Panama and the Amazing Race

Tonight's Amazing Race took the teams to Panama City, Panama, which I got to visit in the year 2000. It was a fun trip and I recognized a few landmarks. The pit stop for this leg of the race was the Miraflores Locks, which I visited.


Miraflores Locks

The afternoon I was there was the one time a month the locks were closed. Talk about bad timing. The reason the locks were closed was the Panama Canal authority was dredging the channel to clear silt and widen the canal downstream, so no boats were allowed through. It turns out today's supertankers are too large to fit through the Panama Canal, so the country is busy widening the canal as much as it can, while also building replacement locks for an eventual switch over.

The race also took teams to the Casco Viejo part of the city, which I visited as well. That is where the Presidential Palace is:


Me, in front of the Presidential Palace

I was on a tight schedule that day and only had an hour or so to wander around. I took a picture of a very pretty church I walked by:


Iglesia de San Francisco

I need to plan a trip somewhere in 2006, I'm getting the travel bug!