Panama Is More
Than a Canal
Rosemary Kennedy
While people assume that a trip to Panama means
a cruise through the Panama Canal, we were
interested in seeing more of the country, so we
took a short tour and then stayed at a beach resort
for a few days. Doing so gave us an introduction
to both coasts, the canal area, the countryside,
and the people.
We reached Panama City with its modern
high-rise architecture in the late afternoon and
early the next morning took the Panama Canal
Railway to the east coast town of Colon. Trains
played a vital part in the construction of the
canal both in bringing in supplies and workers
and in removing excavated material. Near Colon
we crossed the canal by ferry, currently the only
link on the east coast, but the Panamanians are
constructing a 2.8 kilometre bridge across the
Atlantic entrance to the canal to expedite travel
and trade in this region.
We continued to the historic ruins of Fort San
Lorenzo, a late sixteenth century Spanish bastion at
the mouth of the Chagres River. Although the fort
was built to protect Spanish trading routes from
pirates, the infamous Captain Morgan captured the
fort in 1671. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage
Site along with the ruins at Portobello.
Returning by ferry, we continued to the Panama
Canal Expansion Observation Centre from which
we could watch the container ships travelling
through the new locks that opened in June 2016.
Since the original canal was completed in 1914,
more than fourteen thousand ships per year pass
through the canal, providing revenue of more
than two billion dollars annually to support the
local economy. Traffic moves from Pacific to
Caribbean from midnight until noon, and from
noon until midnight it operates in the reverse
direction. It was fascinating to see tugboats easing
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