 |
|
Panama City and the Big Ditch (Cathy)
June 25, 2003
We have spent a busy and pampered month in the big city of Panama City (population 77,000), anchored right off the Panama Canal in Balboa Yacht Club. All day and all night, huge car carriers, cruise ships, and freighters from around the world send us spinning in their wake.
We have done some exploring in Panama City and have been impressed with the sophistication, residents, restaurants, and livability of the city. Panama City has an old and exciting history.
Panama la Vieja
Founded in 1519 by Spanish conquistador Pedro Arias de Avila, Panama City was the first European settlement on the Pacific. The city became the shipping hub for Spain's bullion pipeline, exporting Peru's gold and silver back to Spain via Panama City. A wealthy city of gold and silks and spices bound for the Orient, the Spaniards kept many soldiers in Panama City.
By the 1600s, Panama City contained magnificent cathedral, eight convents, churches, 200 warehouses stocked with foreign goods, 200 residences rivaling any in Europe, 5,000 houses, a mint, a counting house, a large hospital, the king's stables and a slave market.
Panama City thrived until 1671, when the pirate Henry Morgan and his 200 men attacked Panama City by land. They looted everything of value, including foreign treasures, and burned the city to the ground.
After the city was leveled, the King of Spain decided that the current location was unsafe, and rebuilt the city on a rocky peninsula 8 kilometers from the original city. This spot was more easily defended and shallow reefs prevented pirates from nearing the city except at high tide. "Casco Viejo", meaning "Old Compound", was a walled city that was constructed in 1674.
We walked around the Casco Viejo and its beautiful buildings in varied conditions. Some buildings are still pristine, others are ramshackle and overgrown shells. This area still maintains Panama's former glory in some areas, but also contains rundown housing and slums. The city offers a tourism police force, uniformed officers on bicycles who will escort you through this section of town and give you a bit of history at the same time.
One local legend celebrates the famous Altar de Oro, an intricate and huge church altar intricately carved of mahogany and plated with gold. It is the only remaining treasure from the original Panama. As the pirate Henry Morgan approached the city, a priest quickly painted the altar black. When Morgan arrived in Panama looking for this famous treasure, the priest told him it had already been stolen by pirates. This bold priest then lobbied Morgan for money to help replace the altar. As he made a generous donation, Morgan said to the priest "I don't know why, but I think you are more a pirate than I am." The beautiful altar now stands in the city's "new" 1674 church and has been restored to its original splendor. See a photo of the altar in the Casco Viejo slideshow.
Rainforest Park
Panama City is also the only major city with a tropical rainforest in the middle. We hiked through a sweaty and dense forest for fantastic views of the city. See the Parque Metropolitano slide show for great views of Panama City.
Boater's Mecca
Modern Panama City is an exciting, modern, and sophisticated city with access to any boat supplies you need. The first two weeks in Panama City were a flurry of activity. We have been living large, eating out at the many diverse restaurants, going to movies, and getting Tramonto back in shape. We have accomplished new bottom paint, new canvas sail bags and weather cloths, new carpet, new coats of cetol on the rails, a new forestay, and fixes to a few leaks. Supplies here can be relatively cheap; we found Sunbrella canvas, which usually costs $22 per yard for $10 per yard at a local fabric store.
In addition, we are easing into the marina community with lots of happy hours and dinners out at cheap restaurants. Lest you think we are not working, we have been taking two weeks of intensive Spanish immersion classes at a foreign language institute that trains diplomats. The classes run five days a week, four hours a day and are taught only in Spanish. Both Cathy and Marc have had one-on-one instruction, which improves your Spanish, but rattles your brain! It is exhausting to listen to your non-native language for four hours straight, much less speak it. Marc is now at an elementary-school level ("I would like a potato please"), whereas Cathy still resorts to nursery-school baby speak. ("Potato here.")
The Big Ditch
Balboa Yacht Club is the staging area for boats preparing and waiting for their canal transit. The second week in June, Cathy and Marc transited the canal on another cruiser's boat as line handlers. This is not the Ballard locks! One neighbor in the lock was a container ship, the other neighbor a huge freighter. We left the anchorage at 5:00 a.m. and had transited the 80 km of the canal by 7:30 p.m. that evening. See photos of the Panama Canal transit.
Panama Canal Facts
Here are a few interesting facts about the Panama Canal that we learned in our transit:
- Average of 30 boats per day transit the canal; 12,000 boats per year
- Average tolls for commercial ships is $30,000
- Average toll for a cruise ship is $200,000
- Lowest toll assessed was 36 cents to a swimmer Richard Halliburton, who swam through the canal in 1928
- Toll for a yacht under 50 feet is $650 each way
- Ships around the world are built to barely fit into the locks: 305 meters long by 33.5 meters wide. Some of the large ships we saw only had about 3 feet clearance on either side
- The canal doors on the locks weigh 800 tons each; yet they are so well-engineered that only one 40-horsepower motor is required to move them
- Two of the largest floating cranes in the world float in the Panama Canal, confiscated from the Nazis at the end of World War II.
- The three locks of Gatun Locks lift ships 25.9 meters up to the level of Lago Gatun
- Miraflores locks lowers ships 9.4 meters to the Pacific
Go West
Our next steps are to head west to start the long passage back to Seattle. Marc will be leaving Balboa Yacht Club to sail through Ecuador, the Galapagos, and French Polynesia. This was a very difficult decision. We really wanted to go through the Canal and visit the Caribbean side, but heading west to get the boat on a homeward circle towards Seattle was also very important. We will keep you posted on departure dates and plans.
|
|
|
