – but fortunately our monkey stayed away – to the disappointment of the guide and big relief for me.

We got to see way more ships during our island trip the next day but at that point we were experts – could tell where the ship is from based on the 3 flags on it, what was on it (based on the load) and where it was going. Logistics and shipping is more fascinating than I thought !