No More Whinging

Monday 21 October 2013

Now that we’ve moved beyond “airport issues” life is good.

Our first day in Panama, mega cool.  Hot, but not too hot.  Humid.  Oh, my hair.

Start off with an excellent breakfast.  Then order an English speaking driver to take us around for the day.  Get ready and a huge storm comes through – radar has it spiking at 12 inches per hour!  Water at this rate would be in the 6:30 bulletin in Melbourne.  Wow, was it coming down.  But no more rain for the rest of the day.

Went to see Miraflora Locks of the Panama Canal; the famous Panamanian locks on the Pacific side and opened in 1914.  Really worth doing.  Fascinating.  The view of the lock as a big ship comes through was really cool.  On the side of the lock instead of tug boats they have ‘tug trains’; to pull the ships along and keep them from hitting the sides.  They had an exhibition which was really interesting and then a ship’s bridge simulation which was fascinating.  It was like piloting a ship through the canal but at a much faster rate (ie instead of 8 hours, 8 minutes).  Really cool. 

We’re staying Casco Vejo (also known as Antigo Vejo – ‘old town’) It must be one of the best preserved old quarters of any city in the world. We read about it being like the French Quarter of New Orleans, which is probably a really good way of describing this place – after all, construction of the canal was started by the French. Decaying beautiful old buildings now being restored and re-discovered by the Panamanians for what they’re worth. There’s a real cool vibe about this place.

Turned out Copa Airlines is one of the most reliable, professional airlines in this part of the world.  We just got very unlucky that the one day their systems failed was the one day that we had to catch their plane. Goddamnit.
Here is what the airport looked like: 
http://www.newsroompanama.com/panama/6574-system-glitch-forces-cancellation-of-75-copa-flights.html