We make a stop in Panama to get our truck and send it to Ecuador. In fact, we will not even see it; it will stay
in the transit zone, which will avoid us the temporary import/export procedures always painful. Crossing the borders
is always much easier on the road than on the harbour.

Panama City : old colonial city quite pretty
  
French embassy at the best place of the old city
  

  

  
National theatre...                                                                             ...during a rehearsal
                
                 we nearly feel in a hindu temple...in fact quite far from the european austerity
                lottery.. national sport ?

  
Panama, eight months of rain every year                        picture taken by Pollux with Carlos and Margarita

Panama Canal :

Panama tries to be the Singapore of America...it has a good location with its famous canal which sees crossing more than
13 000 vessels every year. The French had begun the works, but stop it by lack of money. The Americans have taken back
the project in 1904 and finish it within ten years. (the sanitary conditions were so difficult that it was the occasion
to develop the yellow fever vaccine)
                any kind of "ship" crosses the canal, long of 80 km.
A crossing lasts around 8 hours. The structure of the canal is based on the creation of an artificial lake in the middle
of Panama (and that represents the majority of the length) and some locks to raise the vessels on the lake and to
lower them at the end of the crossing. However, we had to dig around 13 kilometers in the pacific side to access
the lake. It is what we call the Culebra cut.
  
RORO (vessel carrying vehicles, of whom la Gazelle)           Petrol Tanker

Container Vessel
  
A railway goes along the canal. It is used to cross some containers, but also the businessmen in a luxury
retro atmosphere.
    

                                                             

  
Culebra cut                                                artificial lake
                
To go through the locks is an incredible show, particularly with those huge vessels. Those one are pulled
                
by "small" locomotives during all the operation.
                it must not have more than 20 centimeters in each side...

  
A crossing costs around US$150 000 , the most expensive US$250 000.

Entrance of a tanker in the first basin  

crossing from a basin to another...there is no more space

Santa Clara :
  
                                         pollux and titus
                beautiful beach in the pacific side

Portobello :
first habour chosen by Christopher Columbus, it has been the transit center for a long time between atlantic and pacific
  
                                                           this trip was the occasion to admire the bus decorations.
  

                                                           




                                                  by duj