From Ocean To Ocean, Panama, December 2024

Santa is going to have a hard time finding me this year as I’ve set off island hopping in the Caribbean. Like a Corsair my first stop has been in Panama where Incan gold was once transported overland from the Pacific Ocean along the Royal Trail to the Atlantic side and shipped back to the Royal coffers in Spain in the 16th and 17th centuries. 

The modern inter-oceanic trail is the engineering marvel that is the Panama Canal. I travelled from end to end to see the going’s on of the canal including a small jaunt by boat out into the navigation channel to play chicken with the huge carriers and container ships taking her shortcut. The canal was constructed in the early 1900s with a man-made section from the western Pacific Ocean side meeting up with the natural course of the Chagres River which empties into the Atlantic ocean to the east. The oceanic entrances are controlled by 3 locks at each end and the canal itself is over 20m above sea level- gravity fed by fresh water from an inland lake created by damming the river. I don’t usually get excited about the monstrous steel skyscrapers that ply the oceans nowadays but it was genuinely exciting to see these giant ships being coaxed by tugboats into narrow locks and seeing them steam incongruously along a narrow freshwater river with a rainforest backdrop. 

It’s been a long time since I was last in Central America but I rediscovered the beguiling mix of jungle and Spanish colonialism. The old town in Panama has delightful shady squares, colourful shuttered buildings with iron balconies trailing pink bougainvillea and tropical plants and narrow lamp-lit streets. A charming place to escape for a few days.