Despite having heard of the Canal of Panama I hadn't exactly realised what an engineering endeavour it might had been. The Visitors' Centre provided historic documents, not only illustrating the Canal history but also the necessary information to understand the way the locks work during the transit operation procedures. Having been provided with some sort of theoretical and visual knowledge didn't prepare me for the actual operating sequence though.
Because of the huge amount of people awaiting that special sequence of moves I wasn't able to get a good view from the upper terrace, having thus occupied a priviledged location on one of the lower terraces. The weather wasn't too favourable as the interspersed rain interfered with one's visibility.
I must say I was impressed with both the accuracy of the moves by the tug boats once I learned how important their role was and the locks. The whole operation must have taken around one hour, one hour and a half and despite the fact that at times it looked slightly boring as the ships didn't move as fast as one would like them to, it soon became clear that the whole process was effectively very interesting.
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