4 Days in Panama...as in the canal

Vaco sent the "contest" winners and their significant others to Veracruz, Panama. Sid and I went a day late as I have separation anxiety and couldn't be away too long from my babies. We had a good time because we spent some fun times with old friends...lots of whom went to Bearden High School and UT. (Go Vols!) However, we do not recommend a vacation to Panama anytime in the near future. They are just not "tourist" ready quite yet. Our resort was nice, however it was on the Pacific side and right on the Panama Bay...which is the entry for the canal. Let me just say the the ships who are waiting for their turn to go through the canal dump their waste and so the bacteria levels in the water are high- we didn't even stick our big toe in that water. Bummer. The food was awful-at the resort and most restaurants. Panama City is not the safest place to be so most of the time we went to dinner and went right back to the resort where most of the staff was unable to utter a single word of English. There wasn't a whole lot of staff and those that did have a job did not work very hard at it. I could go on- but again I will say it was nice to be in warm weather with good friends. I do have lots of wonderful memories of that- and I did get a great mud massage! Our last night in Panama. We went to a seafood restaurant and it was pretty good. I got the lobster! We are with some friends from the Richmond office- where Sid use to work.

Sid and I standing on the edge of one of the resort pools which looks over Panama Bay.

Sid and Will (Richmond Office).

On our second night we were going back to the resort after dinner and noticed some guys pushing a cab off to the side of the bridge. They were our Vaco buddies. So they all piled into our cab- a small minivan. We had 13 people in the van. Then, b/c there was construction on the bridge and our direction was not open, the van we were in broke down too! So this is a photo of some of the guys on the bridge trying to make the best of the situation. About 20 min later a 3rd van came through from Vaco. It was a larger van and had about 14 people on it. So the guys sent all of the wives back to the resort and the guys hung out on the bridge...a huge suspension bridge over the canal- the resort sent a bus to pick up our husbands. In the mean time our first cabbie called a buddy who drove up- stopped- took the battery out of his 1980 Honda Accord and put it in the minivan and just left the Honda on the bridge. Apparently it was hilarious and quite random. Different way of life.

Some of the guys goofing around in the pool.

Our second night we went out for Italian, Panamanian style. Not good- how can you mess up Italian? The restaurant was on the canal and there was a HUGE yacht, the 'Apoise', docked right across the street. Absolutely the most beautiful boat I have ever seen. Rumor had it that it belonged to Mel Gibson. I looked for him the rest of the trip to no avail.

Sid and I did take a cab down to the Panama canal- we had to- we were in Panama. It was pretty neat. The canal is about 50 miles long. Canal captains pilot the ships through the entire canal. From wait time to get into the canal to finishing the canal takes about 24 hours. Going down around the tip of South America takes at least 2 weeks.

Standing on the lookout- to the left (the Pacific side) is the first part of the lock. This is where the ship arrives first.

So, again, to the left is the lower part of the lock- it then floods with water and the ship is raised to the level on the right.

And then the ships move on to the next set of locks. We had just missed these two boats going through the locks.

Sid, Jay (one of the guys who started the company and UT grad), and me at the big Vaco dinner.

Our resort from our balcony.

Ships waiting in the bay to go through the canal.