Panama City: The Canal

I was flying out of Panama City at an ungodly hour of the morning, so I arrived via overnight bus the day before.  This gave me a day to see the canal.  I'll be honest, I wasn't all that enthused beforehand.  But I knew my mother would strangle me in my sleep if I didn't go see it.  The canal holds for her a strange fascination: one of her most ardent desires is to someday sail through it.  Go figure.

So I went.  And ya know what?  It was pretty cool.

The viewing platform is on the 3rd or 4th story and right in front of one of the lock doors.

Squint and scroll and it's almost like stop-motion animation.  I couldn't help expecting something that big to creeeaaak as it opened.  But it didn't.

After the doors open..

..the boat slowly..

..eases toward Pacific freedom.

There's a fairly nice museum, as well, but the only thing I saw fit to take a picture of was this great big chain.  Don't ask why cuz I don't know.

Alright, boat through the lock: check, museum: check.  Time to head ba.. Sweet mother of god what the hell is that? That building is about to run into us!

Oh, wait, no, just a boat.  A proper big boat.

And not even fully loaded, based on the freeboard.  Look at the little people.. they're like little ants.  Ants driving thousands of tons of steel through an opening with only 1m clearance on either side.

Now this was what I came for.  A boat bigger than the building I'm in.

Buh bye! Buh bye now!