Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Sampling Panamanian Transportation (Friday)

Dawn came all too early!  And with it our return to the airport to fly back to Panama City.







 

And so our first installment of travel began.  This time, we stopped at El Porvenir, the capital of Kuna Yala and gateway to the more-visited Western communities.  It actually had what seemed like an airport - unlike the landing strips we had been using in Kuna Yala.  It felt rather jolting somehow. like our Twin Otter plane was unaccustomed to such luxury (if that's what it was... it had an actual radar 

When we arrived, once again, Rogelio picked us up and brought us home where we showered and got ready for the next part of our day.

Itzel McClaren drove down from Colon where she has been living as she prepares her mother's house for sale.  Yasmine has been attending a local school in Colon, so the main time constraint was getting there in time to pick her up.  And we did.  Barely.  

Itzel gave us a bit of a tour of the city, in the rain.  There hasn't been enough of that in Colon - or in many parts of the countryside.  But today, it poured!



We stopped at the grand old Hotel Washington.  It has been restored to its glory and it is quite an impressive place.  It is cool marble inside and as I walked through the portal, I was back in Mysore, India, stepping into the hotel there.  The same gracious welcome.  The same faint odor of a grandeur.




Then we continued our tour.







We explored the campus of the former School of the Americas, which was, according to Wikipedia:
 ... founded in 1946 and from 1961 was assigned the specific goal of teaching "anti-communist counterinsurgency training," a role which it would fulfill for the rest of the Cold War. In this period, it educated several Latin American dictators [Including, ironically, Manuel Noriega who the US invaded Panama to overthrow in 1989], generations of their military and, during the 1980s, included the uses of torture in its curriculum.

The function has since moved to Ft. Benning, Georgia, and the former grounds have been converted to a huge luxury hotel.   (take a peek at:  http://www.melia.com/en/hotels/panama/colon/melia-panama-canal/index.html) 
So you, too, can swim in the pools that dictators swam in.  And, if you wander too far, you may find yourself facing a crocodile.  

We made our way to the Expansion of the Canal.  There, we watched a movie showing how the Expansion project is proceeding, what the new locks will work, and why there's a need for it.  Personally, the current "Panamax" ships - that are almost exactly the width of the locks - are big enough.  I wouldn't want to be abroad one in a storm!  It's hard to imagine that there are even bigger behemoths waiting to cross from one sea to the other.

We had a lovely lunch - not realizing that the whole place was just waiting to close - and then, we scurried to the train station.  The Panama Canal Railway has one train a day - leaving from Panama City at 7:15 am and returning from Colon at 5:15 pm sharp.  After saying goodbye to Itzel and Yasmine, Anna Rachel and I climbed up into the observation car for the ride through the jungle back to Panama City.




We sped through the jungle alongside the Canal.  It was still spitting rain and the sky was cloudy, but it was still a pretty spectacular ride!

Tired but happy, we found a cab and then sped back to the apartment.  To pack.  Because tomorrow, Anna Rachel must leave for home.  It's been a really wonderful time!