The Panama Canal

As I mentioned in my previous post, we took a Panama Canal cruise, in late January and early February. Joined by our dear friends and travel buddies, Tim and Lisa, we set sail from Miami on January 21st for a 16 day adventure with multiple stops along the way.

Passing through the Panama Canal was one of the highlights of the trip. But first, here’s a very short synopsis of the history of the canal; click here if you’re interested in learning more. After multiple failed attempts to build the canal, which resulted in many deaths, the canal was finally completed in 1914, after 10 years of construction. Oversight of the 50 mile (80.5 kilometers) canal was handled by the United States until 1999, when it was handed over to Panama; where, in my humble opinion, it should remain; forever.

Cruise ships like the one we were on will pay as much as $450,000 to pass through the canal, which provides a significant source of income for Panama.

The canal consists of a series of locks to raise and lower ships as they pass through the Isthmus of Panama. In 2016 construction was completed on a new set of locks called the Panama Canal Expansion Locks.

These new locks were built next to the original locks and are used to accommodate larger ships, like the one we were on 🙈.

I apologize for the poor quality of the photos; dealing with the crowds was challenging, so some of these were taken through windows. I walked over 6 miles that day, just on our huge ship as I went from various viewing areas in my attempt to get good photos; but my heart was happy that day for the steps. 😉

We were standing on our stateroom deck when we entered the first set of locks. The dockhands were very friendly and greeted us warmly (and the hundreds of other cruisers standing on their decks) as they welcomed us to Panama and the crossing.

Both theTravelsketcher and I responded gratefully and expressed our gratitude for their hard work.

Exiting the first set of locks puts you in Gatun Lake which is the largest artificial lake in the world. Unfortunately, the creation of the lake had serious environmental consequences including displacing of species, flora and fauna.

However, wildlife conservation efforts and reforestation projects have helped to restore the area.

Approximately ten hours later, we exited through the Miraflores Locks on the Pacific side. Ten hours seems like a long time, but that’s much shorter than going around the southern tip of South America which would have added 7,872 miles (12,682 kilometers) to our trip!

As I mentioned in my precious post, cruising is absolutely not for us. We prefer independent travel, we always book our own flights, accommodations and tickets to various sites. We really dislike being part of a tour, and quickly realized that we had made a big mistake in booking this cruise. We did our best to make the most of it, but the lingering thought in the back of my brain had me feeling guilty most of the trip. We both try to do our best in protecting the environment, and cruising is very damaging to our planet. We decided early on in the cruise that this would be the last one.

It was so interesting to experience passing through the Panama Canal. I tried hard to get great photos, but given the crowds and other limitations, that was not to be.

At this point, I was feeling guilty about the environmental impact I was having on the planet, and thinking of better travel alternatives. Do you have suggestions? If so, please share them in the comments.

Coming next week was the other highlight of the cruise; releasing baby sea turtles in Acapulco.

As always, I would love to hear from you, so please feel free to leave a comment.

All the best,

Tricia