Past Adventures: Panama Canal

I have yet to find a person to disagree with me, the Panama Canal is an undisputed travel bucket list destination. Last year when I found out I was going to the Panama Canal I did a TON of research, I wanted to make sure I truly understood what a marvel I was going to witness. That combined with the four hour tour of the locks really did make me understand what an undertaking the creation of this canal was.

The Panama Canal truly is one of the great American engineering feats of the 20th century
The narrow isthmus separating the Atlantic from the Pacific Ocean had a colorful and turbulent history long before Ferdinand de Lesseps first dreamed of building a transcontinental canal.

Entering the Canal on Cruise Ship

I am NOT a morning person, especially not before coffee, but this is one time where I was more than happy to get up at dawn – traversing the Panama Canal is a once in a lifetime experience When you enter the canal on a cruise ship you can do a partial transit of the Gatun Locks. It was amazing that we fit through as our ship was 106 feet wide and the canal is only 110 feet. In the fourth picture you could see the little train that had to pull us through.

The Locks Boat Tour

From the cruise ship and the partial transit we were taken ashore by tenders. We had to take a tour through the cruise ship (note my really fashionable orange sticker in these photos) as the Panama Canal Authority assigns specific time slots for the transit of a vessel through the locks. On this boat tour we were recounted with a very indepth history of the canal and got to see many amazing things besides the locks including wildlife and Panama’s Centennial Bridge – the second permanent crossing of the canal after the Bridge of the America’s

My favorite part was the Miraflores Locks – the tallest of the three (56 feet) due to the extreme tidal variation that takes place in the Pacific Ocean – as they provided a close view of the functioning of the locks and even allowed my brother and I to touch the wall of the canal so many men died to complete. From the minute the vessels enters the locks, it takes approximately 10 minutes for the process to be completed. In my opinion, The Miraflores Locks are best example of the engineering marvel that makes the Panama Canal.

Panama City

After going through three sets of locks we traveled through the entire Panama Canal, like thousands of ships before us have done, and made it to the Pacific Ocean and the beautiful panorama of Panama City