Panama Canal

Had a good day today. After a realtor meeting in Costa Del Este, I took a liking to the taxi driver and decided to keep him for the day. I checked out of the room and then he took me around the city a little bit. We stopped at a couple islands to take some pictures, he explained how the ugly beach lining a very lonnnng bridge was going to be cleared and turned into a boardwalk. Panama City had a brand new Trump Tower, and besides some pretty interesting architecture. Lots of brand new buildings were going up, I hadn’t seen much like that since being in India. We finally made it to the Panama Canal, after getting through the ridiculous traffic that can be found throughout the city. The canal was pretty impressive, with tens of thousands of gallons of water that needed to be drained when the ship was passing through the locks. I followed about 45 minutes of watching one very, very large ship (actually the max size that would fit through the canal) from start to finish going through this particular station. From one end to the other, of the canal, cost the ship over $310,000, and they would drain tens of thousands of gallons of water for this to happen. This totally shocked me, I couldn’t believe how expensive it was. The ship needed locomotives on both sides of it to assist in getting through the canal. It was pretty impressive, that’s for sure.

I had noticed while driving around that lots of the cars didn’t have plates on them. Leonardo told me they weren’t needed. He also told me how everyone in Panama eats fried chicken, and lots of fried foods for breakfast typically, including empanadas and big juicy steaks. Sounds healthy.

We went and sat at a little restaurant with great views of the ocean, nice and calm, and had some snacks, beers, and seafood. The traffic on the way to the airport was brutal, but I didn’t care much because I was passed the f out. I got there with time to spare, thought they told me at the checkin counter that there was only 3 minutes until the start of boarding.