Panama Canal Transit & Colon

 

According to our schedule, we were picking up our pilot on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal at 6am and going under the Bridge of Americas at 6:45am.  I set my alarm for 5:30am and gave everyone a wake up call.  I was out on deck 11 about 15 minutes later and got myself a prime spot with lounges and everything.  Because Doug can’t walk too far, I stuck with midship location which worked out very nice.  I got some nice city pictures of Panama City as the sun was coming out.  There are some really cool high rises in Panama City. 

We were scheduled to get to the Miraflores locks at 8am (the first set of locks) and they did not disappoint.  We had some great seats for this.  They did open up the helipad if you wanted to go up front to see it, but it was very busy there and so we stuck to our spot and enjoyed the view from there.  It got really hot, but we slathered ourselves with lotion and wore hats.  What an amazing experience to see the Panama Canal locks.  This history of it is equally as amazing and we heard it a few times from various places.  The night before we watched a documentary about it and then during our transit there was a Panama Canal Narration by an official guide.

The Miraflores locks consists of two locks and then soon after is another one called the Pedro Miguel Locks.  By 11am we were done with the first set of locks and went down to deck 10 and got some breakfast and a few other snacks.  We found a good spot to sit near a window and had a nice view of the Cut (I forgot the official name of that) and Gatun Lake.  We did a bit of walking around to see various views of things.

In between the locks, the spa decided to put their staff on the pool deck and give out neck and foot massages (free)… yes I got a foot massage and it was very nice.

Early afternoon got us to the Gatun Locks(Atlantic Side) and here I decided to go down to deck 4 to see the canal a little closer… now that was an experience… you could touch the side of the Canal if you wanted (we were told not to).  In fact some excitement was when the ship scraped the side of the Canal and then you could see the smoky concrete dust come up (yes I took pictures).  After watching one of the locks like this, I went up to the front and watched it a bit more from there.  I still didn’t go to the helipad area, but I could see it from where I was sitting. 

None of us got burnt, which is a pretty amazing feat if you ask me.  We all got some great pictures of this one of a kind experience.  The weather had been nice the whole time and we got some great views of the Panama Canal.

By 5pm we were through all the locks and were out to the Atlantic Ocean.   We got passed by the Carnival Freedom which had been in the port of Colon that day.  We didn’t go to Colon until the next day because we had to go out 12 miles into the ocean to flush the ships toilet… yes, you read that right… they had to dump our waste and so we spent the evening going very slowly out into the ocean.  They also had a deck party that night because we were going so slowly and not moving much.  They did a fruit buffet and dancing on deck.  We stayed for a bit, but then grabbed a few snacks, visited a bit with Conny and went to bed by 11pm.  We had to get up at 6:15am the next day so we didn’t get much sleep.

Colon – we had to be off the ship by 7:15am so we could meet our tour guide at 7:40am.  All 19 of us were on time and we all piled into our tour bus and our tour guide Rey kept us entertained for the next 6 1/2 hours.   We were very very tired by the end of this tour.

We started out by going to the Gatun Locks and checked out the viewing area.  Along the way we stopped on the side of the road and took some pics of a sloth in a tree.  We were actually on one of the locks for this viewing area.  There was a long set of steps to the area, so Doug and our friend Dennis stayed at the lower area.  It was nice for Doug to have someone staying with him every so often.  After the locks, we crossed over the Canal (via a tiny one way bridge) and went to the Fort San Lorenzo.   This was a long drive through the Rain Forest and we stopped to see some monkeys and also a short hike to see some plants, etc.  the picture is all of us on the side of the road taking pictures of the howler monkey’s in the tree.  For the hike to see the plants, etc,  Doug only walked a ways before stopping and headed back to the air conditioned bus.  My mom went back too as she was getting too hot.  I have never sweat so much in my life.  There was sweat pouring out of every pour in my body.

The fort was interesting… very small but rustic.  There was some good views from there and everyone seemed to enjoy it.  Doug walked out for a bit, but eventually went back to the bus to enjoy the air conditioning.  It was a long tour but that was mostly because of the long drive.  The tour also included water, pop and beer.  Yes, Doug had a beer at 9am in the morning…. and he wasn’t the only one in the bus who did that.

We got back to the port at a decent hour to spend a bit of time shopping.  Doug and I looked around for a few minutes but went back to the ship and rested.  With these long excursions, Doug has to come back to our cabin and put ice on his back to relax it.   By this time we were tired, but still had to go for dinner.   The dinner was great and mom’s veal shank was HUGE… yes we took a picture.  We did go see the juggler comedian but we didn’t manage through the whole show as we both couldn’t keep our eyes open.  We were asleep by 10:15 and the alarm was set for 7:30am the next morning.

The next day would be our first time in South America…. we were excited to go out in Columbia and see the sites…. more blogs to come.