We have both been looking forward to our opportunity to check out the Panama Canal! We hopped a bus from our hostel here in the City and headed to Miraflores Locks, where visitors can roam the exhibits and watch ships come through the locks.
Because it’s a slow season for transport, we only saw one large ship come through in our three-hour visit. It was one of the Panamax ships… ones that were designed around the size of the Panama Canal.
The ship making its way into the lock. This huge thing came through with only 24 inches to spare on each side!
You can see the height difference between this and the last picture. The ships are raised in the locks at the rate of one meter per minute. Pretty fast for something so big!
Passing through to the next lock.
It was fun to watch the locks in action and to learn more about the Canal, although we weren’t overly impressed with the quality of the information provided at the visitor center. We were expecting an intense, in-depth history, and in fact, the video and museum did not go into as much detail as we hoped. But it was still cool!
We took a cab home and our driver took us to an overlook from which we could see the Canal, the Puente de Las Americas, and the City skyline. Not bad!
Bridge over the Panama Canal
Nice view of the City...
After our trip to the Canal, we went back to the packing process. We were able to take our bikes to a bike shop and have them boxed up for us for only $6/bike. Since that would cost about $75 in the States, and it takes us about 5 hours to do ourselves, we happily paid the $6 and brought our packaged bikes back to our hostel via taxi.
Now we're ready to go home!
