Just Keep Heading West: Forever Came And Went ... Goodbye South America ... Hello Panama Canal

South America has left the room ...

Status: Intense Travel Mode
Location Tonight: Panama City, Panama
Miles Traveled: 9,005
Estimated Time of Arrival (Oregon): March 22nd.
Altitude: Sea Level
Attitude: Good, Tired, but Persistent

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We were in Cartagena, Colombia and took a tour of a giant fort on a hill in the city. It is the largest fort built by the Spanish in the New World. In other words, almost all of South America was conquered and settled by Spain, and this was their biggest effort (outside of Spain) to defend what they had.

The reason? Gold! There was a tremendous amount of gold in the lands discovered - and taken - after Christopher Colombus showed up (Colombia was named after him).

And they shipped most of the gold from Cartagena, Colombia back to Europe.

And guess what? Other people wanted that gold. What kind of people? ... Pirates! There were a bunch of Pirates who were a pain in the neck to the Spanish. So the Spanish built a great big fort. It had big walls and cannons and ramparts and battlements and other fort descriptions. It was a mighty fort with thick fortified walls meant to keep people out - they thought it would last forever!

Well, Forever Came And Went!

The fort lasted from 1530 to 1587, when the French arrived with big ships and bigger cannons, and bombed the hell out of the fort and destroyed it. It took ten years to build ... and about a week to destroy. Other hostile nations eventually showed up and sacked the place. Spain eventually lost all their colonies.

Lesson learned ... Walls don't last ... You can't keep people out.

The history of Latin America is complex and very interesting, and we have seen and experienced a great deal of it.

And, now, in the last couple days, we have made the transition from South America to Central America - Panama!

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Full Disclosure: Our original intent was to drive the entire way home from the bottom tip of South America (Tierra del Fuego) all the way home to Oregon. Or at least, travel overland, on the ground.

But there is a small hitch in that plan - you can't drive all the way. There is a gap between Colombia and Panama. It's called the Darien Gap, and there are no roads. It's a no-mans-land. It's full of drug dealers, dangerous animals, deep jungle, missing people, swamps, disease, and other horrible stuff. If you go there, you will likely never be seen again. Look it up. It's a thing.

So even with the best intentions, you really can't drive all the way - so we flew - from Cartagena to Panama City, Panama.

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The Panama Canal

You discover the most amazing things when you travel to far away places. This country has a vibrant economy. Panama City is a massive metropolis with high rise buildings everywhere and it's a modern big city.

And it's right next to the Panama Canal. Actually, maybe 10 miles or so, but close enough. We went there today, and it was remarkable. They are clever enough here to maximize the Canal as a place people want to visit, and we weren't disappointed.

There is a huge viewpoint over the canal where you can see the ships pass through the locks. We were able to see three massive ships make their way through the canal, on their way from the Pacific to the Atlantic (or Carribean to be a little more precise).

The story of the Canal is fairly epic. The undertaking was a scale unknown up to that time, and a lot of workers gave their lives to the effort. The biggest reason was disease. Working in the jungle and the tropics was rife with Malaria and Yellow Fever, etc. They had to come to grips with that challenge in order to keep the workers healthy enough to complete the job.

It's been over a hundred years since the Canal was opened, and it's functioning at peak performance, providing a major, significant, shortcut to ships making the journey from one ocean to another.

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Outside of the Canal, Panama City is interesting in it's own right.

We visited the impressive colonial old town, and saw some more statues of our old friend, Simon Bolivar. This dude gets around.

He was responsible for much of the Independence gained by several Latin American countries, one of which was named after him = Bolivia.

Interesting fact: Panama was once part of a large chunk of South America, known as Gran Colombia. It was comprised of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Panama. Obviously, it broke up into those separate countries.

Bolivar was also active in the separation from Spain of Peru and Bolivia. Among historical Liberators, he has a pretty impressive resume.

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It's also Carnaval (spelled correctly) time here in Latin America, which is the party time leading up to Marti Gras, when Lent starts and people get religious for the 40 days leading up to Easter. It's a Catholic thing.

I won't go into the story behind that other than to explain - "if I'm going to be holy and pious for 40 days before Easter - well, I'm gonna have a damn good time before that happens".