Life from Behind the Visor: Canal de Panama

After the border, the PanAm highway is twinned and in pretty good shape. Lots of police presence but no stops. Gas is 3.35 per gallon for 95 octane. We are still amazed every time we cross into a new country, Brenda says she yells out “We are in ___!” shortly after every border crossing. Panama once again has a noticeable change in properties along the highway, the first few miles was a little rough, but after that the scenery changed to larger ranch homes and estate type dwellings. Manicured grass, trimmed trees, nicely painted houses, newer vehicles etc. So, I am making the grande assumption that the people are a little above the poverty level, at least from the first impression along the road.
The city of David, is very lively with store after store selling alot of the same merchandise. Pretty good prices from what we can tell, but again, we don’t really need anything but it is fun to look. David, is the market town for the surrounding area, thus it is very energetic and somewhat crowded. We were very surprised to see a ‘big box store’ shopping area. This may due to the long time American influence in Panama that started when the US agreed to complete the construction of the Canal and also indicates that the people can afford these type of stores. After settling into our hotel, which we of course found by accident, we stepped out into the bustling market streets for some exercise. We walked for a few hours checking out the merchandise and figured that the economy here is doing quite well based on the number of people shopping. We met one shop keeper who said he was from Palestine, and described his store as being small but with a big heart. With a tag line like that we had to check it out, it was mostly clothing and household items, he even tried to entice me with sending two of his lovely shop girls to help me. He was quite the marketing whiz. The next morning we walked to the Centro and people watched for a while, we ate some fresh pineapple from a vendor (0.35) and tried to figure out why so many children in school uniforms would come to the park and hang out before school. I remember sleeping until the last possible minute then running to the school bus. No hanging out for like an hour before school starts. This was a nice way to start the day, sitting in a park, the sun warming us, and generally just relaxing.
The next stop is the Panama Canal, so maybe this morning was needed to reflect on the miles we have made and the ones we still need to. Most of the time we can’t believe where we are, we look at our maps and wonder how this happened. Then we realize we have to make the trip home so this adventure is only half done by direction, and only 25% done by time.
The PanAm highway continued to be in fine shape most of the way into Santiago, but was not twinned much more than a few miles out of David. We stayed overnight in Santiago, this was also a very busy town but not so much of a market town, it was also Friday night so that may have played a part. Digicell had a stage set up and put on a concert, they are a cell phone company in Central America, it was fun to watch the little kids play “Simon Says” and the adult dance off was also very entertaining. This was just an overnight stop and the next morning we ran into a couple of guys riding bicycles to the Canal. They had started in Alaska, and had a 5 month schedule which they seemed to be keeping. One fella was from Germany, the other from England, and they met on the road. We thought that their 80km’s per day was a very good pace to keep given some of the roads we had ridden, curves, hills, traffic, lack of shoulders on the highway, and of course the heat.

Our path into the Canal area proved to be the usual chaos of traffic and no signs. We pulled into a gas station to collect our thoughts when a local biker walked up and asked if we needed help. He volunteered to lead us to the Canal, as he worked there, he rode a 1200 Vmax and seemed to like using every ounce of power it had. He took off between the lanes like a jack rabbit, I wanted to follow him but our bikes are to wide to fit. Luckily he realized this and pulled over to wait for us to catch up, he led us through the city right to the Miraflores, the main tourist entrance to the canal. We talked about bikes for a while then he took off to go pay some bills as it was his afternoon off.

Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction, this nice couple walked up to us and asked if we had ridden our bikes all the way from Alberta. We explained the process and asked where they were from. They are from Canmore, and he designed the Glen Eagles Golf course which our house backs onto. What are the odds??

We opted to find a hotel before doing any tourist stuff, this proved to be a challenge, there are not many hotels in the area which is very surprising. This being the biggest tourist attraction in the country and all. We found a nice place very close to the locks, it seems this the political area of town as there are embassies and universities close by.
The Canal. Wow, what a feat of engineering this is, considering it was completed in 1913. I could write all the facts and figure of the place but I assume if you can read this you can also use Google. Suffice to say that the entry fee is well worth it. It has been raining here guite heavily for the last few days and part of the road leading up to the Centurian Bridge had collapsed, this washed into the canal waterway and actually closed the canal for the first time in 19 years. Lucky for us it was open again and we got to watch a couple of ships pass through the locks. There have also been several other road closures due to mudslides, but we have not seen any yet.

So, after getting our fill of the Canal we still had some exploring to do, and as it was raining again, we decided to go indoors to the local shopping mall. This mall is bigger than West Ed, and judging from how busy it was there is no shortage of consumer confidence here either. The mall was simply huge and in a couple of hours we only walked one small area. That was enough of that.
The next day we woke up to rain, yet again, but decided to explore Old Town Panama City anyway. This involved manipulating through traffic, and into the historic center. More narrow, unsigned one way streets, with amazing buildings on both sides. We still can’t get over how old some of these buildings are, and that people still live in them. The area is under a massive revitalization, there are renovations happening all over the place, in building that look at though they should be bulldozed not fixed. Once again, totally amazing. Panama City certainly has something for everyone, shopping, architecture, theatre, fishing, etc.etc.