Panama Day 4 - The Panama Canal

 I knew there was a Panama Canal. I knew it has locks. But the reality of it is something that I could only have understood in person. I fell down the internet rabbit hole more than once trying to figure out why there was such a sea level difference between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, so much so that it warranted the construction of SIX different locks along the voyage. The reality is that the smarty engineers that completed the canal (started by France, finished by the USA) realized that it was faster and cheaper (both in money and in human lives) to build a lake at the top of the mountain range separating the two coastlines, instead of blasting the whole darn mountain down to sea level. So, the first set of three locks are going up, up, up, 87 feet to get from the Pacific Ocean to Lake Gatun. And then the second set of three locks are going down, down, down, to get back into open water in the Atlantic/Carribean. While the bodies of water often vary in sea level height, it is never as drastic as I was imagining from one side to the other. With that in mind, meet the Miraflores locks. 

We got up close and personal with Miraflores, our tour having the benefit of getting as close as dignitaries to the ships coming through. The locks are both incredible and primitive, much of the equipment is original, specifically these gigantic doors that dam the water. Those doors are 114 years old! 

The ships that enter are guided by metal railroad cars on each side, they pull the enormous ships through the canal and keep them from "bumping" into the doors on each side. It's a very tight squeeze, with little room for error. 

So, shipping has increased a bit since 1908. What was once thought to have a maximum capacity of 80 million tons of shipping per year has now ballooned beyond 340 million tons of shipping! So much so that a set of expansion locks were built, creating a completely separate lane for larger ships with even more containers. This was completed in 2016, and while we didn't see the expansion locks up close, if you look way in the distance, you can see a rainbow of containers on a very large ship in the distance traveling through the larger locks.

We took a rainy stroll around the Panama Canal Administrative Building. This is where the Canal decisions are made, a government agency within the country of Panama. These low clouds show the impending rainstorm that followed us each afternoon. 

My favorite part was this fountain out front that is representative of the six locks, three on each entrance of the canal. The name Goethals for George Washington Goethals, who is the US Army General and civil engineer that saw the canal to it's opening in 1914.

Our afternoon activity was a cultural exchange for the girls, and by default also for the moms. The girls were split into teams and each given a few dollars. They were tasked with walking around the Mercado San Felipe and finding a fruit or vegetable that they had never tried before. The needed to buy the item, learn the name and how to eat it and then present to the rest of the group. And do this in Spanish. It was a blast!

So many colors!!

We learned about passionfruit, guava and lots and lots of rambutan. As a reward for their transactions, we had a fruit smoothie tasting party at one of the booths. We tried all kinds of delicious (and confusing) fruit and vegetable combinations, at at the end we each got to choose our favorite to sip on during the rest of the day. 

Gimme that mango passionfruit!

Gretchen was a smoothie explorer!

The rest of the afternoon we walked around the city, finding street murals and dodging protesters. It gave us a glimpse of the less polished side of the city, though we never felt unsafe or pressured to buy anything. 

The cutest little patio of a restaurant I'll return to someday.

We had an organized dinner at El Trapiche, it was nice, but we wanted another taste of the city! We asked the bus driver to take us to Casco Viejo, a region of the city known for its shoreline, delicious restaurants and nightlife. 

Unsurprisingly, we landed at an ice cream parlor. A tiny little spot with fun lights, energetic employees and delicious ice cream. Ay Mi Negra, with the only complete wall in the place shouting "Kiss Now! Tomorrow, Who Knows?". It was the perfect motivator to request things in Spanish, and it was so much fun that we returned the next night for a dance party at the same place. 

The girls had ice cream, so the moms wanted a dessert of their own. Right next door is Chingada Madre, for those that don't know the translation, I won't write it here. It was like Dia de los Muertos opened a restaurant. This vibrant spot had loud, fun music and a pool table upstairs to occupy our kids. And it was virtually empty, all but for another table singing along with the music and having a great time. 

Uber reliably got us all back to the hotel, and we were asleep before our heads hit the pillow. 

Panama Day 3 Pineapples & El Valle de Anton

 You know it's gonna be a good day when the day starts at a Pineapple Farm!

We learned so very much about pineapple farming! They are rated on a scale of 1 - 10 based on size. The juice of each parcel is checked for its sweetness and rated on a sweetness scale. Each individual pineapple is dunked and washed to be sure that the quality is right - floating pineapples are less ripe and can withstand longer trips to the customers, sinkers are more ripe and need to be consumed sooner. 

Wondering how to grow one? All you need is the crown and you can grow your own, personal, pineapple!

Pineapple Bathtime

Do you know how much pineapple your kids can eat? I didn't either, but today, Gretchen gave it her maximum effort. It turns out she is maybe a little bit allergic to pineapple when she eats multiple whole fruits. Luckily, I know my way around a farmacia.

As it turns out, the pineapple farm grows a whole lot of other things too. This little guy hanging all alone is a star fruit. 

And this wacky tree, or bush, is what a dragonfruit plant looks like.

I could have guessed 100 different things before I would have gotten this one right. This leafy, bushy plant is what black pepper looks like when it's coming out of the ground. Those little black beads in your peppermill, they come from here:

There were more than a few surprises on this tour. It makes a whole lot more sense to me why pineapples are a more expensive fruit. They take up a lot of space! Each one of these plants is one singular pineapple. Then you get to the weight of transporting each one, and the labor associated with planting and harvesting them, and the price is understandable. 

That incredible visit was just the appetizer to our day. From there we traveled to Valle de Anton, where we braved the lunchtime rain and hiked another jungle path alongside the river. 

What started out as getting a bit damp from the rain quickly escalated in everyone in our group venturing into the river. I was a sissy and only went in up to my legs. A few of the girls completely submerged, fully dressed, into the chilly river. According to our guide, we were the first group in his seven years of experience to get in. "I never thought the first group would be a bunch of girls!"

The trip itinerary arranged for a meeting of our troop with a local, family run performance group. These local kids, some as young as 5, dressed in traditional dresses, shoes and hairpieces, added modern-day masks and showed us a group dance. This gave our girls a chance to speak with other kids using the Spanish that they know, and they outfitted each girl with a skirt and hairpiece of their own. They were all available for purchase if you were interested. 

We had an hour or so to spare, so we wandered the Valle de Anton Mercado. There were fruits, vegetables, trinkets and souvenirs. It was colorful and fun, and it was great seeing Gretchen navigate her way around the market using her language skills. 

There was not a moment wasted on the trip. On our way home we stopped to try the "best empanadas in Panama". There was a line, which is not unusual for this small roadside place, but after years of living in Argentina I have become an empanada snob, I'm sorry to say they didn't hold a candle to their South American counterparts. 

Another successful day followed by a much needed rest at night. Farewell Day 3!

Panama Day 2: Gatun Lake & Metropolitan Park

 Panama was definitely a place that I needed to see in person to understand. After learning a bit about the length of the Panama Canal (51 miles), and the many locks that take ships from one ocean to another (a total of 6 if you are a "small ship", 1,500 container capacity or less) I had a pretty good idea of what it all looks like. I couldn't figure out why there was an almost 90 foot difference between the sea level of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The part I was missing was Gatun Lake, which was our first activity on Day 2 in Panama. 

What I didn't realize is that instead of digging out the entirety of the canal, it is a series of 3 locks that rise ships up a total of 87 feet to the man-made Gatun Lake. From there, ships sail across the lake, not encountering another lock until it's time to be lowered 87 feet back into the next ocean. The seas aren't necessarily that different in sea level, it's that the engineers that completed the canal realized that digging through a mountain range was harder than it needed to be. So they rise ships up to the lake, then lower them on the other side, creating an 8-10 hour journey through the canal. And since traveling through the locks is where the big money comes from, we enjoyed a boat ride on the lake, brushing shoulders with huge ships but not actually traveling through one of the locks. 

There is a reservation system in place if you are willing to pay to jump the lineup for the canal. Without a reservation, you may be sitting in queue for up to a week. 

These are the ships we got to see while joyriding on the lake. 

"Safety First! No Smoking"

The lake is surrounded by jungle, so we got to see a few visitors on the trip. We stopped by Monkey Island where we saw 3 different kinds of monkeys! 

We saw this cute little lineup of sleeping bats

And a Jesus lizard! They run so fast that they can run on top of water!

Our afternoon was spent hiking the Parque National Metropolitano, a large park located in the heart of Panama City. 

During the US owning and running of the Panama Canal, the surrounding area was designated US Military Zone. This also means that once we turned over ownership of the canal, all of the buildings and structures in this zone were abandoned. Some of the buildings have been purchased by organizations like the Smithsonian Institute to conduct research, but many other buildings, like this one, sit locked and abandoned.

The hike introduced us to all kinds of creatures. This black and yellow millipede was everywhere! They have a distinct oder and scare the daylights out of some 11 year old girls! 

This spider web was dense enough to catch my eye, and after asking our guide about it, he explained that it is a web with a male spider woven into the center. The female uses the male as bait after a few dates.

If you look closely, you can see that these little green bits aren't just leaf confetti, they are a parade of leaf-cutter ants. They lined the path for miles walking their little bits of leaf up to a larger nest. Once the girls realized that they were all working together, we had to watch out step for the remainder of the hike - god forbid we step on an ant (or 10). 

We were truly in the jungle, but also, right next to the city.

Our traveling troop. Guess who didn't like the millipedes. 

See that? I didn't either, at first... but it's a sloth!

And a stately looking toucan!

And another sloth! This one is of the 2-toed variety. It was still very, very, very slow.

So that was quite the full day of activity. This was only Day 2!