A trip thru the Canal. zzzzzzzzzz

Brian in the canal
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"Well, this concludes our tour of the Panama Canal.  I hope you will cherish these memories and this day for years to come", said our tour guide.  Brian and I looked at each other, our eyes met, and we proceeded to crack up laughing.   Cherish isn´t quite the word I would use.  Let me start from the beginning.....

Upon arrival in Panama City, the first thing we did (second, actually, after we did a huge load of stinky laundry) was book a half day boat cruise thru the Panama Canal.  It was our sole reason for stopping in Panama City.  Cruises are only done on Saturdays, so we scheduled our stop in Panama accordingly.  At 930am we promptly left the mouth of the canal via bus to a town called Gamboa about midway thru the canal.  We arrived at our tour boat and boarded around 1030am.  Then we got a good seat on the top deck and watched the 298 other passengers board the small vessel.  Most looked to be Americans on a day trip from their cruise ship - lots of older men with their pants pulled up to their armpits.  And more disturbingly, women over the age of 50 with platinum bleached hair, skin that looked like leather due to excessive tanning, and shorts that were MUCH to short for women of that age.  With excellent people watching like this, who even needs to see the canal??

With excellent people watching like this, who even needs to see the canal??

I have a new shirt!!!
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We finally departed at 11am and made our way south thru the Gaillard Cut, the Pedro Miguel Locks, and the Miraflores Locks.  Along the way, our guide pointed out things of interest and spewed out canal facts.  I´ll give you just a few of them.

• Nearly 14,000 ships pass thru the canal each year, they pay fees according to their weight
• The highest fee ever paid was around $250,000 by a Chinese container ship.  I believe that occurred last year
• Over 20,000 men died during the building of the canal, most from Yellow Fever and Malaria

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Much to our disappointment, the trip thru the canal was really dull.  In fact, the highlight was watching all the cruise ship passengers line up to get their pictures taken for their personalized "I went thru the Panama Canal" certificate (Only $10!  What a wonderful value!!).  Also sold onboard was a $12 map poster of the canal.  We were TOTALLY going to buy one until we remembered we don´t have a house to hang it in.

So that concludes our trip thru the canal.  I´m pretty sure I won´t "cherish" the memories, but you can bet I won´t forget the old ladies in hotpants.  Unfortunately it´s something I can´t get out of my mind....

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Anne