Panama canal adventures.

This is so exciting, I only have one day to write about rather than my usual catchup jobs.

So yesterday we decided it was only appropriate to go see the canal cos that's really the only thing panama is famous for. In the morning we went to the Canal museum as its just down the road from us to learn about the history of the canal too. Didn't really work though cos everything was in spanish. There was just too much information too, even if it was english i would have given up reading about halfway. So we then had to fill in our day because we were told its best to go see the canal at 3pm as that's when the boats are coming through.

We checked the lonely planet and found some old ruins in old panama- don't quote me on this as i was meant to properly research it, but i believe it was a old village that was attacked by pirates. It was very cool anyway, just broken down stone walls and buildings that were falling apart.

We then caught a bus back to our hostel but accidently missed our stop and ended up at albrook mall. I was pretty stoked about this mistake beacuse i read about albrook mall in the lonely planet, its the biggest mall in panama. And it was pretty massive, it felt very american with heaps of american food places. Each entrance had a large fibreglass animal to help you remember where you came in, we came in at the hippo entrance and Anthea was pretty excited about the T-Rex entrance. Unfortunately we didn't have time to properly explore the mall so we just had lunch and then taxied to the canal.

Although the canal was very interesting to see, i couldn't really say it was particularly thrilling. The boats move so slowly you need to find a reference point behind then to work out if they are actually moving. The boat were absolutely massive, referred to as panamax ships, the were very impressive to see but as we waited for the second boat to come through the locks to be lowered into the sea we found it difficult not to just give up and leave. We stuck it out til the end and then taxied back to the hostel. I later researched the canal to find out more about it and i found out over 27000 people died in the construction and it took 10 years to build. the two boats we saw go through it paid tolls of 30,000 each. And the boats are so massive that there is only half a metre on eac side of it as they pass through the locks.

That evening we just chilled out at the hostel which is fun because the hostel is awesome. they have a little theatre below the building and its got three tiers of bedding to lie on while watching the movies. We saw Little Miss Sunshine and Snatch. And then we went to bed.

And thats it, i am officially up to date, now i'm going to claim my free pancakes!

Ciao