Northern South America Travel Diary

2012

Northern South America Travel Diary 2012

 

A couple of months ago, I was asked by one of my colleagues at school about the location of the boundary between the North and South American continents.  He seemed surprised when I said the boundary coincided with the national boundary between Panama and Colombia (placing Panama within North America and Colombia in South America). 

Observing his surprise, I immediately assumed that he must be a victim of the common misunderstanding that the boundary between the continents lies at the thinnest part of the Isthmus of Panama, which would make the Panama Canal the boundary.  However, this suggestion did nothing to clarify his confusion; he had thought the boundary lay on the US-Mexican border.  I wonder how many people confuse cultural and linguistic differences with continental divisions, which (in this case) are based largely on the protocontinents (Laurasia and Gondwana) that came together through the process of tectonic plate movement (continental drift).

This little lesson in geography is a preamble to say that in staying in a hotel overlooking the Panama Canal, I am not overlooking a continental boundary.  I am in North America – but only about 250 kilometres or so from South America.

I was thrilled to wake this morning and look out my window to see a sunny day, with clear blue skies and a line of ships waiting to enter the Miraflores Locks at the southern end of the Panama Canal.  Although the Canal joins the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, the actual direction of the Canal is from the north-west (the Atlantic end) to the south-east (the Pacific end).

Having asked for advice from the staff at the front desk of my hotel, I resolved to do what they suggested and arrive at the Canal Exhibition centre as soon as it opened at 9:00 am.  They said that ship movements usually go through the night and are well underway at opening time, but these movements usually stop within an hour or so until resuming once again in the late afternoon.  I can imagine that the canal is not that exciting to look at without any ships.

As I could see the exhibition centre clearly from the window of my room in the hotel, I decided to walk.  The walk took a little longer than I expected because the route was less direct than I had expected; it involved a large loop and the actual walking distance was 2.4 kilometres (I checked later on Google Earth).  Nonetheless, I arrived at about 9:10 am, which was in plenty of time to watch a couple of very large ships negotiate the locks.

And it was certainly an impressive sight, all the more so when it is remembered that the Canal’s impressive engineering is about a century old – arguably an early effort to promote globalization.  An observation platform in the visitors’ centre provided an excellent (if somewhat crowded) view of the locks that form the southern entry to the canal, and an amplified commentary in both Spanish and English explained what was happening.  We were even told that the average cost for a ship to go through the canal is about US$110,000, paid in cash 48 hours before entering the canal.  One especially large ship that we saw this morning carried a higher cost – US$160,000 according to the commentator.

Apparently it takes a ship between 24 and 30 hours to complete the length of the Panama Canal, of which (from what I saw this morning) about an hour is needed to go through the locks at either end, waiting for the water to rise or fall to progress to the next level.  The ships were pulled by locomotives on the banks of the canal as they proceed through the locks, and in some of the cases I saw this morning, it looked as though the width of the ship had been specifically designed to fit within the locks of the canal, so little was the clearance on either side.

After viewing a few ships going through the locks, I decided that I had got the general idea of what happens, and I proceeded downstairs to a theatrette to watch a very informative movie about the construction of the canal.  By a little after 11:00 am, I felt I had a good appreciation of the working of the Canal, so I turned my attention to the second place I wanted to visit today – the old city of Panama, also known as Casco Antiguo.

There is a bus that goes from the Miraflora Locks to the Casa Antiguo, but it only runs every hour and a quarter along a winding and circuitous route.  I learned at the bus stop that the previous bus had departed just 10 minutes earlier, so rather than wait just over an hour, I took a taxi (which seem to be plentiful and cheap in Panama).

After a drive of about 20 minutes, I was surprised that the driver was taking me through a run-down, semi-abandoned part of the city, but there was a good reason – it was my destination, Casco Antiguo..

There are some beautiful images of Casco Antiguo on the internet, but my view of the old town today was far less impressive.  The reason was that the entire area of Casco Antiguo seems to be under renovation, and as a result, hoarding obscures the view of many buildings, while other buildings seem to have been deliberately neglected while they await renovation.

My walk around Casco Antiguo began in the centre of the old town, the Plaza Catedral o Independencia.  This plaza was less affected by renovations than most other parts of the city, but as a consequence, much of its area was filled with tented souvenir stalls – so many that it was difficult to get a good view of the huge Iglesia Catedral that dominated the entire northern side of the Plaza.

I proceeded to do what was essentially an anticlockwise walk around Casco Antiguo.  This old town was much smaller than Cartagena, much less well preserved, and hugely less elegant.  And yet, every so often, a gem of a building would grab my attention.  I am not sure what the town will be like when (if?) all the renovations are finally completed – it could evolve into a true treasure of an old historic city, or the renovations could be so over-enthusiastic that it becomes a type of historic Disneyland.  I guess time will tell, but for me today, it was like walking through a cross between a construction site and a vast zone of urban dereliction.

The heat and humidity were quite intense, and as the day proceeded the air became progressively more hazy as clouds built up overheard.  By about 2:00 pm I had explored just about every street in Casco Antiguo, and as the grey clouds became darker and darker, I decided that I would call an early end to my day’s explorations.

The timing worked well.  Within a quarter of an hour of returning to my hotel, the heavy rain began, and it has continued almost without a break for the rest of the day.  Having been standing or walking for about five hours, I really appreciated this afternoon’s unanticipated bonus time of rest, and my sore hip put in a special vote of thanks.

It was, however, frustrating that the rain was so heavy and the lighting was so bad that there was no point photographing any of those big ships sailing past my window.






Day 16 - Panama City, Panama

Monday

9 July 2012

Today’s extra bonus images