Lee n Tan

Monday January 11, 2010 spent the morning just hangin out, then made ourselves a tuna sandwich for lunch (nice to have something simple). Then we hopped in a cab & headed out to the Miraflores Locks aka ‘Panama Canal’ got to view a few ships going through the locks, the last one they call a ‘Panamax’ the largest ship to be able to sail through the locks – 294m long, just over 32m wide & 12m sitting under the water. This leaves only about 60cm either side of the boat, a tight squeeze!! We were also told that the boat had paid around $291,000US in tolls to come through the 80km long canal. We went through the 4 floor museum which was quite interesting, during it’s construction they removed 152.9 million cubic metres of material, they say if it was put on railroad flatcars, it would circle the globe 4 times!!!

It was nearly 5pm when we walked out the front doors & there was about a dozen people waiting for cabs. Lee made the decision to walk out to the main road & flag one down. No sooner had we reached the main road, than a cab came out from the canal. Inside the driver already had a passenger, we later found out that the 2 of them work at the canal & they had just finished a 10 hour shift, he was a cab driver as well!!! Our ride back was very comical, the driver blasted his horn at everyone & swore & cursed his way through the streets!! He spoke very good English which was a nice change as not many people do over here.

We got him to drop us at the camera place where Sergio informed us that the store where the camera was coming from was closed for stock take today so we will taxi there tomorrow & pick it up, it’s x display so hopefully it’s all ok!
On the way home we grabbed chicken & chips from the place up the road that everyone has been raving about, it was pretty good & pretty cheap, so all round great!!