Our Great Adventure: Panama Canal/Colon Day 333 17/08/2015

We'd decided to head to Colon on the Panama Canal train today. We we're picked up by taxi at 0620 for the short ride to the train station where we waited for c30 minutes for the ticket office to open. After buying our tickets (expensive at $25 each one way) we boarded the glass doomed passenger carriage. The other carriages apparently carry commuters to Colon although most seemed empty. We left the station just after 0715 heading north along the route of the canal. We did get some views of the locks and Gatun Lake although a lot of the time we were just surrounded by jungle. Unfortunately it started to rain mid way through the journey, so heavy that we couldn't see anything out of the windows. We'd booked a guide to meet us in Colon. The rain was torrential by the time the train arrived in the station and we got drenched just getting from the platform into the van. We stopped for coffee at a nearby supermarket before heading west towards San Lorenzo. To get there we had to cross Gatun Locks which we walked across whilst Clementine (our guide) drove the van over. It was a great experience to actually walk across the lock and see the ships so close by. The locks here raise ships by 29.5m and are the largest of the 3 sets. As we headed off in the van Simon saw a crocodile in the shallow waters nearby and we were both extremely glad to be in the van! We continued west through Parque Nacional San Lorenzo, passing Sherman, a derelict US military base, to finally reach Fuerte San Lorenzo at the mouth of the Rio Chagres. Along the way we saw howler monkeys, high up in the trees and very well camouflaged making them difficult to spot and impossible to photograph! San Lorenzo is certainly built in a very strategic position and one that the Spanish held for years before being defeated by Captain Henry Morgan in 1620s when he ransacked the place. Amongst the canons was one with a British coat of arms. The land opposite was once used by the US military for jungle warfare training and is now a no go zone due to abandoned ammunition left behind. Back in Colon, Clem drove us around the town centre. It doesn't have a great reputation from a safety perspective so it was good to see it from the comfort of the van and we can understand why the passengers of cruise ships who are waiting to use the canal are not allowed off to explore. From here we headed east to Portobelo. As we drove along the Caribbean coast the rain started again and by the time we reached Portobelo it was pouring down. Named by Colombus in 1502, the small fishing village was once the most important Spanish port in Central America. Unlike San Lorenzo, homes have been built amongst the ruins. We visited the museum located in what was the customs house, Real Aduana de Portobelo, which had an informative video and some good exhibits before walking to the nearby Fuerte San Jeronimo for a very quick visit. Sir Francis Drake died in the bay here, but not as the Spanish tell in battle but of some tropical disease with his body being buried at sea. There's a pilgrimage each year to the village church, Iglesia de San Felipe, to worship the life size statute of the Black Christ, believed to have miraculous powers. From here we headed back to Panama City on the main highway. We turned off to drive through one of the national parks and to see the Sendero Las Cruces trail, the route taken by the Spanish as they headed on foot to the Atlantic Coast from the Pacific and vice versa. The area is renowned for bandits and without any police presence it's not safe to stay here for long, infact we stayed for about 10 seconds before Clem sped off! On the outskirts of Panama City we drove through the Canal Zone. The handover of the canal and departure of US military and civilians must have had a huge impact on the area. We arrived back on Balboa just after 1530 and chilled out for a couple of hours before going out for dinner with Rosie and Simon. We went to Ranchito's on the Causeway for a nice meal with great company. Back at the b&b we enjoyed a beer on the terrace before finally heading off to bed.