Panama

Panama was a very cool stop.  Panama City is a very large and very modern city with a lot to see and do.  And, of course, there is the canal.  We pushed to give ourselves a couple of flex days before the boat trip to make sure we didn't miss it. With this, we had the opportunity to spend some time in the city.  It was very fascinating and totally worth the time and effort.  

6/16.  Nice to be out of Costa Rica, this plate was less than $6.

6/16.  Unfortunately, our hostel did not have secure parking.  We had to tie the bikes together and tarp them at night.  Fortunately there were no issues.

6/17.  Nothing like a couple of down days to get caught up on errands.  Nobody would wash the bikes for us but this car wash place allowed us to wash the bikes ourselves and then they didn't even charge us.

Dang, that's a shiny bike!

One of the buildings downtown.  I was fascinated by it all day.

6/18.  It's time!

The locks featured a museum about the construction of the canal.  They had some amazing and uniquely engineered pieces of equipment. 

And they did this without anything that resembles the technology we have today!

Ships only head one direction at a time because parts of the canal are not wide enough to accommodate two way traffic. This meant we had some time to kill...

And kill... and then kill some more. 

Eventually the ships started to come.  It really is a marvel of engineering and was amazing to watch.

This is an example of a "panamax" ship. It is the maximum dimension that the canal can handle.  If you look at how close the ship is to the canal walls it's impressive that they could fit it at all.

6/19.  The Stahlratte is finally ready for us!