Panama City Layover

The idea of the Panama Canal has always intrigued me—connecting oceans by sending ships over mountains, the monumental task and engineering feats to build it, etc. So when I saw the option to return from Brasilia via Panama, I was thrilled. And by luck, my friends connected me with a girl they knew who worked at the US Embassy there. Lindsey turned out to be an incredible hostess and guide during my day there.

After my red-eye from Brazil I was grateful to freshen up at Lindsey's before seeing the sights. What first struck me about Panama City was the number of tall skyscrapers that looked fairly recent. We drove past them to the see the causeway built with some of the excavated rock from digging the Canal and then on to Casco Viejo, the old part of the city. It was fun wandering among the old architecture and enjoying some delicious popsicles to beat the heat.

View from Casco Viejo towards Panama City.

Mural in Casco Viejo of a woman in traditional Panamanian dress.

Altar in the San Jose cathedral

Ruins of Iglesia de la Compañía de Jesús

Girl in traditional dress on the steps of Iglesia de la Compañía de Jesús.

Altar in Iglesia San Felipe de Neri

When in Panama, Panama hats are in order.

Spire of Catedral Metropolitana —apparently the roof of the spires has shells on it.

Typical street in Casco Viejo.

From there, we visited Metropolitan Natural Park which is practically inside the city. It was amazing to have this jungle oasis so close to the skyscrapers of downtown, and during our brief hike we saw a  sloth high overhead.

View from Metropolitan Natural Park back towards the city.

Can you spot the sloth?

Sloth!

Our last stop was the main event: the Canal. It was fascinating to watch the ships go through the locks from the observation deck, laden with containers packed up high and right to the edge, full of things from all over the world. On the open sea, I'd want my things as close to the middle and bottom of those ships as possible. I've heard the Canal determines the size of most ships built, as the locks are barely wider than these massive ships, but parallel to the original locks and at a higher elevation they recently built some bigger ones for even larger ships. Someday I want to sail through the locks, but for now it was great to at least watch them.

A ship entering the locks.

The locks and gatehouse.

The original locks in the foreground, but if you look in the background you'll see a ship with red containers on the expanded locks!

View from the observation deck.

Quick shot with my awesome tour guide, Lindsey.

All too soon it was back to the airport, but it was a packed and wonderful preview of Panama!