A man, a plan, a canal: Panama!

Of course you can't go to Panama without a stop to see the canal!

Shannon and I headed out to see the Miraflores locks (I can´t seem to get away from Miraflores!).  After taking part of the morning to learn to navigate the bus/metro system in Panama City, we successfully made it out to the locks (and back!  Not bad for my basic Spanish!).  I remember learning about the Panama Canal in school, and the operation of the locks, but seeing it in person was much cooler!

Luckily, we were just in time to see the last two boats of the morning:

It takes about 10 minutes to fill or empty the lock.

Random fact: The engines that keep the boat straight through the canal are called mules...after the live mules that performed the same job on the Erie Canal...even though they never used the live ones here in Panama.

We were pretty excited to learn that the lock doors were fabricated in Pittsburgh
and have been in operation since the canal opened in 1914.

Since Panama took over the operation of the canal from the US in 1999, they have been working on plans to expand the operations to allow wider boats to pass through the canal.  You can see the new construction in the distance from the observation deck:

This model of the canal expansion was on exhibit in the Biomuseo.