Date: 12/01
City: Panama City, Panama
Kilometres ridden: 24
Cumulative kilometre: 30605
In the morning we both jumped on my bike and rode to the Miraflores Locks, which were just 12km away from our accommodation. There was a four story building with large balconies, a museum and a restaurant.
The view from the balcony was great, but it was a bit crowded. The Miraflores Locks is one of three Panama Canal lock systems and it consists of two locks which lift the ships 16.5m in two stages. It was impressive to see how these large ships float up a couple of meters within minutes. The small trains kept the ships aligned, so they wouldn’t hit the walls, but the thrust was done by the ships themselves.
Below you can see a ship coming into the first lock and getting lifted to the first level.
The ship gets now lifted to the second level before it continues over the lake to the next lock.
There was a problem and we had to help out a bit. I was doing it from the traffic control side and Sigrid took care of the ship. 😀
After that bit of excitement, we went to the exhibition which showed some history of the channel and we viewed a 3D movie about the Panama Canal before we went back.
We still haven’t seen much of Panama City, so we had a look around our area
Before we walked to the bay and took a couple of pictures.
Tomorrow we will meet with fellow motorcycle travellers and ride to the ship Stahlratte which will transport the bikes and us to Columbia.
