Last hours of Central America

We´ve just spent the last 2 hours visiting the Miraflores locks of the Panama Canal and I think it by itself was worth the trip down to Panama. We went right at the beginning of the day so to see the big cargo ships heading over to the atlantic side. Its quite the process of squeezing these guys in, raising them up, then pulling them out of the locking system. Boats all over the world are built with the size of the panama canal in mind and you could see that at work as each ship would have about a foot of clearance on each side. Panama City itself is quite different than the rest of the Central American capitals. You can clearly see the American contribution to the city in it´s skyscrapers and highways. The thoughts of sailing to Columbia were squashed as apparently some current has moved in and stretched it from a 4 day to a 20 day trip to get there. That and the guys who ran the sailboats all seemed a little flaky and not the type of people I´d want me ferrying me there. Plans as to how to get to South America are still in the making, but it´s definitely going to be by air, the destination is as of yet, undetermined.

Pictures! One last shot of Playa Del coco (mainly because Michelle dropped several hints about wanting to be seen on here...)

The Canal in all its glory. That average cost of a ship going through the Canal is a wopping $46,000 (it may be a little higher actually). Was great watching that big cargo ship go through, they had some space at the end of the lock so they also threw in a little passenger boat...who´s occupants thought themselves royalty as they paraded in front of us and wouldn´t stop waving. Also, Maurice, you would have loved the tugs, outside of the locks there were fleets of massive tugboats waiting to steer each vessel to its waiting spot.

Panama City as seen from our hostel...which oddly enough is in an 8 story building (first time I´ve taken an elevator to a hostel).