RTW: Exchange in Chile

Canalandia

Introducing the country that is known for.. its canal. Sorry for the long delay, but Cuba turned out not to be the place to update one's blog -or generally acess internet. Now I am in Jamaica already, leaving tomorrow for Miami. Anyway, some words about Panama:

The big American influence leads back a few years, up until when they were guarding their interests in the canal. The French tried to build the sucker first, but imagining they could level the canal to the sealevel. This obviously involved a lot of digging and people dead of poor working conditions and diseases. Not the bright point of French engineership. Enter Americans and design the current system that involves lifting the boats to a reservoir lake level and lowering them back down. The principle is quite the same as in my home town canal, the Saimaa canal. Except that it goes two ways and is a little bit bigger. Here are some shots from the canal:







Rest of the city tour included just the Puente de las Americas and the old town:







Thinking that after 12AM it is possible to find a bank in the modern Panama to get some euros for the dollar-stiff Cuba turned out to be a mistake. Banks close at 2PM and in the whole banking district there seemed to be only one bank to give out euros (out of some 30 banks or so)! Of course this was among the last I looked for, as the bank tellers in other banks were reluctant to tell me where this could be done. So no euros which meant loosing 10% of my money in Cuba. Thank you Panama.

On the other hand, there were surprising benfits with the ISIC student card, like two movies for one. At least I got to see the Pirates of the Caribbean finally -not as good as the first one, but sympathies to the question "why is the rhum always gone?" ANd the answer is the same as well.

Best national dish tasted: Panamanian breakfast (steak!!, eggs, coffee, tomato sauce, mushrooms..)
Best national beer tasted: Balboa
Best sight/experience: The canal

posted by Kassu @ 10:02 AM