Our ride is here
We have reached Chagres river!
Today’s adventure
Today’s goal is to visit the Embera tribe at their village called Tusipono. The Emberas are mostly in the Darien Pass but some of them have migrated to the forests near the banks of the Chagres river. This map shows where the tribes are in Panama. Our target village is right in the center where you see the three house icons.
This would need us to first drive to Lake Alajuela, then get a local villager’s boat to take us upstream in Chagres river and then a thirty minute hike – part in the water and part on land. The last two days saw a lot of rain. The ground is going to be very slippery (black clay mostly).
But if we reach there, we can get to know the local culture, listen to their music and eat the food they cook. Apparently they do a dog and pony show for tourists if they visit them!!
Morning sky from the room
Love this property
If you folks ever come to Panama City, give the JW Marriott a shot. This is the view when you sit out on the 14th floor terrace. There is the pool that you can see. But do you see the dark area beyond that? Notice carefully on the left side of the picture. You see a few people who seem to be under water? That is because they are. That is another pool – an infinity one at that. And then you see the Pacific Ocean beyond that.
Oh! Boy!!!
This is crazy engineering
Look what happens to the boat (actually two sailboats are tethered together). Notice how they go down in front of our eyes as the water is lowered before the locks are opened for them to proceed! And this is only one of the few locks! Crazy engineering feat.
To understand the engineering challenges, simply think of the four ropes that are tethering them to the land so that they do not hit the walls. How do you deal with the fact that the ropes now need to “give” as the boat gets lowered?
Boy! Was I wrong!!
That is the Panama Canal! You can see a set of locks. And a few ships waiting behind. And a large one crossing in the parallel channel away from us. The ships fit very tightly in the canal. So, they have to be guided by the railcars on either side that you can see. In fact, all ships are categorized as Panamax if they can fit into the Canal. Now, there is another newer one built a few hundred yards away from this original one that can take bigger ships.
And you have to use a Panama Canal pilot to cross. The other two requirements are that you have to pay the tolls 72 hours before crossing and you have to fly a Panama flag in your boat when you cross. The toll runs into tens of thousands of dollars. The highest ever paid was $450,000! The lowest? 38 cents by an American swimmer who swam the distance of the canal!
But here is the crazy thing. I always thoughts the locks existed because of the height difference between the Atlantic and the Pacific. They are indeed different but not that much. The engineering marvel of Panama Canal was in utilizing the large lake of Gatun to minimize the digging. But the lake is 86 feet above the ocean level. So the locks lift the ships up to Lake Gatun and then bring them down on the other side!!
Also, geographically, the route is where the land mass takes the shape of a “S”. This means, when you go from the Atlantic to the Pacific, you will be driving the ship west to east (northwest to southeast to be precise) and not the other way round!!