travelbroadensthemind: Panama city

The only reason to visit Panama city, we decided was to see the Canal and possibly the Old Town.

The reasons will be evident later on.

The new city looks like this.

The old city like this.

The Canal like this.

The Miraflores locks are where visitors go to watch the action.

And the action we saw was fascinating, but firstly let me tell you that I sailed through the Panama Canal in 1968 on the Oriana. I was returning to the UK after working in Canada for two years. I have vague memories of the ship standing high above the forest, way below, and the Miraflores lock house.

The building of the Canal was started by the French in 1892. It was to be the greatest engineering feat of its time. But thousands died because of Malaria and Yellow Fever, and they didn't have the right equipment to dig the canals.

Eventually they gave up and the Americans finished the job. But, in return they took control of the canal zone and ran it until 1999 when they were forced by the Panamanians to return the land and the canal back to Panama. The handover was agreed in 1979 and took 20 ten years. We presume it took that time to train the Panamanians and withdraw the huge number of American personnel. The Americans left their mark - it is a very American city and the Panamanians in the city are very American in their attitude.

We arrived at the canal visitor centre at Miraflores lock in time to see the big boats going through.The centre is on four floors we went to the 4th floor observation deck to watch. This boat was small compared to the one we watched next.

A huge tanker that had centimeters to spare was tugged into the lock.

The 'donkey's here are new, built by Mitsubishi they use 400,000watts each to pull the big boats along - there are four of them!

The lock gates are the original ones installed in 1913.

you can see the height of the ship compared to the lock house.

Once through the boat just fitted and waited for the gates

to open at the far end to let her through into the lake area.

The museum on the building of the canal was excellent - there was a ship control simulator that Tony had a go on!

We then went to the top of Ancon Hill to see the views.

The bridge links North and South America.

There is a duty free area in Panama. We wondered if these were duty free!

Then off to the old town, which compared to Cartegena was really in a bad state.

This was supposed to look like this in 2011! Ah well it takes time!

The French Embassy was still very much in existence. The pictures are dark as it was 3.00pm and we were having our tropical afternoon rain storm.

I was excited to see masks, this time woven.

woven baskets are beautiful and very different from others we had seen.

This was recycling at its best! The basket is made from rolled strips of coloured magazine pages.

Looking into a bigger basket we were surprised at how strong it was.

The streets are narrow and in very bad condition, but it gave us the opportunity to see some secret places.

A cat sits and contemplates his next move.

Knitting takes place in an open window.

The true poverty of Panama City

Ruined 15th century churches stand waiting to be rebuilt.

A working church needs a weed job!

While inside is a gold altar!

And 15th century statues.

Someone may be thinking of buying here? Very good carpentry in the new conversion.

While someone looks on from their balcony.

Some buildings have been converted.

And from the point the view of the new city is impressive.

Our final look at the old city was a leg from a pretty balcony!

We had a day to spare so decided to go out to Gamboa village - well it turned out to be a resort! There was a village somewhere, but we didn't see it. However the resort was full of Americans, but we had a very pleasant day.