My 7 day circuit in Panama - Day 2 (morning ) - Sailing along the Chagres river on the way to the Embera Quera Community - The 23rd of April 2018

 

We were to spend the whole day in the indigenous community of the Emberas, so we took a canoe fairly early in the morning. The boat ride along the banks of the Chagres river strongly reminded me of a former trip to Guatemala, though this one contemplated several stops to closely look at the variety of mammals living on the National park, such as several species of monkeys and a sloth. 

 

 

Though I was still feeling feeverish, as soon as we approached the Embera Quera community I felt unexpectedly better ... (I just had to) ... this visit was definitely among the ones I had been looking forward to ...

(To be continued)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My 7 day circuit in Panama - Day 1 (afternoon ) - The Panama Canal - Miraflores lock - The Visitors' Centre and the actual transit operation of a cruise ship in the Canal - The 22nd of April 2018

 

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.