Northern South America Travel Diary 2012 15

Following last night’s storm, this morning’s weather was fine and sunny, with clear blue skies. The only evidence of the storm were a few broken palm tree branches and some areas of the nearby beach that were still saturated because of the risen water table. Even the ground was dry, such is the overall evaporative power of the warm, though humid, air.

Knowing that most of my day would be spent sitting down in planes, I went for a short walk this morning to have a look at some of Cartagena’s beaches to the north-east of the old town. It was great to breathe in the clean sea air and to observe the Colombian practice of erecting small shade covers for the beach users to avoid excessive sunburn (at a price).

My travels to Panama City involved two flights. First, I had a flight from Cartagena to Bogotá, scheduled to depart at 11:25 am, connecting with a second flight to Panama City after a scheduled two hour transit. Both flights were on Avianca (a major Colombian airline), so the connection and the baggage transfer in Bogotá should have been smooth. That was the plan.

And, for once, everything did go according to plan! Although both flights were about 15 minutes late, the transfer in Bogotá went smoothly, despite having to catch a bus for the transfer from the domestic to the international terminal. The security lines were long bit moved quickly, and when I arrived in Panama City, my luggage was there to join me (something that fails to happen with me in other parts of the world on far too many occasions).

Immigration was quick and easy upon arrival in Panama, and I was soon on my way in a taxi to my hotel. This was quite a long trip (32 kilometres) that involved a transect across the entire urban area of Panama City, from the airport (in the east) to my hotel (in the west).

Panama has been described as “the Miami of the south, except that more English is spoken in Panama”. It would be premature for me to comment on the overall level of English here (although so far it has been pretty good), but I can see why the comparison is made with Miami’s appearance (a comparison that could also have been made with Guangzhou and, in some areas that I saw, Bangkok). The centre of Panama City comprises a cluster of impressive, modern high-rise buildings of a kind that I have not seen since leaving the US a couple of weeks ago. Even though the weather was overcast and raining, the city centre looked quite impressive, beautifully situated as it was facing the Pacific Ocean.

The reason that I chose a hotel so far from the airport, and the city centre, was that I wanted to see the Panama Canal. My hotel room overlooks the Canal, which is just across the street. As I arrived in my hotel room, I drew back the curtains and the first thing I saw was a large container ship that had just cleared the lock at Miraflores and was heading towards the ocean. Despite the poor lighting (caused by a combination of rain, low grey clouds and the late hour), I starting taking photos – as you would expect.

As darkness fell, several more ships passed by. Please excuse the quality of the photos, but this is what I came to Panama to see!

Hopefully tomorrow’s explorations will show the canal much more effectively than this evening’s first teaser.

Day 15 - Cartagena to Panama City

Sunday

8 July 2012

Today’s extra bonus images