Wednesday, November 28, 2007
The Green Hell of Panama
The Republic of Panama is a rather young country and has a total population of only 3.2 million. The pretty much most important source for foreign exchange is the Panama Canal. It connects the Pacific Ocean with the Caribbean Sea and thus the Atlantic Ocean; length of the passage is merely 80 km. It is the strategically most important canal in the world and is mainly used for trade between the East Coast of the USA, China and Japan since the circumnavigation of South America means an extra 15 - 20,000 km! Cost for the passage depends on the size of the ship and are typically 50 - 150,000 USD; the crossing takes about 10 hours.
The first plans for a canal had been made in the 16th century already, but it wasn't until 1881 that France actually started excavations, approved by Colombia (Panama did not yet exist at that time!). Why France? Well, it was a French company that had successfully built the Suez Canal linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea through Egyptian terrain. Inspired by this success they thought it was as simple to build a channel through a jungle as it had been to build one through a desert.
After many scandals the works ended in fiasco in 1889. An unbelievable number of 22,000 people had lost their lives in the green hell of Panama, mainly because of Malaria and Yellow Fever (at that time little was known about how these diseases spread). Only 1/6th of the canal had been completed by that time.
The remains of the canal were sold to the USA in 1902, but Colombia did not agree to the terms of the USA for continuing work on the project. So the history repeated itself, like so many times before and also till present day – the USA supported a revolution within the country, leading to the foundation and independence of Panama from Colombia in 1903. A few months later in 1904 a corridor around the projected canal became U.S. territory – "forever", so the contract.
The construction continued from 1906 to 1914; another 6,000 workers died. Since its official opening in 1920 the Panama Canal has caused repeated political tension between the USA and Panama; on 31st Dec. 1999 the canal was finally given to Panama.
In 2006 it has been decided to expand the current Panama Canal so it can be used by larger ships, the so-called Post-Panamax class. Works have begun this year and completion is scheduled for 2015.
When checking in for flights to South America you have to show your official vaccination card with proof of vaccination against Yellow Fever. The flight from Mexico to Panama is only four hours; at the Panama customs we ran into serious trouble with the helicopter. We're pretty sure it might have become the same nightmare as in Egypt if it hadn't been for our many, many pictures of the heli in front of monuments worldwide. We explained a lot and were finally allowed to enter the country. No need to say how happy we were when thinking back to the interrogations we had had to endure in Egypt; that really had been hell on earth, there is no other words for it.
The customs officials had told us that radio frequencies were a big issue in the Canal Zone and that for use of any radio equipment permission from the Canal Authority was necessary. We of course nodded but were sure that with robbe/Futaba's 2.4 GHz FASST system and the low output power of R/C transmitters there would be no problems whatsoever. We were right about that (no surprise), but little did we know about the loads of other problems associated with flights over the Panama Canal.
The climate in Panama is tropical which means one good shower a day and extremely high air humidity. Regardless of what you do, your clothes are wet all the time; very good, of course, when changing from air conditioned rooms and cars to the outdoors and back. It's a wonder if you don't catch a cold. Another problem in this context is that when taking your film/photo equipment or the heli and transmitter out of an air conditioned car the lense, display, etc. will immediately steam up. You can't take any pictures for up to half an hour until the equipment has reached ambient temperature! We solved the problem by using the A/C as little as possible; the price you pay is that you sweat like hell and feel eternally worn out after just one or two hours. If we'd closed our eyes we'd have fallen asleep in no time …
Talking about A/C: Our hotel room of course did have such a cooling system. Unfortunately, it was so loud that normal conversations across the room were a problem! Turning it off was no good as humidity (not the heat) would have killed us. So we had to put up with the noise – it felt like sleeping in the generator room of a power plant! The best way to deal with this situation was to use earplugs. Not a comfortable stay at all, but when booking hotels in 20 countries over the internet you cannot spend hours checking every last detail of every place.
Panama-City is the capital and quite a flashy city with a nice skyline – but better not scrape off the shiny surface! Apart from some major roads the infrastructure is not the best and driving is neither relaxing nor fun. Multi-lane roads often don't have any road markings, a number of one-way streets make navigation difficult and signs e.g. on the highway are mostly ONLY at exits; in other words, when you can read the sign it is usually too late to react and you can only continue on the current road. To make it extra hard they use an especially narrow type font so you don't get the chance to read the signs already from a distance (in the unlikely case you see them coming).
Did we talk about the torrential rains? It is so bad that parts of the streets are flooded – it pays to think twice before crossing such fords. Some of the cars are equipped with snorkels for exactly these situations. And the worst: There are some really, really deep potholes! The tricky thing is they are completely filled with water so it looks as if an ordinary puddle was coming. But it isn't! Instead it's a hole which can swallow "half" a car. To us it happened twice; the cars around you drive like wild and keep you busy by using their horns so that the pothole traps catch you by surprise. We tried to turn right when all of a sudden – WHUMPP! – a good portion of our front dived down into such a hole filled with water.
Okay, where is that canal?! In maps and satellite pictures you could see a small road following the course of the canal; we tried hard to find it, but after about five hours we had to realize that it was merely a support road and not open to the public. It may sound as unbelievable to you as it sounded to us, but the Panama Canal is one of the best-secured structures we have ever seen. There are high fences everywhere, usually with barbed wire on the top (and no, we didn't have a ladder at hand this time :-) ). The streets near the canal are patrolled by a number of security cars of the Canal Authority. Every big ship is accompanied by a tug boat plus one patrol boat. Between the ships a wealth of such fast canal patrol boats go back and forth. In other words: There is no reasonable way to get close to the canal! You think this cannot be true, but it is. You stretch your hand out over the water, they will come for you.
The reason for all the fences and stuff may be that the terrain used to be U.S. American property. Remember, the canal didn't belong to Panama until the year 2000! Now, are all the 80 km fenced in?! Good question, and the answer is: Probably not! BUT: That's not necessary anyway because the canal leads through tropical rainforest. This kind of forest is so dense it is totally impenetrable; hard to imagine, but even a huge tank wouldn't make it more than a few feet into the thicket. It's often swampland, too, and the home of a wealth of animals you don't want to meet; we saw the first big silver-grey snake cross the street while driving along some deserted roads. And then, even in the theoretical case you'd make it to the canal banks, how could you possibly lift off?! So 'Game Over' for the Panama Canal?
Labels: camera problem, Green Hell, Panama, Panama Canal, security problem, topical rainforest, tropical climate, Yellow Fever
# posted by hg/tuw @ 23:38 
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