Saturday, January 18 — We forgot to mention that this week, we’d had the bottom cleaned. The bottom cleaning guy had approached us as soon as we’d pulled into the slip the previous Saturday, and was insistent about doing our bottom. He kept coming back again and again. He didn’t speak any English. When Eric finally asked him the price, Eric thought the guy had said $40, which was an amazingly good deal, so Eric said yes.

The bill he presented us with was $400. We have found out the hard way that in order for a boat to go to the Galapagos, you have to have a super bottom cleaning done, accompanied with a certification. The guy apparently thought we were going to the Galapagos and gave us the uber cleaning, and thanks to the language barrier, Eric didn’t understand what the guy’s intentions were. Eric was able to negotiate him down to $350, but that was an expensive lesson to learn. On the bright side, Kosmos’s bottom is probably the cleanest it’s ever been.

On to today… This morning, Eric spent the morning getting the fenders and lines situated for the canal transit while Christi and Keith did school.

One of the other cruisers had told us that they’d hired a gentleman with a mini-van, named Gustavo, to take them on a sightseeing tour and then to the grocery store. They said he was really good and reasonably priced, so we booked him for this morning. Gustavo picked us up from the marina at 1100, then drove downtown to pick up our crew from their hotel. 

From there, he drove us to the Centennial Bridge, which was about 10 miles north. Gustavo explained that up until 1979, the Americans controlled not only the canal, but also a several mile wide strip of land on both sides of the canal. Most of the drive was through the former American territory called the Canal Zone. He pointed out former military bases that had been repurposed for other uses. One was now a small plane airport, another housed a collection of different facilities. We passed the Pedro Miguel lock, along with a couple of small towns, one on each side of the Pedro Miguel locks, that had been purpose built for the canal workers. But the majority of the land was undeveloped.

The Centennial Bridge was built in 2004 to help ease the traffic congestion on the Bridge of the Americas, which at the time was the only bridge across the canal into Panama City. Gustavo drove us across the Centennial Bridge, which had beautiful views of the canal below.

However, there was no place to stop for photos near the bridge, so he made a U turn and went back across. We drove back to the Pedro Miguel lock, and this time we stopped. Sadly, no ships were in the lock while we were there; it would have been neat to see the lock in action.

Next, Gustavo took us to the Mira Flores locks. It has a large visitor center with an Imax theater and a viewing platform, but since it cost money to go in, we skipped entry. Since the visitor center blocked the view of the canal, we couldn’t really see anything from the parking lot.

Next we went to another area within the Canal Zone called Balboa, which was the head of the Canal Zone. This was built by the Americans as the Panama Canal Authority’s headquarters, and still is.

Gustavo drove us around the purpose-built town that surrounded the headquarters. While the two towns we’d passed earlier for the Pedro Miguel lock employees had small, average quality houses geared at the regular workers, Balboa had larger, higher end homes that were built for the executives. In the housing complex below, the grass median is the same size as a canal lock (in the original part of the canal).

The other buildings were nicer, too. We can’t remember what this building was originally used for, but it was recently renovated and is now Panama’s Supreme Court.

There was a clear line between where the Balboa master-planned community ended and Panama City limits began. Panama City has grown organically, so it didn’t have the same zoning limits as the American built areas.

Gustavo drove us through Panama City to the Bridge of the Americas, built by the Americans in 1962. Here was the view as we crossed the bridge.

After we crossed the bridge, we stopped at a monument to the Chinese workers.

It had a nice view of the canal and the Bridge of the Americas, which connects the continents of North and South America. 

Our guide had told us that during rush hour, it could take over an hour to cross the bridge. A tunnel going under the canal was currently under construction to help alleviate the bridge traffic. At the left side of the photo below, you can see the excavation equipment behind the bushes. The Chinese had been granted the contract to build the tunnel and the Koreans had the contract for the train that would run through the tunnel. Apparently, this was one of the issues that Trump was upset about.

As we were leaving, the guide started knocking on a metal pole. A tiny monkey poked half of its head out and stared at all of us onlookers. The guide said the monkey lives in the pole. If you look closely, you can see the top of his head and eyes in the photo below.

After we left the bridge, we went to Riva Smith grocery store to load up on food for tomorrow’s transit. We dropped off our crew at their hotel and went straight back to the boat. We’ve mentioned that the Pacific side of Panama has a 15-foot tide swing. It was low tide, and as we drove across the causeway, we saw lots of grounded fishing boats.

Sunday was going to be a very early morning for all of us, so we all went to bed early on Saturday. 

Note: Thank you Mike, Kim, and Brianna for the photos that you contributed to this post!