Panamá - a cold country with hot roads..

Man's greatest engineering feat - in action. Took some 35 years and over 27,000 lives to build.

I won't go into the details, as I think the Interoceanic museum covered most of it already (see day 2) - but the Miraflores lock is the best viewing point to see the canal in action.

There's a short video and a three floor exhibition with cool button cockpit things and lots of dead insects, butterflies (mariposas), beetles and spiders. But watch the stupidly placed pole as you step back in fright...it ruddy hurts...

By the third floor, you might feel a bit seasick, but there's a great view of the canal - which looks fairly dull in the photos. Still, the sheer size of them boats going through is impressive.

Just for the record, there were some interesting facts being thrown out by loudspeaker, if you managed to hear over the munching of crisps..

Last year, 14,000 boats travelled through the canal. It takes 8 hours to pass through the canal whereas it could take up to 2 weeks to go the long way round and would cost 10 times more..(That said, an unconfirmed înternet source suggests it costs $200,000 to go through - not exactly a bargain either!) Work is underway for two new sets of locks that are more water efficient, and who knows - perhaps more exciting?


More later.

PS. After struggling all week with my air conditioning system - to the point that I feared the guy at reception would think he had a Mrs Robinson situation on his hands as I called him up for the 3rd time to fix the right temperature for me - the receptionist this evening gave me my own remote control for the aur conditioning! Magic! But why couldn't they have given it to me earlier?! However, I did learn that Panamanians are quite particular about their air conditioning. To many from the region, Panamá is known as a 'cold country with hot roads'.