Up the Canal without a Paddle

We arrived in Panama City after a fairly enjoyable 7.5 hr flight allbeit in a Boeing 737 with not the best leg room and no TV (although the food was probably the best plane food we have had on the trip). After queuing for ages for customs we piled into a cab, destination Zuly’s Hostel. The cabbie told us he knew exactly where it was, however 1 hour later and after much stress for Mr B who at one point wanted to murder the poor man, we arrived.

The hostel was basic and sweaty, but in a great location for eating and drinking and they did have a reputation for being able to organise sailing trips to Colombia – just what we wanted. A swift pizza and beers later we retired to bed, no A/C and about 30 degrees!! One sweaty night later we were raring to go and see Panama’s most famous attraction – the Canal.

Built at a cost of 25,000 lives the Canal provides much needed income for Panama. The visitors centre was fantastic with a museum about the building of the canal, films and also live commentary of the vessels passing through the double sets of locks at Miraflores. Whilst we were there we watched a few ships navigating the locks including a fully laden PANAMAX vessel (built specifically for the canal and carrying over 4,000 containers) which paid US$ 275,000 for the privilege. Whilst this seems expensive it’s about one tenth of the cost of sailing around South America!

The other big must see in Panama City is Casco Vieja – the Old Town – declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but left to rot and crumble it is now being slowly restored to its former glory although certain bits are still decidedly dodgy! To get there we took a local bus, fondly known as red devils, for the princely fare of 10p! All a bit mad but great fun for mixing with the locals. Around the corner from the hostel we found a great Lebanese restaurant and reacquainted ourselves with falafel, hummous and shish taouk.

Although we ended up doing it backwards, we had always planned to sail between Colombia and Panama because there are no safe overland routes. However the cost of flights out of Brazil meant we ended up in Panama and not Colombia so we sailed back to South America!! We booked up to sail on the Stahlratte - http://www.stahlratte.org/ (Steel Rat in English) for a 4 day voyage. Unfortunately the next available sailing meant we had a 7 day wait so we made alternative plans and headed out of Panama City to explore other parts of the country.

However we couldn’t help feeling like something reminded us of Dubai, maybe it was all the 4x4’s or maybe the skyline – what do you think??